时间：2022-10-16 04:40:02
What is the life expectancy of a health guru? Let’s just take a random sample. Robert Atkins, the man who persuaded millions to eat bread-free sandwiches: dead at 72. Would he have slipped on that ice if he’d had a proper meal? Jim Fixx, the man who tried to get America jogging: kicked the bucket at 52 from a heart attack during his afternoon run. Michel Montignac, bestselling author of Eat Yourself Slim ... and Stay Slim!: shuffled off this mortal coil at 66. But then, this January, Jack LaLanne, the ‘godfather of fitness’, died at the ripe old age of 96. Finally, we have a guru who looks like he could have been right.
Could the way LaLanne led his life be the way we should be leading ours? Should we all start living the Jack LaLanne lifestyle? It isn’t an easy one to follow. At the age of 15 and living in Oakland, California, LaLanne was a junk-food junkie. His father had died of a heart attack at the age of 50 and the unruly, unhealthy adolescent looked to be heading the same way. He was also beset by behavioural problems, having attacked his brother with an axe, tried to set fire to the family home and been expelled from school. In desperation, his mother took him to a talk by Paul Braggs, the ‘wellness guru’ (who, by the way, made it to 81, though he claimed he was 95). The talk had an effect and LaLanne turned his life around.
“I was psychotic with sugar,” he recalled. “But I got off it, became a strict vegetarian, started juicing, taking brewer’s yeast, going to the YMCA.”Within a year, he had become his school’s star athlete and, at the age of 19, won a contest for the World’s Best Built Man. He went on to open one of the world’s first health clubs and became a household name in the 1950s with the Jack LaLanne Show. He also performed a series of audacious stunts, such as swimming from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco towing a half-tonne boat. While wearing handcuffs.
To live the LaLanne lifestyle, the first thing to do is give up red meat, particularly if it’s processed. Or, as LaLanne himself put it: “If man made it, don’t eat it.”
Prepare to eat a lot of vegetables, particularly raw, juiced ones. But is there any evidence that carrot juice will make you live for ever? “We are not aware of anyone who has done a specific longevity study,” admits Liz O’Neill, of the Vegetarian Society. “But there are studies which show that vegetarians as a group have a lower incidence of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and type-2 diabetes. It’s no surprise to us that LaLanne, with his carefully balanced, vegetarian diet, lived a long life.
“Vegetarianism is a great way to avoid some of the common killers. It’s not a panacea but it certainly helps.”
“Is it worth living to 96 if you can’t eat a nice filet mignon?” I ask, quite reasonably, I think.
“Is it worth living at all if you have blood on your hands?” replies O’Neill.
Brace yourselves for lentils...Nevertheless, Britain’s oldest man, the 108-year-old Rev Reg Dean, is a vegetarian. George Bernard Shaw, who lived to 94, was a vegetarian. Luigi Cornaro, the Venetian nobleman, gave up meat at 35 after almost dying of Renaissance red-meat excess. He lived for a further 64 years—not a bad innings for the 16th century.