Uncommon Foods That Can Add Years to Your Life

Retirement Media ^ | 11-28-2025 | Astrid Callahan

[Dacula]

Most people heading into their retirement years already know the usual advice: eat fruits and vegetables, choose lean proteins, and go easy on sugar and salt. But there’s another layer to nutrition that’s often overlooked — lesser-known foods packed with compounds that support healthy aging in surprisingly powerful ways. These aren’t exotic items you have to special-order from across the globe. Many are now available in standard grocery stores or online, and they can bring variety, flavor, and longevity-boosting benefits to your daily routine.

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TOPICS: Food; Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: food; healthy; longevity; nutrition

[Oorang]

Isn’t the black in black garlic simply mold?

Not at all. It turn black during the process. My husband makes black garlic. It is an aging/curing process (called the Maillard reaction), takes a couple of weeks at very low heat. It turn black and very sweet, almost like a garlic candy. It's very good.

[hecticskeptic]

It’s a good list...

I have family in the vitamin and supplement business so the issue of ‘healthy foods’ is a frequent and ongoing discussion. I also take a bunch of daily supplements but as for foods, I didn’t see hardly anything in the list that I wasn’t already doing (perhaps should do more black garlic as opposed to regular garlic). The most recent change I made in line with this list was adding kefir... that came up during the start of the WuFlu saga and I now use that exclusively with my cereal and fruits first thing in the morning. As for availability, the local grocery store, the vitamin/supplement store and a fairly large Asian food store have everything on the list....it’s not that hard to eat ‘healthily’. It mostly has to do with what to avoid....

I don’t have any hard and fast rules about ‘diet’ and I have a bunch of other things I eat and drink that I’ve added in... various pure juices such as cherry and grape, sauerkraut (that is only warmed a bit so as not to kill the probiotics), kimchi, and plenty of others but the ‘rules’ are fairly simple for me..... Eat lean meat and limit it to about 4 ounces a day, always have 5 fresh fruits and three vegetables (preferably raw) a day, avoid fast food in general but particularly anything deep fried, avoid processed foods to the extent possible and stay away from stuff that is white (sugar, salt, fat). Never drink a sugary drink unless it ‘needs’ to be mixed with alcohol and there of course limits to how much alcohol one should drink. Most good alcohols like single malt scotch should be taken neat anyway. Always keep in mind that a very important thing to remember for good health is to eat and drink stuff that promotes good gut health.... if your gut is healthy, so likely is the rest of your body..... hence staying away from processed foods and eating things like sauerkraut.

I’m not fastidious or religious about this and make plenty of exceptions (especially when travelling) but this is more or less is what I do. It seems to work well for me.... in going back through my decades of working life, I don’t think I’ve ever taken a day off work for illness so there is that about it.

[fso301]

Kefir is in the yogurt aection at Kroger. I buy the unflavored stuff, the flavored ones have too much sugar.

We use kefir with a few drops of natural vanilla extract.

[dfwgator]

I pour kefir over frozen blueberries.

[Signalman]

One medium sized golden kiwi contains the MDR for an adult male for vitamin c.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I put Mr. GG2 on hibiscus tea and extra zinc to help his blood pressure and it does really work.

[b4me]

thanks! I appreciate this list and you’re posting of it.

[Tommy Revolts]

Purple potatoes, Wakame, and Sardines, Pumpkin seeds part of our diet.

Interesting on the Black Garlic. We cook with a lot of garlic. I'll have to try some
in a recipe.

[combat_boots]

Bump

[ckilmer]

Here are a couple more.

wheat germ provides spermadine, nutricional yeast provides the full spectrum b vitamins. Bone broth provides glycine—most american are deficient in glycine.

[ckilmer]

olive oil is better than water but water is ok.

on olive oil —you have to read the label because there are pleny of sardines that are packed in bad oils. you want to avoid those—basically anything that is not olive oil.

[Cold Heart]

The oil packed may refer to being packed in cheaper unhealthy oil

[imardmd1]

Got it! Love this kind of stuff. One really hot thing common to a Korean diet but rarely mentioned here is kimchi Usually a form of Asan cabbage>:

Any Korean store or restaurant take-home. Initiated in grad school with fellow student from Seoul, who became a Director of Kaist. I usedto grow hot peppers for his wife to make it.

https://www.positivelyprobiotic.com/the-bacteria-blog/kimchi-an-origin-story-5ptg8

[FreedomPoster]

Good ideas both!