- Professor Joan Sabate has spent decades studying how eating plants affects our health.
- He found significant health benefits associated with consuming nuts, berries and avocados.
- His daily diet avoids highly processed foods in favor of fresh ingredients.
Joan Sabate is an admitted health and nutrition “fanatic.”
Not only does he live in America’s only longevity “Blue Zone,” he’s also a nutrition buff and director of the Center for Nutrition, Lifestyle, and Disease Prevention at Loma Linda University, and has spent decades studying how different foods, particularly unprocessed plants, affect our health.
In the 1990s, he was the first nutritionist to discover that walnuts, although they contain small amounts of saturated fat, are actually good for the heart—a discovery that surprised him and overturned recommendations from the American Heart Association—and he later helped write the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
He understands that a healthy diet isn’t just about achieving the right balance of macronutrients like protein, carbohydrates and fat, but that there’s a larger “overall nutritional benefit” that’s naturally found in foods like whole grains, beans and vegetables.
Already he has found compelling evidence that nuts, beans, avocados and berries are all health-promoting foods that can lower your chances of developing chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease.
He is currently investigating how certain plant-based foods may affect our immune systems and boost the body’s ability to fight off infections like the cold and COVID.
“I think there’s still more to explore and discover about a lot of plant-based foods,” he said.
While he admits that his diet is “unrefined,” he told Business Insider his general breakfast, lunch, and dinner habits, which mainly include avoiding ultra-processed foods.
Breakfast is a two-ingredient “smoothie” made from leftovers
Sabate keeps a stock of nuts in her house, including walnuts, almonds, and hazelnuts, and each morning she blends a few handfuls with about two cups of whatever fruit is ripening on her Southern California dinner table. It’s an easy way to get two servings of vitamin-rich fruit and two servings of protein-packed nuts each day.
It’s not exactly the most photogenic meal, but he doesn’t care, since he’s not planning on “showing off” this breakfast to friends or coworkers.
“No, I’ll eat this at home,” he said.
Sometimes the mix is too thick to pour into a glass, so he eats this “smoothie” by the bowl and spoon while he gets ready for the day—sometimes he’ll add a dollop of yogurt or a sprinkling of cocoa nibs.
Lunch is 3 basic ingredients and olive oil
In traditional Spanish custom, the biggest meal of the day for a Sabate is usually lunch, which is when they “eat a pot of beans.”
One of his favourites is “a typical Catalan dish of beans and broccoli”, but he likes to try different beans to keep it interesting.
“There are at least 20 varieties of beans in the Loma Linda market,” he said.
Essentially, his lunch is always “legumes, vegetables, and bread.”
“Mediterranean people love bread, especially bread with olive oil,” says Sabate.
Scientists believe one of the main reasons the Mediterranean diet is often associated with longer life, better health, and stronger minds is because it’s packed with olive oil, which has long been associated with improved heart health, reduced type 2 diabetes, less inflammation, and lower overall mortality rates.
Dinner is usually not that important, but if I eat out I might have fish.
For Sabate and his wife, dinner is often an afterthought.
“We try to skip dinner or have a light meal,” he said.
If her breakfast is substantial enough, she’ll have a late lunch and sometimes skip a third meal altogether. On other days, dinner might be “just a salad.”
Leafy salads are good for your intestines and are rich in nutrients such as vitamins A, C and K, as well as dietary fiber and magnesium.
At home, I’m generally vegetarian and avoid dairy products, but I don’t mind eating omega-3 rich fish when dining out. Vitamin B12 is an essential nutrient that can only be obtained from animal foods such as meat, eggs, dairy and fish. Vegetarians and vegans can supplement their diet with pills or try algae.
