7/21/2019 Reading - Campodimele

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The secrets to a long life

The population of Campodimele, 80 miles south of Rome, can expect to live to an average age of 

95. Tracey Lason, ho has made the village her home, says it!s don to hat they put on their 

 plate

Come to Campodimele in the early morning, when the air is still cool and the sun spills over the Aurunci peaks. Park upnear the statue of San Padre Pio, where the village starts, andfollow his gaze across the valley view. And that’s when thesilence starts seeping into your soul, and the stillness soothesyour heart. And under this wakening sun and the endless sky, itseems that you really could live for ever. It’s easy for such a

notion to enter your head on arriving in Campodimele, the Italianmountain community that welcomes visitors with a signpost descriing itself !Il Paese della "ongevit#$%!&he 'illage of "ongevity$(. And not )ust ecause of the statistics, which show that its inhaitants liveunusually long lives. It is the elderly villagers themselves who con)ure notions of life never*ending. +ecausethey not only live long they live healthily and actively into old age, too.

'enturing out at first light on a summer’s morning, the silence is roken y a sound like a cricketgone crazy. +ut I know y now that it’s -erardo, zipping around on the 'espa he’s still riding at / yearsold. !Passaggio0$ he in1uires as he continues the 2km tumle down the mountain. 3e is going to e4aminehis field of wheat, his morning ritual in the summer months. I decline his offer of a lift and off he uzzes,slaloming around the hens that are )ay*walking across his path. &his village ack road is known as le galline  the hens ecause it’s where the ramshackle stone hen houses sprawl, and on any morning you cancatch 5aria shooing her irds from their roosts, chasing them down the hillside on her /2*year*old legs.

!-uarda6$ she says as I pass y, opening her cupped hands to unveil two perfect, lush*rown eggs.I wander up the road to the 77th*century walls that encircle the orgo, the medieval heart of 

Campodimele, and slip through the stone archway on to the old piazza. It’s a riot of staircases made fromstone, geraniums tumling from terracotta pots, and already the scent of tomatoes and asil is floating onthe reeze. Assunta, now over 8, stands y her kitchen door, waving the 5oka coffee pot, and eckoningme in. !5angia6$ she says, offering me a reakfast of amarena )am tart, made with the itter cherries shehas taught me how to stone and preserve.

&his is the everyday stuff of life in Campodimele, the mountain*top community that has attractedattention from doctors across the gloe due to the longevity of its residents. 9igures released y the localcouncil in :88; found that the average life e4pectancy of oth men and women at that time was ;< years.&hat compared to an Italian average at the time of .< for men and /2.< for women, and a =uropean>nion average of <.? for males and /: for females.

"ong fascinated y the value of food as preventative medicine, my love affair with the village eganwith the intention of writing an article aout what these people eat in order to live so long. +ut I was soenchanted, so overwhelmed y the hospitality of its inhaitants, that in :88 I made Campodimele myhome. In doing so, I discovered that diet is indeed a key part of longevity here ut there is much more tothe e1uation than that. &he recipe for a long and healthy life allo campomelano is est descried as adelicious cocktail of complementary factors. Some are uni1ue to the village ut others are transferrale to+ritain, give or take a few ad)ustments to our lifestyle and minds. In this way, it may e possile to improvethe chance of living a longer life and, more importantly, to e sure we live well.

&he simplest and 1uickest way to ring a health*enhancing it of Campodimele to our lives is torecreate it on our plates. &he traditional diet is that of cucina povera, the poor kitchen of the peasant farmer."ow in meat and almost devoid of red meat and utter, it tends to avoid saturated fats, so is an ideal asis

for heart health. Protein comes largely from eans and pulses, including the cicerchie, a small, angular pulse, particular to the village. @nown in Italy as la carne dei poveri, the meat of the poor, it offers thedoule advantage of eing free from cholesterol and rich in solule fire, which helps lower cholesterol inthe loodstream. Pietro Cugini, Professor of Internal 5edicine at "a Sapienza >niversity in ome, who hasconducted a numer of studies of the village, descries the diet as !hyper*5editerranean$B in other words,

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typical of what is widely accepted as one of the healthiest diets in the world. As such, its larder happens toe ursting with fresh and raw ingredients that can help protect the heart olive oil, oily fish, garlic, shallots,onions and red wine to offer a daily in)ection of polyphenols. &he diet also helps protect against cancer rich in fruit and vegetales with their antio4idants, vitamins and mineralsB high in fire, which protects theowel.

Campodimele is traditionally a peasant farming culture, and while many villagers hold down )os inneary cities, almost everyone grows at least some of their own food, e it on a vegetale patch or on a

farm. Df course, cultivating your own food re1uires a great deal of physical activity which rings healthadvantages in itself. Prof Cugini is convinced that the regular activity re1uired of the agricultural life plays akey role in assisting health and moility into old age. Investing in agriculture, on whatever scale, alsomeans surrendering to a seasonal life which has rought me physical, sensory and psychological )oys Icould arely have imagined amid the chaos of my >@ city*dwelling, commuter life. &he cycle of natureimposes a rhythm and a structure to the day, the season, and the year. 5any harvests are celerated with asagra, a thanksgiving festival. So the farming year imposes holidays and en)oyment upon your diary no1uestion of working through your annual leave here. And depriving yourself of fresh asparagus or cherriesor apricots throughout the colder months makes their arrival at the tale an event to e anticipated,savoured, appreciated and missed once the crop is done. +ut more than this, emracing the seasonal lifemeans, y implication, letting go of the control we think we have in our :EF society and realising that infact we never are, and never have een, in control. In checking his wheat field every day, -erardo is facing

the fact that if it rains too much, or if it doesn’t rain at all, his family will not have enough wheat for readand pasta in the year to come what etter way to gain a sense of perspective of your place on earth thanthat0

Dgni cosa ha suo momento. =verything has its time. After three years in Campodimele, I amconvinced that the agricultural life is responsile for the fatalistic attitudes that I see in so many people.&hey e4pect to work hard, and reap the rewards ut when it comes to the inherent sadnesses andtragedies of the human condition, and the apparent vagaries of fate, I have never heard anyone complainthat life isn’t fair. It is )ust itself and the cycle moves on. &his fatalism oth lends itself to, and is supportedy, the religious formation that almost everyone receives. Around the age of seven, most children start alengthy programme of preparation for their 9irst Communion. =ven those parents who do not attend churchappear keen for their children to undergo this and not for the convenience of social convention. As oneItalian mother of the christenings*weddings*funeral approach to church put it to me !&his way they have to

think.$ Aout moral issuesB aout the purpose of life and the fact of deathB aout developing their ownphilosophy for living, in line with, or in reaction to, a clearly defined moral framework.

It is this perhaps that helps Italian children develop a social presence which comes from knowingwho you are. And a critical perspective on life. I have een astonished and delighted at some of themoral philosophising to come out of the mouths of 7:*year*olds I know although the one that gave memost pause for thought was from the daughter of a neighour who, when I was newly arrived andscraling to find a kitchen implement she needed, smiled indulgently at me and said, with infinitekindness, !Con calma$ !&ake it easy$. &he Campomelani work very hard you do not carve =den out of chalky rock faces without grit and sweat. +ut they know how to take it easy, too. And they love to e incompany. So lunch is a two*hour ritual not to e missed. In the hot months, the sun dictates a siesta mid*afternoon. =venings are for the ritual passeggiata towards the valley*view piazza and a drink at the5oonlight ar. Dr gathering at the hen houses to put the irds to ed, then perching y the 77th*centurywalls to swap the news of the day. ela4ation and sociaility are integral to the structure of life here. Dpenhouse is the norm. And it’s common to find three generations of family living side y side, or in the samehousehold.

It is impossile to measure the contriution these factors may or may not make to long and healthylives, ut sociologists and psychologists are increasingly studying the impact of personal relations of allkinds on physical and mental health. Ghich elderly person would argue that it is not good for the well*eing0 &he Campomelani are in no dout that the stimulation of neighourly social support and theemotional and practical support of family neary help. So there is much we can do to improve our chancesof longevity y changing some of the environmental factors of our life. +ut as life in Campodimele hastaught me, some gifts only nature can estow. +ecause for a few people here, longevity is in the genes.Some Campomelani enefit from a genetic disposition to low lood pressure, and this is a dominant gene.

So while it’s too ad for us, if you marry and make a family with a Campomelano who carries it, your offspring are ound to inherit the gene.5any people have asked me if this is the true e4planation for the average longevity of the

Campomelani. &he answer is, only in part. Prof Cugini suggests that the genetic factor accounts for only 28per cent of the population’s tendency towards long life. &he other 8 per cent is down to how they live and

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eat. Ghich means that many of the secrets to living longer are in their and our hands and our heads. And very often on our plates.