For many, a new year means new opportunities to form better habits — to meditate or hit the gym, for example. If one of your resolutions for 2026 is to eat healthier, some of the world’s leading longevity experts offer up simple ways to start.
“I recommend what I call the longevity diet, which takes from lots of different things,” Dr. Valter Longo told CNBC Make It in 2024. “Both the Okinawa diet and the Mediterranean diet.” Longo is the director of the Longevity Institute of the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California-Los Angeles.
Most of the popular diets that experts suggest for living a healthier — and longer — life, focus on whole foods, like fruits and vegetables and healthy proteins like beans and salmon. Those diets like the DASH eating plan also call for limiting or avoiding ultra-processed foods like pizza and donuts.
“You can be in any kind of dietary program you want, as long as you’re avoiding ultra-processed foods,” Dr. Darshan Shah told CNBC Make It earlier this year.
In addition to those tried-and-true tips, a few other longevity experts we interviewed this year shared some lesser-known hacks for eating well.
