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Healthy Home Economist / Archives / Celebrity Health / World’s Oldest Person Credits Traditional Diet for Longevity

World’s Oldest Person Credits Traditional Diet for Longevity

by Sarah Pope / Affiliate Links ✔

Carmello Flores Laura, world's oldest living person EVER

Bolivia  recently and officially honored one of its citizens as the oldest person still living and ever documented who turned 123 in July 2013.

The “Living Heritage of Humanity” award will be presented to indigenous farmer Carmelo Flores Laura whose birth date of July 16, 1890 has been officially confirmed by Bolivia’s Civil Registry Office as legitimate using his baptismal certificate. Birth certificates issued by the Bolivian government did not exist until 1940.

Flores Laura walks without a cane, does not wear glasses, and has never been seriously ill.  He credits the traditional Andean diet as key to his robust health and amazing accomplishment as the oldest person living.

Quinoa grains, riverside mushrooms, mutton and coca leaves form the mainstay of his diet along with pristine spring water flowing down from the snow capped Andes mountains. Coca leaves are a mild stimulant that stave off hunger. Mr. Flores Laura says he has chewed them all his life.

Mr. Flores Laura also enjoys pork but eats it rarely as he finds it hard to procure and no doubt to chew as he no longer has any teeth.

“Potatoes with quinoa are delicious,” he says. He does not eat noodles or rice – only barley and quinoa as his preferred grain based foods. Chuno is a traditional Andean food prepared with dehydrated and chilled potatoes.

He also walks a lot with his animals as he is a longtime herder of cattle and sheep. He used to grow potatoes, beans and oca, an Andean tuber, tilling the ground with ox-driven plows still used today by those in his village. In his youth, he hunted and ate fox and occasionally consumed alcohol.

Mr. Flores Laura lives in a dirt floor, straw roofed hut about 80 kilometers from La Paz, the de facto capital of Bolivia which is the furthest he has ever traveled. His village sits at 13,100 feet high! He speaks only his native Amyara language and not a word of Spanish.

The Guinness World Records currently lists the oldest person living as verified by original proof of birth as Misao Okawa, a 115-year-old Japanese woman. Guinness spokeswoman Jamie Panas stated that the organization was not aware of a claim being filed for the Bolivian, although it seems this may change in the coming weeks given the Bolivian government’s authentication of Mr. Flores Laura’s birth records.

Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist

Sources:

Quinoa, Mushrooms and Coca Have Kept Me Alive for 123 Years

Is Bolivian peasant Carmelo Flores Laura oldest person ever documented?

Carmelo Flores Laura, Aymara Herder, May Be Oldest Living Person EVER 

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Category: Celebrity Health, Healthy Living
Sarah Pope

Sarah Pope MGA has been a Health and Nutrition Educator since 2002. She is a summa cum laude graduate in Economics from Furman University and holds a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of three books: the bestseller Get Your Fats Straight, Traditional Remedies for Modern Families, and Living Green in an Artificial World.

Her four eBooks Good Diet…Bad Diet, Real Food Fermentation, Ketonomics, and Ancestrally Inspired Dairy-Free Recipes are available for complimentary download via Healthy Home Plus.

Her mission is dedicated to helping families effectively incorporate the principles of ancestral diets within the modern household. She is a sought after lecturer around the world for conferences, summits, and podcasts.

Sarah was awarded Activist of the Year in 2010 at the International Wise Traditions Conference, subsequently serving on the Board of Directors of the nutrition nonprofit the Weston A. Price Foundation for seven years.

Her work has been covered by numerous independent and major media including USA Today, ABC, and NBC among many others.

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Reader Interactions

Comments (44)

  1. voluntaryist

    Jun 19, 2018 at 5:14 pm

    How does one verify the claim? How do we know he is not a younger brother posing? Why would a healthy person lose all his teeth? With a healthy diet, no brushing is needed. Tooth lose usually indicates poor health.
    How is a Guinness spokesperson’s lack of knowledge about this relative? Are they the authority on such matters? I doubt it.

    Reply
  2. Jo

    Sep 2, 2017 at 4:00 pm

    Let’s not forget the coca leaves! !

    Reply
  3. Rebecca K. Agner via Facebook

    Apr 7, 2014 at 12:26 am

    …but does Not Have TEETH! Yikes!

    Reply
  4. The Primal Esthetician via Facebook

    Apr 6, 2014 at 11:58 pm

    Awesome, and for 123 barely a wrinkle! Now that is amazing!

    Reply
  5. عبد الله رحيم via Facebook

    Apr 6, 2014 at 4:12 pm

    I doubt he’s the oldest person but still a good story.

    Essential vitamins and minerals, 90 in total, is the key to longevity.

    Reply
  6. Elena Vasileva via Facebook

    Apr 6, 2014 at 8:13 am

    A lot of people credit his longevity to diet, but lets see what HE says: To what does Flores owe his longevity?

    “I walk a lot, that’s all. I go out with the animals,” says Flores. Somewhat that has escaped the attention, and I’m wondering why people think that it is not important?!

    Reply
  7. Harmony Leonard via Facebook

    Apr 6, 2014 at 8:00 am

    Seems diet is only one contributing factor to his longevity. The individual is complex and unique. While diet contributes to good health so does genetics, exercise, state of mind, stress, clean air and water, illness or lack there of, gut flora, and just plain luck.

    Reply
  8. Vangie Marie Arellano via Facebook

    Apr 6, 2014 at 1:31 am

    Pedro Paz

    Reply
  9. Alison Westermann via Facebook

    Apr 5, 2014 at 11:04 pm

    Deborah, Weston prices work showed many old people losing teeth…didn’t mean it was from decay necessarily. Check out n&pd, particularly the Eskimo…

    Reply
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