If you need a quick refresher, the Blue Zones are the five areas of the world that have the longest-living and healthiest populations: Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece, and Loma Linda, California. It was found that they had nine things in common, including the way they eat, despite being in completely different geographical locations and cultures.

While a lot of their longevity success comes down to where and how they live, there are some key dietary takeaways that can be applied to an American lifestyle without too much work. In a seminar hosted by the Global Wellness Summit, Dan Buettner, a journalist and expert on Blue Zones, shared some of his top longevity nutrition tips gleaned from years of researching how these communities live. Here are the main takeaways:

1. They drink wine after 5 p.m., ideally with friends and a meal
This one may be a little tricky to pull off during quarantine—both the “having meals with friends” part and the “waiting until 5 p.m. to have wine” part. “There’s plenty of evidence in Blue Zones that a couple glasses a day, especially with friends and with a meal… probably lowers your mortality,” Buettner says. (In fact, four out of the five Blue Zones communities drink alcohol in moderation as part of their lifestyle.)

There are a few potential reasons for this: wine is rich in antioxidants, has some anti-inflammatory properties, and has been linked with a reduced risk of heart disease, Tracy Lockwood Beckerman, RD, previously told Well+Good. (This is Sardinia’s red wine of choice, just FYI.) However, if you’re not drinking now, this doesn’t mean you should start; if you choose to imbibe, do it the Blue Zones way.

2. They eat mostly plant based foods…
Yup, even Blue Zones folks are on the plant-based train—and have been for generations. “They’re eating 90 to 100 percent plant-based food beyond a shadow of a doubt,” Buettner says. A plant-based diet has been shown to be good for your heart, your gut, and your brain—not to mention, plant-based foods like veggies and grains have less of a carbon footprint than meat and dairy.

3. …including plenty of carbs
Justice for carbs! Buettner says that people living in Blue Zones typically consume about 65 percent of their daily calories in the form of carbs. Which makes sense: the macronutrient typically comes paired with lots of fiber (great for gut health) along with vitamins and minerals that your body needs to function at its best.

But it’s important to remember that not all carbs are created equal, and people in Blue Zones are getting this macronutrient mostly from sources like grains, greens, tubers, nuts, and beans. (Read: Not the super processed stuff.) There’s one carb that beats all the rest: beans. “The longevity all-star food is beans,” Buettner says. “So if you’re eating about a cup of beans a day, it’s probably worth an extra four years of the life expectancy.”

4. They enjoy meat on occasion
Meat is considered a celebratory food in the Blue Zones, Buettner says, and is typically only eaten about five times per month. People in these communities typically stick to “a portion no bigger than the size of the deck of cards,” he adds, which translates to about three ounces. This makes sense—while meat is a great source of protein, B vitamins, and bioavailable iron, too much of it is also associated with cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer, and other health issues. And studies have shown that higher intakes of meat in both men and women are associated with higher cancer and all-cause mortality rates.

Like the wine tip, you don’t have to start eating meat if you don’t currently do so, but if you are a meat eater, know that a bit is totally fine from a longevity perspective. To take it a step further, here’s how to make the healthiest and most sustainable choices when you do eat meat.

5. They stick to water, coffee, and wine
These are beverage choices I can fully get behind. Buettner says people in Blue Zones drink six glasses of water a day, plus coffee in the morning and a glass of wine with dinner. Missing: sugary beverages like soda, which have been shown to negatively impact your health.

6. They practice modified forms of intermittent fasting
But no, that doesn’t mean they’re dieters. Rather, Buettner says that people in Blue Zones communities typically eat in ways that are similar to what we could call intermittent fasting. “They breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper, and they tend to eat all their calories in an eight hour window, leaving 16 hours for their digestive systems to rest,” Buettner says. Basically, their largest meal is breakfast, their smallest one is dinner, and they don’t eat late into the night. (And it comes with lots of potential longevity-related benefits.) However, this is not an eating plan for everyone, especially if you are recovering from an illness, pregnant, breastfeeding, or trying to conceive, or have a history of eating disorders.

https://apple.news/A_LQmTT8dRme2-r9vnx701A

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The making of a Chinese asset management firm
through Book of Virtues 道德经

Preface
Let dreams take wing

In the past 40 years, a Chinese revolution had been going on in the name of reform and opening up. The result is that a powerful China was born. Not only has China become the second largest world economic power, but China’s soft power is permeating every aspect of Chinese life and has been re-shaping China’s corporations and their cultures. In the 80s and 90s, while China was faltering in its direction forward and growing in all areas through trial and error in the daunting face of Western cultures, technology advancements and management efficiency, today’s China, in its newly found confidence, methodology, wealth, and in its lessons learned, is firm on its principles and directions. Ding Yifeng, a grassroots multi-billion dollar asset management firm is such a company. Instead of being a spinoff of a foreign financial firm that had flocked into China in the past decade, equipped with Western sophisticated financial tools, mathematic modeling and certain glamour, Ding Yifeng is 100% home grown. The tools they use mostly are Chinese wisdoms embodied in the Classics such as Book of Virtues 道德经 (bc. 571)and Book of Changes 易经 (over 5000 years old) and the desires not to yield to personal weaknesses and give in to fear and greed, but persevere through will power and patience instilled in them by the oriental wisdom.
“If you rush, you lose investors’ money. No one has the right to do so,” said Ms Ma Xiaoqiu, President and Co-Founder of Ding Yifeng-the three Chinese characters Ding Yifeng 鼎益丰 stand for prosperity, affluence, and harvest. To Ding Yifeng people, stock market is like a game of confidence and mass psychology play a key role. “Even rocket scientists are causing an avalanche and Occupy Wall Street is a social media phenomenal, let alone us. We are small potatoes and we cannot afford to lose,” said one of the drivers to the author. Mind you, the driver was worth 70 million rmb (10 mil USD) today after investing in the company’s cautiously selected two Hong Kong listed companies.
Ding Yifeng owns four Hong Kong listed companies, one of them-HKStock Code 00612- had the world record performance of 1230% return in 2018 and was recommended by four major world leading index, including MSCI China Index, Hengsheng, Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Four years ago, Ding Yifeng started to buy 612 stocks on the secondary market when the latter were traded 40 cents per share. In two years’ time, it turned from trash to cash. And the stock price soared to 28 HK dollars per share in late November, 2018.
It just didn’t happen overnight. It was planned to win.

Registered on Jan. 1, 2011, with eight staff members, Ding Yifeng took a tiny hotel room in Pengnian Square, Shenzhen Luohu district, that has a view of Hong Kong skyline. First day in the office, President Ma said that one day they would make it to Hong Kong. All eight of them believed it. Maybe, that is what we would call the power of dream? Or power of a story Ms. Ma once read and learned by heart when she was 11 years old. That story was A Foolish Old Man Who Moved the Mountains 愚公移山. Like all the Chinese kids born in the early 1960s, Ms. Ma lost three and half years of elementary education. The schools boarded up for “making the revolution” of accusing one another for being a counter revolutionary. At the age of 11, the revolution was over and it was time to go to school. Ms. Ma, now 11, could not read nor write. What would it matter anyway to place her at 3rd Grade or 4th Grade? Give her an extra year to catch up. The teacher placed Ma at Grade 3.
“The reason I was not kicked out was because I could recite the three Old Articles by Chairman Mao Zedong. I learned them by heart and recited them to my neighbors on the streets: Serve the People 为人民服务; A Foolish Old Man Who Moved the Mountains愚公移山; and Norman Bethune纪念白求恩. These are all very difficult things to do and these heroes did it—to push the comrade out while oneself was buried alive in the coal mine; to move the mountains; and to die for not one’s own country! True, I missed the basic training of how to spell and write, but I learned to always put others in front. That is a valuable lesson, with which we built a billion dollar company.”
That was true. With her partner, Chairman Sui Guangyi and Ding Yifeng people, in under 8 years, they built Ding Yifeng, an asset management firm with 80 billion RMB under management and the investments were strategically made in six major industries, namely, culture, high tech, investment banking, gold, health and tourism.

The story of Ma Xiaoqiu is not only the story of a contemporary Chinese woman CEO, but also the collective carrying capacity of Chinese women entrepreneurs who nurture and succeed. The Ding Yifeng Group, headed by Ma at the helm, is a model in execution. Her recent speech at UN not only reflects the unique Chinese value systems, but a strong personal statement that one’s fate is connected with the fate of the country. Her speech “Chasing the Sun in My Heart” tells a story from a personal dream to a national dream, from a new angle by adding the company data.
It was impressive.
The book is divided into seven parts with a full text of 250 pages + supplementary readings + 35 photos of the milestone years. It tries to tell a true story from a Chinese perspective and from a Western perspective. When faced with the task of learning from others and also from own culture, each of us is faced with the task of listening to the symphony of life with an open heart and an open mind.

Ma Xiaoqiu Dr. Jeannie Jinsheng Yi

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Bio:

Cortney Renee moved to NYC to attend The King’s College where she studied Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. Her pursuit of modeling and acting provided appearances in Brides magazine and feature films and TV shows including How To Lose Friends and Alienate People, August, and Gossip Girl. Her passion for justice inspired involvement in the 2009 launch of Stop Child Trafficking Now. Her love for fashion and philanthropy birthed a brand which aims to promote ethical fashion. She currently resides in NYC where she endeavors to bring light to designers making a difference! Her long term hope is to inspire the fashion industry to make a creative and engaging world contribution. Her personal mission is to reflect true beauty, and her definition of “true beauty” is one that “come from a heart that lives to give back”. So she endeavors to reflect that in all things, both professionally and personally.

Company Background:

In 2010, Cortney decided to build a bridge between her two passions, fashion and philanthropy. She had been in the fashion industry as a model and actress, since moving to NY in 2004 and she wanted to employ the influence and creativity of the fashion industry to make a difference in our world, on both a national and international scale. She began a fashion blog, wherein she covered philanthropic fashion brands (brands that have a give back built into their business model and fund a partner NGO or an internal NGO). In her research and networking she learned of ingenious social entrepreneurs pioneering new territory, and she realized they were on the cutting edge of social enterprise by employing fashion as a tool to effect global change. Her mission continued to evolve and grow, and she began to offer professional modeling services to these start-ups and her fashion industry insight to help them enter the mainstream.

Now, a year later, Cortney is hosting her 2nd evening of philanthropic fashion where we celebrate brands making a difference. She has professional models (many of them her friends) act as spokes models for the evening. Their first event, “Share the Love: An Evening of Philanthropic Fashion” saw 1,000 inspired and thrilled New Yorkers, and was a huge success. Their next event, “Hampton’s Summer Preview Party: An Evening of Philanthropic Fashion” will be held May 23rd, 2011. The company’s major fashion sponsors include Peace Love World, Same Sky, Native Honey, and their non-profit partners include the Somaly Mam Foundation and Print4Change/Healing Haiti, and their corporate sponsors include the Body Shop, Equinox, and many more. Cortney has also begun to offer fashion film production to brands to build their brand image online and give them new inventive ways to reach their target demographic. She looks forward to seeing this division grow.

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