Man lived to 112 on sausage-and-waffles diet

[Judi Lynn]

Man lived to 112 on sausage-and-waffles diet

Updated: 33 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES - George Johnson, considered California’s oldest living person at 112 and the state’s last surviving World War I veteran, had experts shaking their heads over his junk food diet.

“He had terrible bad habits. He had a diet largely of sausages and waffles,” Dr. L. Stephen Coles, founder of the Gerontology Research Group at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday.

The 5-foot-7, 140-pound Johnson died of pneumonia Wednesday at his Richmond home in Northern California.
(snip)

‘A mysterious case’
“Everything in his body that we looked at was clean as a whistle, except for his lungs with the pneumonia,” Coles said. “He had no heart disease, he had no cancer, no diabetes and no Alzheimer’s.
(snip/...)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13119227/

[Webster Green]

1. Sausage and waffles...............got it!

My new health-food diet.

[Missy M]

2. Yummmmm, my kind of diet...

I love both sausage and waffles.

[oblivious]

3. I like it when they call 50 or 60 "extremely youthful".

“All of his organs were extremely youthful. They could have been the organs of someone who was 50 or 60, not 112."

[bikesein]

4. LOL

I noticed that also. I guess compared to 112, that is extremely youthful. When you are approaching 100, eat whatever makes you happy!

[Nozebro]

5. Charlie Smith lived to be about 105-06 & he started each day with a glass

of whiskey and an unfiltered cigarette (Camel, if I remember correctly).

[Jim Warren]

17. Ah, Charlie Smith, I remember him fondly..........

When asked what his secret to long life was, he replied: "You figure out what you need and get more before you run out".

[Skidmore]

6. They missed the part about he has good genes.

[Darth_Kitten]

7. some people can do anything to their bodies.....

and get away with it seriously.


:)

[TomInTib]

9. I am living proof

2 or 3 bottles of wine along with gin (martinis) and/or tequila every night.

Not to mention a few cigarettes and some of Humboldt's finest.

I eat any- and everything I desire.

And I am 56 years old and haven't been ill in over 30 years. And that was hepatitis.

And that's the truth.

I left out years of serious drug business in the past.

[skygazer]

8. This gives me hope

I live largely on a diet of toast and porridge (Cream of Wheat actually, but I love the word porridge so that's what I call it). Hopefully it has the same effect.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[hedgehog]

15. That story raises so many questons?

Did he really mean it? Did he make it up and laugh to himself over what would happen if and when you ever told your mother? Did he really mean it and get a laugh out of passing on the info? He must have been a wonderful person.

[Poll_Blind]

16. Well, he was a pretty obstreperous old man- at least when I knew him.

But there was always a sense of mirth about his behavior that, taken together with his stubbornness would be something very close to charming in a man his age. Living in backwater Louisiana after fighting in WW II and a full life before and after it I really think what he was doing was telling me something that I'd only be able to get a chuckle out of long, long, after he died. It's really funny to me because, ya know, most people have no recollections of their great uncles or aunts, and usually little of their grandparents (depending on how old they were when they were born) but I remember lots of interactions with him- including some of the stuff he used to tell me about WWII which involved how sad he was at how the Italians, under Mussolini, were mostly starving when the American soldiers were fighting against Il Duce. My grandmother mentioned this in passing a couple of times- all three of my great-uncles wound up in Italy durng WW II. I have no idea exactly what they were doing but presumably part of the Army, though I doubt together.

I settled on giving me a funny little gift that he knew I wouldn't be able to open until I was an adult.

Despite the possibly inappropriate subject matter, not like it matters all that much because it happened to me, I thought it was a great way to bridge the years and make me giggle as the adult he knew he'd sadly never get the opportunity to meet.

PB

[L A Woman]

11. awesome!

i'm dying for some sausage and waffles!

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. The goal should be to be as healthy as this guy - still working at 100

Buster Martin began cleaning vans for Pimlico Plumbers despite retiring as a market worker three years ago.
...
After taking up a wide range of trades, he finally went full circle and was working at Brixton market until he retired aged 97.

Mr Martin, who married in 1920 and had 17 children with his wife, said he took up working again because he became bored.

"Working keeps me active, that's the main thing. If you're active it saves you sitting in a wheelchair," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5305378.stm

If you see the video, you see he's still active - 'spritely', even. And he drinks a pint of beer each day.

[senseandsensibility]

13. My two favorites

Seriously, I could live on those. Wow. Good for him. He was state's last world war one vet, and built the house he lived in by hand in 1935. I know Richmond, the city he lived in, and it is very working class with a high African American population. Does anyone know if he was African American? Just curious. Whatever his race, I hope he rests in peace.

[cmf]

18. mixed heritage

According to this article written about him back in May.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/contra_costa_county/west_contra_costa/14191076.htm

Johnson has a mixed heritage, saying his father was of English and black descent, and that his mother was Norwegian, but that it was never important. "In Philadelphia, when I was a kid, we didn't have any race," he said. "There were different races, different nationalities, everything you could think of. It didn't matter."

The funny thing about people who are as old as he was is that you can't verify hardly anything they claim. Everyone else who was alive back then is dead now. Either way, he sounded like an interesting man.

[senseandsensibility]

25. Thanks for the link.

He obviously was alert and interested in the world around him to the end. I enjoyed reading about his memories.

[ScreamingMeemie]

14. Yuck.

Sausage. I'm an egg breakfast person. :hi:

[susu369]

19. It must be the SAUSAGE!!!!

I'm joking - sorta - because my friend's grandfather is in his late 80's and he will not eat anything but eggs and sausage! The old man is a farmer up in the hills of Tennessee and is still active. The family claims he eats eggs and sausage for breakfast, no lunch, and eggs and sausage for dinner (and nothing else).

:shrug:

[bluestateguy]

20. If he didn't eat like that, he could have lived to be 125

Such a shame.

[Haole Girl]

21. There was a woman in Texas who was over 100 years old...

...and, when they asked her the secret to her longevity she claimed, "Reese's peanut butter cups and Dr. Pepper!" Just when you think you've heard everything!

:rofl:

[Nikia]

22. When my great grandmother turned 100 and interviewed

By the local paper. She commented on regularly enjoying her homeade blueberry and lard pies.
We all have different genetic tolerances. I don't think that some people's bodies are harmed by things that other people's bodies are harmed by.

[u4ic]

23. I think good genes definitely played a part

as did being active, and starting out living at a time when the environment (and us) weren't so damn overwhelmed with toxins.

I don't think you'll see many boomers (or indeed later generations) make it to 100. Too much crap in our food, air, water; hence, in us. Medicine may keep us alive longer, but it isn't necessarily keeping us healthy.

I have a great aunt who is 102; she always uses lard or butter for frying; lots of cream in her recipes...by all accounts, she should have had a heart attack in her 50's.

[Wcross]

24. Speaking of really old folks.....

I heard they were interviewing an old woman and asked her if she would change anything. She said she would have bought a better mattress if she knew she was going to live so long.

[Critters2]

26. All the HFCS in the syrup

acted as an anti-aging cure!