The Tiny Island in Greece With the Oldest Life Expectancy in the World

[waves, chiming music]

(speaker 1) When you were a kid,
what was it like here?

(narrator)
Ikaria is a remote island

in the Aegean Sea.

When Lefteris Plakas was born here,

there was no electricity
or running water.

(speaker 1) So these are?
(Plakas) These are the nets we put down.

We go out every other day
or every three days.

(narrator) Plakas spent decades
in the United States,

where he raised a family

and built a successful career
in construction.

But now, 76 and retired,

he's moved back home
to embrace what has become known

as the Ikarian way of life.

On most days,
Plakas joins his best friend Soulis,

who, at 86 years young,

still captains a small fishing boat.

(speaker 1) Wow.

It's a lot of manual labor,
getting the nets ready

and doing the boat, isn't it tiring?

(Cassel) No?
(Plakas) No.

(Cassel) How many years does
he think he can keep doing this for?

(narrator)
This laid back lifestyle

is not uncommon on Ikaria.

The island is considered
to be a "blue zone," a classification

given to only five small regions
around the world

where life expectancy is the highest.

1 in 3 Ikarians live past 90.

Compare that to a place like the US,

where it's just 1 in 20.

-Who is preparing the fish
right now?

Is she?

Is it true?

(narrator) The long lives of people
living in blue zones

come from multiple factors:

good weather, physical activity,

a strong sense of community.

But traveling around Ikaria,

it's clear that one thing
features prominently:

eating really good food.

(Cassel) How important
do you think that kind of

fresh food, that clean food,

is to allowing people
to live the kind of long life

that they enjoy here in Ikaria?

(narrator) The Ikarian diet
starts with lots of vegetables

and seafood, all sourced locally.

Copious amounts of olive oil
is used to cook everything,

and every meal
comes with at least a couple glasses

of local wine.

(Cassel) How does it feel for you
to be eating fish

that you just went out in the sea

and caught a little bit earlier?

(Cassel)
Which one's your favorite?

(Cassel) Octopus is great, yeah.

(Cassel) This is how you eat
every day on Ikaria.

(narrator) Although life on Ikaria
is likely to be long,

it's not guaranteed to be easy.

What Ikarians consume, Ikarians produce.

-One of the reasons that people
are so self-reliant

here in Ikaria is because of this:

because of the conditions of the roads.

So people tend to stay
within their their villages,

within their communities,

and there they produce their own food,

their own wine.

(narrator) Thodoris Kargas
gave up his well-paid job

in Athens 11 years ago

to live a simpler, more natural life
on Ikaria.

(Cassel)
You were a computer programmer.

How did you leave all that
and come here to Ikaria?

-I hadn't verbalized it
or thought of it consciously.

Something was wrong
with my life there.

So I had to change it.

Working, making really good money

in companies with ten hour shifts

and trying to escape only for a weekend

to nature to enjoy things;

it made no sense anymore to me,

and I said, I will come here to try

to see how life can be differently,

so I came, I tried it,

it was just an experiment
in the beginning,

farming and seeing the herbs,

and what I could do with these things

attracted me so much
that then it was just--

I mean, in one year or two,

living my old life was already a dream.

It was, ah, I couldn't go back anymore.

(narrator)
Thodoris and his wife, Tara,

produce essential oils from local herbs

that they sell to people
around the world

looking to get in
on Ikaria's natural secrets.

The couple lives in this modest home,

raise their daughter
and live off the garden.

(child) Mommy?
-Can we...?

(Cassel) One theory about why people
live so long on this island

is because they have these home gardens,

and, of course,
they're eating their own produce

on a daily basis,
but they're also working

in the gardens every day,
which is kind of a form of exercise.

(speaker 2) Yeah! Now, to me,
it just seems like such a natural,

basic thing to do.

With the space
and with the the weather we have

and the rain we have,

why wouldn't you have a garden?

-You're someone who knows,
I guess, both worlds.

You were living in the UK.

What's different about
growing your own produce?

How does it taste?
(Tara) Cannot compare.

It's such a fundamental thing
of everyday life, to eat, isn't it?

I mean, you take your produce
from the garden

and to cook it, you just--
you just cannot compare.

(several people)
Yamas! Yamas!

-Delicious.
So, what is on the table?

(Tara) Tuck in,
we've got potatoes with onions.

(Cassel) These are potatoes
from your garden? Wow.

(Tara) A lot of lemon juice,
three lemons went into this.

(Cassel) Three lemons?
(Tara) Yeah, and olive oil.

(Tara) And keeping the skins on.
(Cassel) And the skins on-- yeah!

(Tara)
Some hard boiled eggs,

from one of our neighbors.

(Thodoris) Our olives.
(Cassel) Olives from your trees?

(Thodoris)
Oregano also from our land, here.

(Tara) And some beetroot.

(Thordoris) Pasta pesto, with basil from the garden.

(Cassel) Amazing.

Thank you so much, guys, this is--

this is incredible.

Everything smells good,
it tastes even better, thank you.

Cheers, yamas.

(narrator) People all over the world
have taken an interest

in this island, hoping to learn the key

to unlocking a longer life.

But even the mayor, Nikos Kalambogias,

isn't sure exactly what it is.

(Cassel)
Why are people living such long lives

on this island?

What's the secret?

(narrator) Most people aren't able
to move to a blue zone

and reap the mysterious benefits
that lead to a longer life.

But Captain Soulis's secret isn't bound

to spending every day at sea
off the coast of a Greek island.

(Cassel)
What bit of advice would he give people

outside of Ikaria, outside of Greece,

who want to live a long, full life?