health benefits
“A Cup of beans could add 4 years to your life”
Dan Buettner has revealed that a cup of this particular food is associated with an additional four years of life expectancy. Buettner, 64, is the founder of Blue Zones and the presenter of the popular Netflix documentary ‘How to Live to 100’.
Buettner observed that regardless of where the longest-living people in the world are based ( in Europe, Asia, Latin America, or elsewhere), they eat 90%-100% whole food and plant-based diets.
“The five pillars of every longevity diet in the world are whole grains, greens, tubers like sweet potatoes, nuts and beans,” the expert explained.
Buettner added: “In fact if you are eating around a cup of beans a day, it’s probably adding up about four years to your life expectancy.
That’s about a pot of my natto (100g pot)
Benefits of natto according to science
In a nutshell, natto is a fermented food rich in proteins, enzymes (nattokinase), and vitamins (it is by far the largest source of vitamin K2). Consumed for hundreds of years in Japan, science is becoming more and more interested in its benefits for the heart, bones, and overall body.
Natto contains mostly protein and fibre, which makes it a nutritious and sustaining food. Among the many essential nutrients contained in natto, it is particularly rich in manganese and iron.
Natto Produces New Nutrients
It is during fermentation that natto obtains a large part of its nutritional properties. During fermentation, the b. subtilis natto bacteria produce vitamins and release minerals. As a result, natto contains more nutrients than raw or cooked soybeans! (ref.)
Among the interesting nutrients is an impressive amount of vitamin K2 (menaquinone). Natto is one of the few plant sources that contains this vitamin!
Vitamin K2, in particular, has been found to aid bone density and may reduce the risk of fractures with age (ref.) (ref.). Vitamin K2 contributes to the strength and quality of bones (ref.)
Natto Uncovered: Japan’s Weird Secret to Longevity and Health
Natto: A medicinal and edible food with health function
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chmed.2023.02.005
In Japan, natto is regarded as one of the important health food that have the concomitant function of both medicine and foodstuff. It is very popular in daily life and is considered to be the secret recipe for longevity of Japanese people (Qin, Hara, Raboy, & Saneoka, 2020). In China, natto, based on its high nutrition and defensive capability of disease, is widely used in food, medicine and health products and so on. Nattokinase (NK) is the most important active substances of natto and it has significant advantage in dissolving blood clots, which has set off a wave of in-depth research on natto and made outstanding achievements (Gallelli et al., 2021)
Soybean, the raw material of natto, is a nutritious food with high protein and eight kinds of essential amino acids. After the cooking and fermentation process of natto, the proteins and polysaccharides in the natto will undergo decomposition and enzymatic hydrolysis under high temperature conditions, producing more short chains and easily absorbed amino acids, active peptides, oligosaccharides, etc (Liu, Su, & Song, 2018). It contains more proteins, cellulose, calcium, iron, potassium and vitamin B2 than soybeans, especially more cellulose, calcium, iron and potassium than eggs.
Natto, in addition to retaining the original nutritional components of soybeans, is easier to be digested and absorbed by the human body after fermentation. It also produces many bioactive components, which greatly improves the nutritional and health care efficacy.