Six ways you can cook smarter to lead a longer life

Growing evidence suggests the methods we use to cook can be linked to our body's capacity to resist age-related damage. Here, health journalist DAVID COX shares simple advice for prepping nourishing meals

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Whether it’s cancer, heart disease or dementia, the number-one risk factor for getting any of these diseases is simply getting old, but it’s not just your birth age that matters. A growing amount of science now shows that both your shortand long-term risk of various diseases is linked to your biological age, or how much wear and tear your body has accumulated through daily living.

It turns out that one of the more surprising drivers of this age-related damage, and our body's capacity to handle it, is linked to how we cook. As a neuroscientist and health journalist, I've spent much of the last three years investigating this for my new book, The Age Code. Through interviews with dozens of “ageing” scientists around the globe, I discovered that by making a few simple tweaks to our culinary habits, we can limit some of the age-related damage we're accruing and boost our body's ability to repair itself.

And crucially, ageing experts now believe this can stave off disease and give us many more years of good health. Here are six key takeaways from my book.

From frying bacon to barbecuing and Sunday roasts, many of our favourite ways of preparing food involve exposing meat to high heat. What most people don't realise is that these cooking methods generate a class of supertoxins known as AGEs.

They can be formed in food through a chemical reaction called glycation, which occurs when proteins and fats or sugars react together at high temperatures. Basically, whenever we consume blackened or charred meat, we ingest these toxins.

"Dry heat leads to more AGEs," says Professor Pankaj Kapahi of California-based Buck Institute for Research on Ageing. The problem is that ingesting more AGEs quite literally accelerates the ageing process.