The longest-lived man in the world died at the age of 114: he was German and, when asked about his secret to living a long time, he only gave one answer. Desserts rich in butter. It was Gustav Gerneth, considered the longest-lived man in the world after the Japanese Masazo Nonaka, who died at 113. The longest-lived woman in the world is currently still Japanese.

Gustav was born in Poland in 1905. He spent the last year in bed, but he always got up to eat. The food he ate every day was a butter cake, the Frankfurter Kranz donut.

This typical German dessert contains more butter than flour, and is filled with a butter cream: it has 250 grams of butter for the base of the cake, and 280 grams of butter for the cream. In all, the Frankfurt donut also has 350 grams of sugar, since in addition to being filled with butter cream it is coated with hazelnut brittle.
Gustav ate it every day and it was also his favorite birthday cake. He was convinced it was his secret to his longevity. But he’s not the only long-lived man to say that sweets are the secret to living a long time.

The longest-lived man in the world loved sweets, but he wasn’t the only one

Mazazo Nonaka was also a great lover of sweets , which were the basis of his diet. He recently passed away at 113. And the longest-lived woman in the world, Kane Takana , at the time of 116, had a shop of Zenzai, the red bean jam and rice cake. In addition to eating Zenzai daily, Takana is very fond of chocolate. She eats several bars a day.

Although this news makes us smile now that everyone demonizes sweets, it also makes us think a little. What if restrictive diets don’t lead to a long life? The Blue Zone diet, the centenarian diet, is a high carbohydrate diet (65%) as you can read here .