BBC Two Northern Ireland

Eat to Live Forever with Giles Coren

Giles Coren

Lisa Ausden

Daniel Child

Documentaries

Factual: Food & Drink

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

18/03/2015

BBC Two - Eat to Live Forever with Giles Coren

Giles Coren tries three extreme diet regimes in a bid to increase his life expectancy.

Food critic Giles Coren tries three extreme diet regimes in a bid to increase his life expectancy, meeting people whose pursuit of longevity dominates every aspect of their lives.

In Eat to Live Forever with Giles Coren, the food critic takes up three extreme diet regimes in a bid to push the very limits of life expectancy. Giles's search to find a diet which might extend his life comes after his great-grandfather lived to the grand old age of 93. His grandfather passed away aged 76 and his father Alan died aged 69. The Coren men are bucking the global trend of living longer so Giles, now in his mid-forties, wants to find out what he can do to avoid a premature death.

In this witty, entertaining and informative documentary, Giles investigates how not to die young with the help of some extreme regimes. He meets people from around the world whose pursuit of longevity is an obsession that dominates every aspect of their lives. It won't be an easy ride for Giles - as a food critic who has eaten in some of the world's finest restaurants, he'll have to make sacrifices. He meets ardent devotees of extreme food regimes, but how much suffering will be involved, and can any of these extreme regimes actually extend Giles's life?

He undertakes the calorie-restriction diet, meeting followers of this near-starvation regime, some of whom aim to live to 150. He then takes up the Palaeo diet, aka the Stone Age diet, which consists only of foods hunted, fished or gathered by our Palaeolithic ancestors. Giles ends his journey with a regime consisting of almost 100 per cent fruit, the aptly named fruitarian diet.

Throughout the process, Giles's health is monitored by his doctor, who helps Giles assess the impact these unusual regimes are having on his body.

Can Giles be persuaded to change his ways by the well-being and enthusiasm of the people he meets? Can he hack the strict self-imposed rules under which they live? Will he discover the secret to a longer life? Or will he decide that the pleasures of a short and happy life matter more to him than living to a ripe old age?

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