MIAMI -- First, they drop the onions into the pot. Then in go the chickpeas and garlic cloves, all under the watchful eyes of Chef Luis Montoya.

For a group of Miami women, mostly moms and grandmas, this one-pot meal can solve a challenge: How do you prepare easy and affordable healthy meals in a community that can be considered a food desert?

Inside the Overtown Youth Center, the women slice and dice and squeeze their way through a recipe for chickpea soup with lemon and herbs, a recipe inspired from the Mediterranean, a place known for populations that can live to 100 and more.

“The most difficult part is hitting the pressure button on the pressure cooker,” said Montoya, the South Florida chef leading the class, as the women prep ingredients near the electric pots.

A group called Blue Zones, which swoops into communities to find ways to improve the health of residents through changes to the environment and diet, brought the cooking classes to Overtown this spring. Miami Beach is also in the process of undergoing an assessment with Blue Zones to see what changes it can make to become a healthier place to live, work and vacation.

“What we’re trying to do is get people to love this food, show them how to make it so they eat it for the long run,” said longevity expert Dan Buettner, who lives in Miami Beach.

“The most important ingredient in any longevity recipe is taste,” he said. “I could tell you that tofu is healthy or broccoli, but if you don’t like it, you aren’t going to eat it.”

Overtown class cooks the ‘Blue Zones’ diet

The cooking class is part of a pilot program funded by Buettner to encourage a healthier lifestyle and is based on his research and travels through the world’s five longevity hot spots, also known as “Blue Zones.” Research has shown that eating healthier can decrease a person’s risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, certain cancers and other chronic conditions.

The class is also using fairly affordable ingredients people can get anywhere to show that eating healthy doesn’t have to be expensive.

For 19-year-old Kayla Smith, who follows a pescatarian diet and loves to cook, the class has been a fun way to learn new types of food she can make at home.

“You learn different ingredients that you can put together that you would have no idea how to put together at home,” the new mom said.

All the recipes at the Overtown center’s cooking class come from Buettner’s cookbook, “The Blue Zones Kitchen: 100 Recipes to Live to 100.” Montoya, who wants to open his own restaurant one day, picks healthy recipes from the book. And the class votes on which dish they want to learn how to make.

The recipes are inspired from the food Buettner saw people eat in the Blue Zones of the world: Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and the Seventh-day Adventist community in Loma Linda, California.

Buettner, a National Geographic fellow and New York Times bestselling author, gave viewers a first-hand look at the diet and lifestyles of those living the longest and healthiest lives in an Emmy-award winning Netflix docuseries “Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones,” based on his ongoing worldwide longevity study.

In this Blue Zones cooking class, the goal is to make healthy dishes that won’t require you to be in the kitchen all day. The class tries to make it easier for working families to cook healthy. The cleanup is fast, too.

Finding ways to make healthy meals quickly is also the concept of Buettner’s new upcoming cookbook “The Blue Zones Kitchen One Pot Meals: 100 Recipes to Live to 100,” to be released in September. The cookbook features 100 one-pot and one-pan plant-based recipes inspired from the Blue Zones.

The longevity expert said he worked with a recipe developer “to translate handfuls and pinches into teaspoons and cups.” And many recipes can be made in 30 minutes or less.

“What people don’t realize — they kind of think, ‘Oh, I got to get fresh fruits and vegetables to be healthy.’ That’s not where you start. You start with beans and rice because people understand beans and rice,” said Buettner, noting that people who live in the world’s longevity zones often use grains, beans, onions and other inexpensive vegetables in their cooking.

Overtown, one of the oldest historically Black neighborhoods in Miami, just northwest of downtown Miami, is home to more than 13,500 people. About 41% of the people who live in the predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhood are at or below the poverty line, according to a 2024 county report that analyzes changes and trends in housing, healthcare, jobs and other factors across the county’s Black neighborhoods.

The community has long been considered a “food desert” due to the lack of nearby affordable fresh food options. But that has slowly changed over the years, starting with the 2016 opening of a Top Value Supermarket. The changing neighborhood now also has a Publix, Aldi and Target. And it has a community garden, where people can go to get fresh fruit, herbs and vegetables, not far from the youth center.

“Our goal serving predominantly marginalized communities is to improve health,” and it only takes one person to make a positive lifestyle change to spark a ripple effect, said Tina Brown, the youth center’s CEO. She’s hoping to make Blue Zones cooking a regular program at the center.

Creating a sense of community

It’s not just diet and staying physically active that can help people age healthier. All of the world’s Blue Zones share another trait: community.

Socialization is considered to be a key aspect of healthy aging. And there’s plenty of laughs and chatter happening in the cooking class.

Sedrika Jacques, 46, a grandmother who has faced many health challenges in her life, said the class has helped her form a group of friends, or her “Moai” as Buettner calls it, who also live in Liberty City’s Buena Vista public housing complex. Moai is a Japanese word that refers to friends who meet frequently to talk, laugh and support each other. In Okinawa, the lifelong support groups people form provide emotional and financial support and are considered a tradition that contributes to longevity.

“I see love, I see compassion, I see women working together. ... I‘m so grateful just to be in the position that the Lord has put me in right now,” said Jacques, who has 11 grandchildren and has survived eight strokes and other medical scares.

In May, when the 10-week Blue Zones cooking class ends, everyone will have their blood pressure and weight measured and will undergo a longevity test, just like at the beginning of the program in March, to see first-hand if the diet change has improved their health. Some women say they’ve already lost weight now that they’re more mindful of what they eat.

“The only way we’re going to get America eating healthier is getting them cooking at home,” Buettner said, noting that “most Americans,” especially people who live in urban areas, are “set up for failure” when it comes to eating healthy, when many of the fast, easy and affordable nearby options are processed foods.

“It’s really almost impossible to ask people to prioritize health over their pocketbook or what tastes good,” which is why Blue Zones seeks to encourage people to “change their behavior, to change their environment, so the healthy choice is the easy choice,” he said.

As the pressure cooker’s waft of steam floats through the air at the Overtown center, everyone hurries to taste the soup. Some add a bit more lemon. Others question if it needs more salt. And the voting starts for next week’s dish.

Should they make frijoles borrachos (drunken beans), a popular Mexican dish, or pasta with tomato, eggplant and sweet potato sauce?

It doesn’t take long to decide. Everyone loves pasta.

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