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Arizona man, 110 years-old, credits long life and health to 5 foods

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A 110-year-old Mesa man says the secret to never getting sick is sitting in your kitchen cabinet right now.

Bernando LaPallo was born in Vitória, Brazil, in 1901, immigrated to the United States as a child, spent roughly nine decades in New York, and eventually settled in the Phoenix East Valley. In August 2011, he sat down with ABC15 Arizona to mark his 110th birthday and explain, in plain terms, why he says he’s never lost a single day to illness. His answer wasn’t a miracle drug or a gym routine — it was five foods, a set of habits from his father, and a lot of walking.

• LaPallo, born in 1901 in Brazil, reached 110 years old and told ABC15 he has never been sick a day in his life.
• He credits five specific foods — garlic, honey, cinnamon, chocolate, and olive oil — along with daily walking and rest.
• His father, a doctor who lived to 98, taught him to avoid processed food, hot dogs, french fries, and ordinary red meat, while allowing lamb.

The Five Foods He Won’t Skip

Ask LaPallo what’s kept him going for eleven decades and he doesn’t hesitate: garlic, honey, cinnamon, chocolate, and olive oil. Those five staples anchor a broader diet built around organic fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fish. He draws a hard line against anything processed — no hot dogs, no french fries, and no conventional red meat, a rule he says came straight from his father.

“He told me not to eat ordinary red meat. He said lamb is okay but red meat, stay away from it. Hot dogs, french fries and all those things don’t eat it.”

That father, a physician, lived to 98 himself, and LaPallo says the dietary lessons stuck from childhood. “I can remember things my father told me when I was 8 years old,” he told ABC15 — a detail that speaks to how deliberately he’s followed the same script for more than a century.

Olive Oil, Inside and Out

Olive oil gets special treatment in LaPallo’s routine. He doesn’t just cook with it — he rubs extra virgin olive oil directly onto his skin, arms, and feet, arguing it keeps his body supple rather than stiff. “Use olive oil on your skin,” he said. “Rub your feet, rub your arms, you’ll never rust.”

It’s a folk-remedy approach, but it fits the rest of his philosophy: treat the body as something to maintain daily, not something to fix once it breaks down.

Movement, Rest, and a Sharp Mind

LaPallo walks every morning without exception and stresses getting adequate rest — “Eat properly and get your rest,” as he put it. He also works to keep his mind as active as his body, reading voraciously, working through crossword puzzles, and playing checkers regularly.

He’s lived through a stretch of history that makes his memory itself remarkable. Born before the widespread adoption of the automobile or the airplane, LaPallo recalled watching both technologies arrive during his lifetime. “They had no automobiles, no airplanes — I saw them all come about,” he said.

Faith and a Father’s Blueprint

Beyond diet and exercise, LaPallo points to his father’s broader guidance — not just what to eat, but how to live. “And he taught me how to live, how to eat and to have faith in God and he would take care of me,” LaPallo said. “And so far it has happened.”

Asked to distill 110 years of habits into one line, LaPallo goes back to a saying most people have heard but few actually live by: “You are what you eat.”