115-year-old woman says her secret is remaining single for most of her life

Emma Morano is an Italian centenarian who, at 115, is the oldest living person in Europe. In a profile in the New York Times yesterday, she credits her longevity to eating three raw eggs a day and never remarrying after an early divorce. 

Ms. Morano has no doubts about how she made it this long: Her elixir for longevity consists of raw eggs, which she has been eating — three per day — since her teens when a doctor recommended them to counter anemia. Assuming she has been true to her word, Ms. Morano would have consumed around 100,000 eggs in her lifetime, give or take a thousand, cholesterol be damned.

She is also convinced that being single for most of her life, after an unhappy marriage that ended in 1938 following the death of an infant son, has kept her kicking. Separation was rare then, and divorce became legal in Italy only in 1970. She said she had plenty of suitors after that, but never chose another partner. “I didn’t want to be dominated by anyone,” she said.

The Times notes that “gerontologists agree that there is no one key to longevity.” But just last month, Scotland’s oldest woman, 109-year-old Jessie Gallan, revealed that her secrets have been eating porridge every morning and “staying away from men” because “they’re just more trouble than they’re worth.”

Just sayin’ — I’m sensing a pattern here.

Header image credit: Alessandro Grassani/The New York Times