Loma Linda, California, was designated a “Blue Zone” in Dan Buettner’s 2005 National Geographic cover story, “The Secrets of Living Longer.” However, as we trace the lineage of ancestral wisdom in Sardinia, Okinawa, Ikaria, and Nicoya, communities shaped by hardship, land-based living, and deeply rooted food cultures, we begin to see a stark contrast emerge when we turn our gaze to the fifth Blue Zone: Loma Linda - a very different shade of blue.
It’s the birthplace of ultra-processed “health foods” developed in response to dietary doctrine. Today, Loma Linda stands as the epicentre of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s operations in America.
But before we go there, let me offer a grounding reflection.
The other four Blue Zones; Sardinia, Okinawa, Ikaria, and Nicoya, were geographically bounded, and largely self-sustaining. The octogenarians, nonagenarians, and centenarians in these places weren’t “inspired by longevity science” they embodied it. Born and raised in the same places they now grow old, within rhythms shaped by land, labour and a deep sense of belonging.
Their diets wove together nutrient-dense animal foods — organ meats, pig lard, and cultured sheep and goat dairy — with wild greens and seasonal garden produce. Grains, legumes, nuts and seeds were carefully soaked, sprouted, and/or fermented to improve digestibility and reduce irritants.
Many of these elders were found to be amongst the poorest and least formally educated regions of their respective nations. But I can assure you, I am in no way suggesting they weren’t intelligent, nor that they weren’t happy. Quite the opposite. They appear to ‘hold the key to longevity’ the modern world now spends billions attempting to replicate.
Which raises an uncomfortable question.
How do you sell this ancestral version of longevity to a population that fears saturated fat, fears the sun, fears ageing itself? To people who work under artificial lights, buy convenience food from supermarkets, and assume that education and affluence somehow guarantee health?
More importantly, how do you make it profitable?
Seems, you include Loma Linda.
From Mound City to Mission Field
Loma Linda was once known as Mound City, home to 1,000 railway workers in the early 1880s. Following the completion of the Southern Pacific lines the grand Mound City Hotel, overlooking millions of cultivated orange trees, was abandoned. Two groups of investors tried but failed to make it viable. The hilltop dream faded.
Then, in 1905, the Seventh-day Adventist Church purchased it at ‘a bargain price.’
Ellen G. White, prophetess and church founder, claimed she had seen the property “in vision” years before. It was to become a centre for medical missionary work where health would serve as a way “to find access to hearts and minds and be a means of converting many to the (Adventist) truth.”
The land was acquired. The buildings repurposed. The hill was renamed.
But the blueprint had been drawn long before the city was incorporated.
1863: Diet as Sanctification
To understand the blueprint, we need to step back to 1863 — the year a small group of Millerite believers formally organized and incorporated the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The same year Ellen G. White claimed to receive her major health reform vision from God.
Diet was no longer merely sustenance.
It became sanctification.
Ellen G White claimed; “Fruit, nuts, and seeds were the God-Appointed diet for man.”
“By precept and example make it plain that the food which God gave Adam in his sinless state is the best for man’s use as he seeks to regain that sinless state.”
Flesh-meat, by contrast, “stimulated baser passions”, “filled the system with disease”, and “clouded the mind.” Even ‘clean meats’ under Levitical Law were framed as morally, spiritually, and physically defiling.
Pork, she declared, was never designed for human consumption despite pigs, and particularly rendered lard, being dietary staples in each of the ancestral Blue Zones.
“It has been clearly presented to me that God’s people are to take a firm stand against meat eating.”
“Among those who are waiting for the coming of the Lord meat eating will eventually be done away; flesh will cease to form a part of their diet. We should ever keep this end in view and endeavour to work steadily toward it.” Ellen G White, Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 119, 1890 (CD 380.4).
Ellen G White claimed her Testimonies to the Church were written by the finger of God, authorized by the Holy Ghost, and barricaded the bible with a ‘Thus sayeth the Lord.’
By the time of her death, she had written more than 100,000 pages. She is considered the most translated American author of either gender. Her words didn’t simply guide believers; they shaped institutions, food formulations, dietary and medical curricula, and conscience. Health reform was not optional. It was duty.
As researcher Rubén Sánchez-Sabaté noted, ‘food’ within Adventism became more than nourishment. It became an identity. A tool for evangelism. A way to take the Gospel to the people without overt preaching.
Medical evangelism wasn’t metaphor.
It was method.
The Boy and the Press
John Harvey Kellogg was twelve when he began typesetting Ellen G White’s writings, including her Testimonies and the book, A Solemn Appeal, which warned mothers of moral and physical degeneration linked to diet and “self-abuse,” the puritan term for masturbation.
Her written word was delivered through the powerful art of sermon, instilling guilt and fear into her readers. Imagine being a 12-year-old and typesetting these words; “I have been shown that children who practice self-indulgence previous to puberty, or during the period of merging into manhood and womanhood, must pay the penalty of nature’s violated laws”
“The result of self-abuse is seen in various diseases; headache, loss of memory and sight, affections of the spine, and the head often decays inwardly.” “Such are just as surely self-murderers as though they pointed a pistol to their own breast and destroyed their life instantly.”
John Harvey Kellogg continued to typeset, edit, print, and publish monthly journals for the church until he went to College at the age of 16. For 4 formative years he was immersed in Adventist Health Reform message.
Appetite endangered health and salvation. Purity could be eaten.
As a physician, Kellogg developed cereals, soy milks and meat substitutes designed to “take the place of flesh meat, eggs, milk and butter.”
“The assurance that the Lord will give wisdom to those who study to find suitable substitutes for meat, eggs, and milk in the diet is a great stimulus. The Lord always has something better than that which He would have us discard.” Dr Harry W Miller, founder of the New Nutrition Research Laboratory and inventor of Loma Linda’s infant soy formula, Soyalac.
Herein lies the irony: a movement born in resistance to indulgence became dependent on commercial production. Strict vegetarianism relies on industrial processing, food fortification, and supplementation.
Western vegetarianism didn’t scale because it was ancestral.
It scaled because it was manufacturable, and profitable.
Education, Healthcare, Infrastructure
Loma Linda’s blueprint was never confined to diet or healthcare. From the beginning, education was institutional by design. Schools were established not merely to teach health and literacy, but to shape the Adventist worldview.
By 1909, the College of Medical Evangelists was training physicians and nurses as medical missionaries.
Today, Loma Linda University Health employs over 18,000 people and educates approximately 4,000 students annually across medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, public health, and allied health, drawing a student body from more than 60 countries.
Beyond Loma Linda itself, the Seventh-day Adventist Church supports hundreds of healthcare institutions internationally — 34 in Florida, alone.
Loma Linda Academy, founded in 1906, now educates 1,300 students from kindergarten through Grade 12, reporting that 97 percent of its graduates pursue tertiary study.
Globally, the Seventh-day Adventist Church operates around 9,500 educational institutions across more than 200 countries. For a denomination numbering around 23 million members, the scale of its educational network is remarkable.
Loma Linda Foods, founded by Ellen G White in 1905, began producing cereals and alternative meat substitutes based on John Harvey Kellogg’s’ inventions. It remained under Church administration until 1990.
Today, 24 Adventist-owned companies manufacture thousands of plant-based products worldwide. “Health Food,” as I previously mentioned, designed to take the place of flesh-meat, eggs, milk and butter.
“The profits on these foods are to come principally from the world, rather than from the Lord’s people.” Ellen G White Testimonies for the Church, vol. 7 The Health Food Ministry.
Research followed. The Adventist Health Studies became highly cited in nutritional epidemiology designed to validate, not question, the church’s divine mandate. Their dietary categories reveal nuance rarely discussed publicly: “vegetarians” consumed animal products, sometimes weekly; even the classification of a “vegan diet” allowed monthly meat, eggs, fish and/or dairy in the fine print. These were one-time self-reported surveys, cited over and over within the same institutional network.
Interestingly, the authors acknowledge ‘the lack of similar findings in studies on British vegetarians,’ suggesting the British are doing it for ‘ethical reasons’ not ‘health reasons.’ And that ‘they are doing it wrong.’ Or maybe, the British aren’t eating ‘meat once a week’ on their vegetarian diet?
You can’t separate the science from the spiritual mission.
From Observation to Intervention
Dan Buettner trademarked the term Blue Zones™ in 2005, within months of his story appearing on the front cover of a National Geographic magazine.
By 2007, five regions had been named inspiring follow-up articles, lessons on living longer, cookbooks, and eventually the “Power 9” offering a set of lifestyle habits said to be shared across these communities. In 2009, that roadmap became scalable through the Blue Zones Project, beginning with a pilot program in Albert Lea, Minnesota.
Easy… Cities enroll. Citizens sign pledges. Schools, workplaces, and retailers implement approved changes to achieve compliance benchmarks.
The ‘Blue Zones’ had shifted from descriptive anthropology to prescriptive programming.
But it wasn’t cheap.
In 2018, Blue Zones™ accreditation was documented as almost 7 Million US dollars — for one community. Now, times that by 75.
And then, almost without anyone noticing, the story changes hands.
In April 2020, Adventist Health acquired the Blue Zones™ brand. Their 2030 strategic plan is focused on transitioning from a solely hospital-centered organization to a ‘health and wellbeing’ company. Why only focus on your core business when wellness has become such a commodity? According to the Global Wellness Institute Wellness Tourism was expected to reach 1.3 trillion dollars US, last year!
Following the purchase, the 89th US Congress of Mayors (2021), saw more than 1,400 mayors pass a resolution supporting Community Blue Zones Well-Being Initiatives. The Blue Zones™ model was framed as a solution to chronic disease and runaway health costs.
But beneath that promise is a doctrine:
One that frames meat as immoral.
One that defines health through the lens of theology, not ecology.
One that draws directly from the religious teachings of a single church.
Were they aware?
Since then, the project has expanded further into formal accreditation pathways.
Enter the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.
Its stated aim was simple and compelling: address chronic disease through lifestyle intervention; - ‘plant-based’ nutrition, reduce/abstain from smoking and alcohol, increase movement, promote sleep, offer stress management and encourage connection. Few would argue with those pillars and the seemingly benevolent messaging they promote.
But foundations matter.
ACLM was founded as the Christian Association of Lifestyle Medicine in 2003 on the Loma Linda University campus, an institution shaped by Adventist Health Reform messaging that had, for over a century, linked plant-based eating with moral and physical purification.
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine’s visual ‘plates’, used in educational materials and certification pathways, are entirely devoid of animal protein and animal fats. This isn’t simply a matter of “more plants.” It’s complete exclusion. Even for children.
Following their recent partnership, Lifestyle Medicine physicians and community leaders are being invited to apply for Blue Zones™ credentials. Cities implementing Blue Zones™ frameworks align perfectly with ACLM’s dietary recommendations because they have the same foundational beliefs.
The circle neatly closes.
Ellen G White proclaimed, ‘Public Health Education was the duty of the Church.’
Joan Sabaté’s 2019 overview of the Global Influence of the Seventh-day Adventist Church on Diet helps explain how far this influence travels beyond church walls, into education, research, and public-facing health narratives.
But policy rarely advertises its origin story.
The Global Public Amplifier
In 2023, Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones streamed worldwide encouraging a new generation to travel the world to discover five unique communities where people live extraordinarily long and vibrant lives. Loma Linda appeared beside Sardinia, Okinawa, Ikaria, and Nicoya as though they had emerged from the same conditions.
But they hadn’t.
The 2005 data used to enshrine Loma Linda as a Blue Zone included a number of exceptionally long-lived Adventists. But, when Netflix revived its fame nearly two decades later the faces we meet are octogenarians — vibrant, articulate, community-minded. That’s not a criticism of age; it’s a critique of narrative.
Which makes sense when you consider Loma Linda didn’t become a Blue Zone because of its number of centenarians. “It’s life expectancy-based” and focused on “disease-risk,” said Dr. Michael Orlich, one of the lead investigators for the Adventist Health Study, based at Loma Linda University.
Scholars Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart described Adventism as an “alternative society that meets the needs of its members from cradle to grave.” They suggest it functions as a “ghetto” within American culture, creating a distinct, separate existence. This separation is reinforced through unique doctrines, a distinct lifestyle, and self-contained institutional structures that allow members to live apart from the surrounding society.
Is Loma Linda really a Blue Zone?
Loma Linda has been highlighted as a model of health and longevity by Blue Zones™ founder, Dan Buettner since 2005, despite admitting to The New York Times (2024) that it was a bit of an “outlier.” He claims the Californian city was added to the list of blue zones in the National Geographic because his editor told him, “you need to find America’s blue zone.” But that’s not the full story.
Loma Linda has been part of every major Blue Zones™ publication, including Buettner’s 2016 paper, and the 2023 Netflix series.
It’s not a footnote — it’s front and centre.
Dan Buettner’s recent distancing from Loma Linda, claiming it “should have been dropped” is seriously at odds with his continued presence, alongside his son, on the Adventist Health Blue Zones board, signaling not only ongoing endorsement, but familial investment in the future of this branded model.
Meanwhile, Michel Poulain, the demographer who helped coin the term “Blue Zone” in 1999, has publicly stated he never accepted Loma Linda’s classification because it doesn’t meet the same demographic and age validation criteria. His 2022 publication omits Loma Linda entirely.
Michel Poulain and Giovanni Pes, who first circled a small region of extreme longevity in the mountainous region of Sardinia — with a blue highlighter pen —understand the ‘oldest olds’ remain woven into daily life.
Adventist longevity is supported by theological infrastructure whereas the longevity discovered in Sardinia, Okinawa, Nicoya and Ikaria is sustained by continuity.
Ancestral cultures were never strands.
They were weave; land, labour, lineage, and memory interlaced until longevity emerged as a byproduct, not as a program.
When that weave is flattened into a single thread — “they don’t eat much meat,” “they walk more,” “they belong,” it becomes far easier to package. But in the process, it loses ecological weight.
And once the weave disappears, the blueprint can be franchised.
Blue Zones LLC holds registered trademarks and dozens of patents are pending for merchandise, food products, wellness tourism, and even real estate. What began as field observation has become intellectual property. Longevity, once observed, is now monetized.
Thank you to Paul von Zielbauer for the graphic (above) highlighting a few of the 46 registered (and 39 pending) trademarks owned by Blue Zones LLC. He also discovered; public filings show significant capital investment following Adventist Health’s acquisition of the brand which I will discuss in more detail, shortly.
If connection, tradition, and shared ancestral nourishment; if the seasons and food sovereignty are no longer part of the blueprint, can this disconnect really be called a “Blue Zone”? Belinda Fettke
Part Five will step outside the blueprint.
Back to land.
Back to memory.
Back to food sovereignty.
Link to the full series attached below…
Longevity as Life vs. Longevity as Lifestyle™
Welcome to an unfolding series of essays exploring the story of Blue Zones longevity. Over the next 5 weeks I will be discussing how each came to be and my concerns about what may have been lost in translation.
This installment was the first time I’ve seen someone put language to the category error that’s been sitting inside the Blue Zones narrative for years. The contrast you draw is sharp: Sardinia/Okinawa/Ikaria/Nicoya read like bounded ecologies, such as place, labor, seasonality, food sovereignty, intergenerational continuity. Loma Linda, by comparison, reads like an institutional system: a faith-based “alternative society” with an explicit doctrine about food, a medical-mission infrastructure, and (crucially) the ability to export its model through schools, hospitals, credentialing, and now branded programming. That’s not “bad”, but it’s just fundamentally different, and pretending they’re the same kind of phenomenon muddies the mechanism. 
The historical detail about Loma Linda’s origin as a purchased “mission field” is especially clarifying, because it makes the point that this isn’t an organic longevity culture that emerged from scarcity, but it’s a designed moral-health project. Once you see that, the later arc you trace (Blue Zones shifting from descriptive anthropology to prescriptive programming, then becoming intellectual property and a scalable accreditation product) feels less like a surprise and more like a predictable outcome of incentives. 
I also appreciated the restraint in the conclusion: you’re not arguing that Adventists can’t be healthy, or that community and purpose don’t matter. You’re arguing that “Blue Zone” has become a branded umbrella that can flatten wildly different causal stories into one exportable thread, often “eat less meat”, because that thread sells. The weave doesn’t.