In the village of two hundred and seven reported inhabitants where I currently call home, one of the local rum sellers recently told me the results of his independent and completely unscientific study. Quite convincingly since he neither smokes nor drinks, my experimenting bartending friend came to the conclusion that when it comes to the longevity of his fellow villagers, hands down, the non-drinking and non-smoking members of the community for the most part outlive the rest. As for those that drink and or smoke, his simple study revealed that the drinkers outlive the smokers.

Not so much a bartender as a pulperia market runner, my friend says that it's not the intoxicants that has many of the village drinkers living so much longer than the smokers. For that occurs in part due to the hard work, since the drinkers work hard but play hard whereas the smokers are a lazy sort, since they generally like to light up following a meal or to balance out the bitterness of an alcoholic drink. For years I personally used to smoke two packs a day which required lighting up each and every time I had a diet coke. That was my approach to the start of another new day

The local bar and pulperia owner tells me that the fittest of them all are the Palapa builders. For they exercise regularly, drink lots of water, and eat as much fruit, rice, beans and tortillas as they can possibly digest.

For digestion, my non-drinking, bartending, canned mackerel and baking soda salesman says, "The palapa builders eat a lot of the locally grown rice as well as corn with chunks raw cloves of garlic". To manage the bad breath that surly follows, when in season, the palapa builders include chopped cilantro in the preparation of each and every meal.

It should also be noted that the palapa builders my friendly store owner knows intimately all unanimously recommend using the remaining garlic from the branch in your boots to keep away the snakes in the bush. This of course comes in handy when the palapa builders tend their fields of corn or when they are out harvesting the leaves of bay palm leaf required for the thatched roof champa palapas.

No doubt, the palapa builders diet is one you can live or die by, wouldn't you say?