At one point, to promote his favored vegetable, he hosted an all-carrot dinner, which began with carrot soup and proceeded through carrot mousse, carrot salad, pickled carrots, carrots au gratin, carrot loaf, and carrot ice cream, all washed down with glass after glass of carrot juice.

Ford also touted soybeans, cracked wheat, and buckwheat pancakes. He lived to be 83.

People have been obsessed with longevity for millennia, ever since it dawned on us that life has an unwelcome endpoint. In the Sumerian Epic of GilgameshSumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, which dates at least to 2,600 BCE, Gilgamesh braves lions, scorpion-men, and giants to find the source of eternal life. He finally does, in the shape of a thorny plant that