At 110 years old, the Cuban Luis Sebastián Ortiz Marín continues to amaze everyone with his enviable vitality and memory; and he claims that his secret to living more than a century was eating flour, agoutis, and fish heads.
Interviewed by the official newspaper Escambray, the elderly man, originally from San Pedro, Sancti Spíritus, reveals that his life has been marked by hard work in the fields and a diet based on humble foods.
"For the amount of flour, jutía, and fish head that I've eaten in my life," says Ortiz Marín with a laugh, indicating that this simple combination of foods is the magic formula for living to 110 years.
Although his statement refers to a context of poverty prior to pre-revolutionary Cuba and the endless days of work in tobacco seedbeds and sugarcane fields; it has been viewed –according to the newspaper itself– "with astonishment" by local residents, who today don’t even have access to flour, the hutia, and much less fish.
Luis Sebastián, known as "the chief of San Pedro," fondly remembers working in the sugarcane when "either you worked or you starved," he assures.
In his youth, Ortiz Marín dedicated himself to cultivating tobacco, planting sugarcane, and later, making charcoal in the hills of Júcaro and Llana, always faithful to his trade as an agricultural worker.
Currently, Cuban families mostly live in extreme poverty. The island is experiencing an exodus of young people and its economically active population, while the government acknowledges that the only growing group is the elderly.
Last year, another centenarian from Sancti Spíritus named Cira Delia Vegas Pérez said that "luck" has been her only secret to reaching her venerable age.
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