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More research is always nice, but you can get a long way with the two words I learned as a biological anthropology undergrad: dietary diversity.

Eating well isn't rocket science. Eat a wide range of foods. Then you'll very likely hit all the things you need, and not take on harmful amounts of the things you don't. Plus you'll get to enjoy the variety along the way.

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As a physician I think the diversity hypothesis should really be challenged. Our guts, microbes, and even genes take a while to change. Is diversity really helpful or harmful?

When you study people that live to be very old, many of them eat the same simple things on a daily basis for decades.

Anyway, just a personal hypothesis...

As an interested layman, I've wondered about this myself. Ecosystems take a while to stabilize around local maxima. So, although diversity may prevent you from falling into any particular deficiency, it seems possible that a well balanced diet that remained stable over time would allow your flora to really dial in.

You could also be avoiding potentially harmful substances which a diverse diet might have exposed you to. That they lived into their 90s on the same diet they had in their 20's implies they skipped TV dinners, Aerosol Cheese and McDonalds along the way.

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