"Eating to 100" in Costa Rica

The breakfast Jose Bonifacio credits with helping him reach a healthy and happy 100 years old: rice, beans, eggs, tortillas and cheese. 

100-year-old Eulalia Mendoza credits God with her longevity, but she says she also has a little help from a friend who sneaks her an occasional beer from his nearby bar.

100-year-old Jose Bonifacio is one of the great cowboys of Guanacaste, Costa Rica. He still rides his horse every morning, is mentally sharp and doesn’t take supplements. 

Sisters Gioconda (left) and Anabelle Rangel(right) will cook 140 tortillas every day and sell them for 50 cents each. The tortillas are rich in niacin, a B vitamin that reduces colesterol and the risk of heart attack.

A tortilla made of ground-up whole corn, which is rich in a B vitamin that can reduce the risk of heart attacks. A town in the Nicoya Pennisula has built a statue honoring the women who make them.  

100-year-old Estanislao Suarez of Costa Rica’s Nicoya Pennisula. Suarez is one of the remarkable residents of Nicoya who seem to defy the limits of age. 

107-year-old Jose Pizarro still lives in the house he built 90 years ago on Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula.

100-year-old Jose Bonifacio with Dan Buettner, author of "The Blue Zones Solutions" and NBC's Maria Shriver. Buettner is on a mission to capture a way of eating that is disappearing.

100-year-old Eulalia Mendoza with Dan Buettner, Maria Shriver, and some of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great grandchidren and a great-great-great grandchild.

Jose Bonifacio and NBC's Maria Shriver. In Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, about 1 in 250 people live to 100, compared to 1 in 4,000 who make it to 100 in America.

For more photos from NBC's Jake Whitman, visit his Instagram @NBCJake.