'Does my hair look alright?' World's oldest woman celebrates 117th birthday
The world's oldest woman has celebrated her 117th birthday and the secret to her longevity is simple - she eats two raw eggs every day.
Emma Morano is our last living link to the 19th century and marked the milestone with friends at her home in Verbania, a town in northern Italy.
Born November 29, 1899, her life has spanned three centuries, two World Wars and more than 90 Italian governments.
The oldest person alive dressed up for the occasion and demanded to know "does my hair look alright?" before having her photograph taken.
While her mind is alert, she is very deaf, speaks with difficulty and does not see well enough to watch television, spending her time instead either sleeping or snacking.
Mrs Morano is the eldest of eight children, has outlived all her younger siblings and knows that this landmark birthday will be an event to celebrate and that people are curious about her.
"People come. I don't invite anybody but they come. From America, Switzerland, Austria, Turin, Milan... They come from all over to see me," she said.
The Italian woman has also attributed her longevity to being single.
She left her violent husband in 1938 shortly after the death in infancy of her only son, she lived alone, working in a factory producing jute sacks to support herself.
Mrs Morano clung to her independence, only taking on a full-time carer last year, though she has not left her small two-room apartment for 20 years, and has been bed-bound for the last year.
No veggies, thanks
Mrs Morano has reached a ripe old age despite an extraordinarily tough life and following a diet that flouts almost every piece of established medical wisdom.
"I eat two eggs a day, and that's it. And cookies. But I do not eat much because I have no teeth," she told AFP in an interview last month.
She has long eschewed vegetables and her consumption of fruit is limited to the occasional handful of grapes or snacks of apple puree.
Her prodigious egg habit started when she was diagnosed with anaemia at 20 and a doctor told her to start eating two raw and one cooked every day: a habit she maintained until her appetite began to ebb slightly around the age of 110.
When she still had teeth, she was also fond of chomping chicken and lean raw steak.
Along with her fondness for pure protein, she has always had a sweet tooth meaning visitors were usually advised to come bearing gifts of Colomba, a cake rich in egg and butter that Italians associate with Easter, or Pannetone and Pandoro, traditional Christmas treats of a similar ilk.
Her doctor, Carlo Bava, suspects that Morano has thrived despite her unusual diet, not because of it.
"I think her secret is genetic. All of her family lived very a very long time," he said.
"The diet she has had would have destroyed the liver of most people. But with Emma, I think she could even eaten pebbles and she would still have lived a very long time.
"What might be more important is that she has always had a very strong strong character. It has always been her who decides what she does or doesn't do."
The town at the local theatre there will be a performance of music over three centuries in Mrs Morano's honour and also a preview of a romanticised biography called "The woman who saw three centuries".
Top news stories - November 30
