According to the oldest living person in Europe, the secret to long life is staying single and maintaining a diet that consists of raw eggs each day.

Born on Nov. 29, 1899, Emma Morano is the fifth oldest person in the world and one of the few people to have lived through three centuries.

During an interview with The New York Times, the 115-year-old Italian woman revealed her formula for longevity has been living as a single woman for the majority of her life and eating raw eggs. She said she began consuming three raw eggs per day when she was a teenager after a doctor recommended it to her to combat anemia. Now the supercentenarian eats two eggs per day.

Morano also credits staying single for her aging success. After ending an unhappy marriage in 1938, Morano choose never to remarry, although she continued to date other men.

"I didn't want to be dominated by anyone," she said.

Morano currently lives alone in a two-bedroom apartment in Verbania, Italy. Her niece and caregiver, Rosemarie Santoni, prepares her meals, which consist of ground meat, pasta and a banana, along with the eggs. A neighbor checks in with her from time to time, and she also she gets a monthly visit from her doctor, Carlo Bava, who says she is in good health.

"She's aware of the privilege of living," Dr. Bava said. "If all my patients were like this, I could have spent my days reading newspapers."

Morano also revealed she isn't the only person in her family to see old age. One of her sisters died at 99 years old, and another lived to 102.

Besides genetics, most gerontologists agree there is no one factor that contributes to longevity.

"You talk to 100 centenarians, you get 100 different stories," said Dr. Valter D. Longo, the director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California.

"We do know that the ability to make it to 110 is heritable, so you have a large increase in chance if you have several people in your family to live to a late age."