When I started the BTD, I did not ease into it. From day one I was totally committed. I had a lot to learn, but to the degree that I understood, I began immediately eating like a Type O. That meant giving up peanut butter, one of my favorite foods.

At the time, the natural foods market nearest my house carried almond butter for about 50% more than the cost of peanut butter. Almond butter was neutral, it was delicious, and worth the price. Several months later the store discontinued that brand and brought in organic almond butter for $13.59 a jar. Yikes. I'm sure it's good, but $13 almond butter is NOT in my budget.

So I switched to sesame butter. It's about twice the price of peanut butter. It is good, though not as good as almond butter. I've been dipping carrots and other veggies in sesame butter for more than a year.

Last week on the forum, someone wrote about making their own nut butter in a food processor. I was intrigued.

The natural foods market always has nuts and seeds on sale. Almonds were regular price this week, but pumpkin seeds were on sale for $2.99 a pound. Yesterday I made pumpkin seed butter. I put three cups of pumpkin seeds in the food processor and ground them as fine as I could, then I began drizzling in light olive oil. I didn't measure; I just drizzled until the pumpkin seeds were the consistency of peanut butter. The three cups I started with more than filled a peanut butter jar.

I dipped a carrot stick in the pumpkin butter. It was outstanding! It was so good that thinking about it just now as I wrote this blog made me hungry, so I stopped and had a carrot stick and pumpkin butter snack. The cost - about the same as natural peanut butter.

I'm excited about saving money, but I'm also excited about the variety. When almonds go on sale I can make almond butter. I could try walnut or pecan butter. There are so many choices.