My Honorable Husband was asking questions today about Infrequent Neutrals. When he read the description of them in the Diabetes Health Library book, he didn’t see much difference between them and avoids. I tried to explain the difference, but he didn’t grasp it until he realized that dates were Infrequent Neutrals for him. He loves dates, and would much rather have them infrequently than not at all.

Every time Dr. D. writes a book the names of the food categories change just a little. Of them all, I think I like the Health Library names the best. The original three Eat Right 4 Your Type names were certainly the simplest. The Live Right 4 Your Type tier system was probably the most complex. There’s something about the word Toxin in the GenoType Diet that gives me the creeps. I know it’s psychological, but there’s a difference between eating a food that’s avoid and eating a toxin! And if I watch my family eat toxins at a restaurant, I feel like they are eating rat poison. That’s not a pretty picture.

I like the Health Library system that identifies certain beneficials that are exceptionally helpful for a particular disease as super beneficial. I like that many neutrals are in a category called “Neutral allowed frequently.” The name acknowledges that while it isn’t a food that acts like medicine, it does have important nutrients and it can be eaten often without guilt. Some neutrals are labeled” Neutral allowed infrequently. Those foods are not quite as bad as avoids, but really shouldn’t be eaten on a daily or weekly basis.

As I compare the categorization of different foods on the different diets, I’ve had trouble deciding what to do with apples, apricots, carrots, grapes, strawberries and tomatoes.

Apricots were neutral on the BTD, but on the Hunter diet they are a black dot avoid. However on the Gatherer diet they are beneficial. That tells me that it’s not a lectin issue. All four of the Health Library books I own have apricots as Infrequent Neutral. TYPEbase 4 doesn’t shed any light on the difficulty. However it’s pretty clear that Dr. D sees something in apricots that he doesn’t think is helpful to a Type O Hunter. So though I love apricots, and I know that they are jam packed with nutrients, I’m going to eat them infrequently.

I heard this quote from a guy named Stephen Davey. It made me chuckle, so I’ll share it with you. “You can’t teach American history and expound the virtues of our heritage, and at the same time teach evolution. Because you can’t have the same kid quoting ‘we have been endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights,’ and at the same time, 'we evolved from animals.' Some 5th grader is going to catch on and say, ‘Hey wait a second, which is it?’”