Suzanne Graham

No matter how good the BTD is, it cannot cancel out the normal aging process. I see this in myself as I struggle to maintain my muscle tone in my 50s. I see it even more dramatically as my 93 year old mother tries to regain movement in her right side after her stroke.

DD does a morning Bible Study from a book by Sarah Young called Jesus Calling. The author quotes scripture passages, and then paraphrases as if Jesus were talking in first person. I’m conservative about how people translate the Word of God, and am normally suspicious of personalized translations. But DD sends me excerpts that mean a lot to her, and I have to admit that Sarah has done an excellent job in her book.

DD sent me an excerpt this morning with a note that it had depressed her. That is because she is 20 years old, and thinks that she will always have the beautiful body she has now. I read the same passage and am greatly encouraged. Life on earth is a prelude to a far greater life in Heaven with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A life where there is no more pain, no more sorrow, and no more aging.

I follow the BTD, NOT to live forever here on earth. Who would want to do that? I follow the BTD so that I can live the most energetic and productive life here that I can. But truly abundant life – that is still to come.

Here is the quote that depressed DD and energized me.

“I am your living God, far more abundantly alive than the most vivacious person you know. The human body is wonderfully crafted, but gravity and the evitable effects of aging weight it down. Even the most superb athlete cannot maintain his fitness over many decades. Lasting abundant life can be found in Me alone. Do not be anxious about the weakness of your body. Instead, view it as the prelude to My energy’s infusing into your being. As you identify more and more fully with Me, My Life becomes increasingly intertwined with yours. Though the process of again continues, inwardly you grow stronger with the passing years. Those who live close to Me develop an inner aliveness that makes them seem youthful in spite of their years. Let My Life shine through you, as you walk in the Light with Me.”

I like having DD home for the summer for many reasons. One of them is having an exercise partner. She is a planner. I am spontaneous. She plans our exercise for the week. I come up with alternates when something happens to throw the plan off.

One of our new exercise routines this summer is what we call 20-20. There is a walking path near the swimming pool in our neighborhood. It is a ¾ mile loop that goes down a hill, by a fish pond, and back up to the top of the hill. DD and I run the loop for 20 minutes, then jump in the pool and swim for 20 minutes. We have to start early. The neighborhood kids start arriving at the pool about 10:30, and it’s hard to swim laps when they are splashing.

The board of our neighborhood association decided to upgrade the equipment in the fitness room. They bought a new elliptical trainer and a new treadmill. They also got two different types of stationary bicycles that target different muscles, plus they bought a really nice weight machine. When DD and I go to the fitness room, one of us uses the weight machine for 20-30 minutes, while the other does cardio on one of the other machines. Then we switch. I’m seeing some nice results in the muscle tone on my arms.

Not too many people used the old equipment, but more and more neighbors are taking advantage of the fitness room now that we have good machines. Yesterday I was on the elliptical and DD was lifting weights. Another lady came in and chose the treadmill. A few minutes later a fourth lady arrived. She evidently saw that one of us was using the equipment she wanted because she left, saying she’d come back later.

We ride our bikes at least one day a week after dinner. It’s starting to cool off by then, and we have the added bonus of watching a sunset change colors as we ride home.

God, in the Bible, often uses physical principles to make a spiritual point. For instance there are many verses about endurance and stamina. Those verses encourage me when I exercise. They keep me pressing on when I’m tired and would rather take it easy. But while God commends my efforts to strengthen my body, the higher meaning of those verses is to strengthen my character and my faith.

Today I read a verse in proverbs about food choices. “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil. But a foolish man devours all he has.” That is Proverbs 21:20. I first thought of the BTD when I read it. Doesn’t it perfectly describe modern society? When I shop if I buy only choice, healthy foods, my family and I will eat wisely. But if I bring junk foods and avoids into my home, stress may overcome me and I may devour everything in sight.

The spiritual principle is also there. Just as I don’t want to make leave myself vulnerable to making poor food decisions in the kitchen when I am hungry or needing comfort, I don’t want to ignore God until a crisis strikes, and then cry out for help.

Just as I want to make wise and beneficial food decisions ahead of time at the grocery store, I want to develop a relationship with God and absorb His teachings ahead of time so that in a crisis I understand His will.

Our church had a brunch between Bible Study and Worship on Easter Sunday. The lady who was planning it told me she had an oversupply of desserts, so I said I would bring stuffed eggs. That was a challenge, because sometimes my hard boiled eggs turn out perfect, but sometimes I can’t get the shell off without tearing the egg to pieces.

I went to the internet, read at least 10 recipes, and watched several You Tube videos. Each said theirs was the perfect way to cook hard boiled eggs, but each was different. I was cooking eggs for my church – I had wanted a consensus.

First I looked for points of agreement. They all agreed that using old eggs was better than using fresh eggs. I didn’t know that. I had 8 eggs in the fridge that were 2 weeks old, and a dozen that I had just bought. The statement about old eggs being easier to peel was true. I could identify the 8 old eggs as I was peeling them. Two sites said that adding a teaspoon of baking soda to the water changed the ph and made eggs easier to peel. I did this, and I think it helped, because even the fresh eggs peeled better than I expected.

Most sites said to put the eggs in tap water, and then turn on the heat. Two sites said put the eggs in boiling water. I went with the majority opinion. The temperature and cooking time varied a lot. I followed the recipe that said not to bring the eggs to a rolling boil, but to keep the temperature at a simmer where little bubbles were steadily coming up from the bottom of the pan. I cooked my eggs uncovered for 12 minutes after they started to boil.

Some sites said rinse the eggs in cold water; some said immerse them in ice water. I usually rinse in cold water, so this time I lifted the eggs out with a slotted spoon and quickly put them in ice water.

The most intriguing way to peel eggs was to take off a little bit of shell on both ends, and blow the egg out of the shell. I did not try this. I was preparing food for a church brunch, and I expected other cooks to use safe and sanitary methods. Blowing eggs will have to wait for a time when I’m cooking them only for myself.

The most common way to peel eggs was to roll them on the counter. I watched You Tube cooks get perfect eggs this way. It didn’t work for me. The eggs were peeling better than usual, but enough shell was sticking to leave indentations in the eggs. Still intrigued by the egg blowing technique, I removed a little bit of shell from both ends, and then held the egg under cool running water. There wasn’t enough pressure to push the egg out of the shell, but the water did seem to run under the membrane, and peeling was much easier.

Whether it was the 12 minute cooking time or the ice water bath, I don’t know, but there wasn’t a hint of gray or green on the yolks. They were a beautiful yellow. Pre-BTD I used a prepared dressing for stuffed eggs. This time I used half mayonnaise, half mustard, both made from neutral ingredients.

I liked the way they turned out – but would the church members? Indeed they did. I hardly brought any left overs home.

An Easter brunch is a great time of fellowship, but an Easter sermon should point us to the Savior. Here is a taste of what I heard last week – People will say some nice things about God. They may even show up in a church service and go through pious platitudes. They are comfortable talking about our culture, our country and our world. Everything will be ok as long as God doesn’t get pushy. As long as God doesn’t demand ownership, everything will be fine. Man would rather worship nature, a moral code, or himself (I can be a god) than face the all powerful creator-father God.

I’m reading a fascinating book called “The Screwtape Letters.” The author talked about the Blood Type Diet in the chapter I read this morning, though he couldn’t have known it, since the book was first published in 1942.

He started by recognizing that God has built into us natural desires which are good because they make life pleasant and possible. We need to eat; we long for friendships, and we appreciate beauty. One of the tactics of the devil is to take that innocent enjoyment and exaggerate it until it becomes perverse and harmful. An obvious example is how the natural desire for intimacy in marriage has been twisted so much that it has led to infidelity and immorality.

God made us so that change is pleasant. We enjoy the differences in the seasons, the diversity of personalities, and the thrill of travel. We also enjoy variety in the food that we eat.

The author grabbed my attention when he began to use food as an example. God never intended food to become an end in itself, he said. When it does, it can become the sin of gluttony on one end or an eating disorder on the other. This was particularly interesting to me, and as I thought about it, I expanded it, adding some of my own conclusions.

God himself built variety into food making it sweet, salty, sour, or bitter. Then he added all of the distinctions that fragrance add to taste. This is good, but where there is something good, there is fodder for the devil.

Sugar, and the sweetness it gives, is pleasing to the taste, but modern transportation and food processing have led to sugar addictions. We have an insatiable desire for sugar that, if it is unchecked, leads to disease. The same holds true for salt and fat.

Because our bodies are different, a food may be good for some, but bad for others. The beneficial and neutral food lists are long and filled with diversity. Yet how often do I read about unhappy Type Os who can’t make themselves give up wheat, or disappointed Type As who think giving up shrimp is unfair.

The author writes, “The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the law of diminishing returns.”

The quest for a new recipe can be good, and a new combination of tastes is exciting. But as I look at commercials for food products and restaurants I see what the author is talking about – an insatiable desire for change. On the Forum (and even around my on dinner table) I hear that food is boring.

I have examined myself this morning, asking to what degree has my innocent enjoyment of change been converted it into a demand to constantly have something new. Am I satisfied with the bounty that God has provided, or do I let my mind wander into the areas that are forbidden fruits? Am I contented or complaining? The honest answer, of course, is a little of both. The revelation to me is that to the degree that I am complaining, I am allowing my enemy to manipulate my mind and distract me from the goodness of God.

March 26, 2004 I posted my very first blog. We had just come home from my husband’s father’s funeral. I wasn’t sure what people would think of me for blogging about food at a funeral. But the dilemma of how to follow the BTD when I’m in the home of friends or relatives was a big issue to me at the time.

I started the BTD in June 2003, so I hadn’t even been on the diet a year when I started blogging. You have watched me grow and struggle and figure out how to make this diet work in my family. One of the reasons I like blogging is that it keeps me accountable. I believe that if my blog is to be interesting, I have to be transparent. I don’t mind writing about my failures, but it’s so much more fun to write about success. I’ll admit that there have been moments when I have walked away from an avoid just so I didn’t have to fess up on the internet.

I enjoy getting comments and I write back when I can. When we were moving I got hopelessly behind, and some of the e-mails I received during that time never got answered. I especially enjoy knowing when I have encouraged someone. The most amusing comments assume that I know Dr. D’Adamo and have some influence over him. People seem to think that I can fix a perceived conflict in the books, or correct a problem with the website. Ok, here’s the truth. I have never met Dr. D. I have never even talked to him on the phone. We’ve e-mailed maybe 10 times in five years of blogging. Someday perhaps I will get to meet him. It would be fun to attend one of his conferences.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever run out of things to blog about. Then I go to the dentist’s office and get an ear full about controversial fillings or I start to plan a menu for DD’s Type A roommate who is coming home with her. As long as everyday life is an adventure, blog topics are infinite.

Everything about my life, including the BTD and the blog, is interwoven with my Christian faith. Urging Christians to seek good health through the marvelous and unique way God created us is the motivation behind my blogging. I can remember 30 years ago when any interest in Health Food or nutrition was associated almost exclusively with the more liberal and free thinking elements of society. There was a time when people raised their eyebrows if I asked for brown rice or preservative free meat. That has changed a lot in recent years. Nutrition is much more mainstream. But I still find people at church to be suspicious of the health culture, and they really shy away when blood types are introduced into the conversation. I’m glad when something I say encourages anyone, but I’m particularly happy when I play a tiny part in opening cautious conservative eyes to the truth that God has given them tools to be more proactive in their health.

Personally, I don’t understand their fears. God, who created the world and all of the creatures in it, created our bodies. It seems logical to me that the closer I eat food to the way that He made it, the healthier I will be. The more I understand how my body works, the better prospect I have of an active and productive life. I want my mind alert so that I can study the Bible. I want to feel good so that I can serve others. I don’t want to waste money on medical care, and I don’t want to waste time in a doctor’s office. Of all the diets I have tried (and I tried a lot) the BTD has worked the best and the most consistently.

Two things about blogging give me a thrill. The first is when I get to encourage someone in the Christian Community to build their health. The second is when I can encourage someone in the Health Community to know Jesus Christ. The first five years have been fun, and I’m excited about the future.

We’ve eaten out quite a bit this week. When I first started the BTD, I thought that my Type As were lucky in restaurants. It seemed to me that everything was so wheat oriented, that they could always find something to eat, where Type Os were limited. As I have watched DD discover, that while wheat is neutral for As, they Type A diet is really plant rather than grain based, I’ve realized that restaurants are kinder to Type Os.

Last Saturday I met a college girlfriend for lunch. We went to a French restaurant, and I thought I’d be in big trouble. How wrong I was! The rosemary chicken was fabulous, and it was accompanied by green beans and broccoli. I was as Type O compliant as I would have been at home. Saturday night HH and I met a couple we’ve known for more than 20 years for dinner at a really cute Western café. I had chopped steak topped with onions, okra, and green beans. HH couldn’t find anything truly beneficial on the menu. He settled on grilled catfish.

Yesterday HH was on a business trip. Again he found himself at a restaurant where the Type A choices were really limited. In a restaurant Type Os can always order a sandwich & salad and throw away the bread. Type As, looking for beneficial fish or high quality vegetable protein, often have fewer choices.

DD is flourishing. She is a Marketing major and she has a new job in the Marketing department at her university. She is learning some new computer programs, and loves the work. Her slow but steady weight gain pleases us both. The root of her eating disorder was a spiritual one, and as she deals with the spiritual issues, she is seeing success. Here is an excerpt from an e-mail I received from her this morning. It starts with a paragraph from a book she is reading.

“Strive to trust God in more and more areas of your life. Anything that tends to make you anxious is a growth opportunity. Instead of running away from these challenges, embrace them, eager to gain all the blessings hidden in the difficulties. Don’t waste energy regretting the way things are or thinking about what might have been. Start at the present moment—accepting things exactly as they are—and search for God’s way in the midst of those circumstances.”

DD added, “Nothing I say can add to the sting of that one.”

DD has gone back to her university full of hope and enthusiasm. She has had several bits of really good news, and she said, “Mom, you need to blog about this.” I thought about several Type As who have written on the Forum that they wish they could gain weight. I thought about several others who deal with thyroid problems. I said, “DD, why don’t you write about it from your perspective. Your experience could be an encouragement to someone.” So today’s blog is from my Darling Daughter.

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As Marvelous Mom has blogged, I have been struggling with gaining back weight. My “Daring Experiment,” seems to be working, and I am getting close to what my weight was a year ago. I have two more pounds to gain. Then, I can level off for a while and see if my hormones will start up again. My new diet was very easy to stay on while at home for Christmas break. I was slightly worried about going to back to school though. I brought a blender back with me to make my tasty soy shakes.

The second day I was back at school, I suddenly dropped two pounds. It scared me. I began to think that the weight gain had been a fluke and that my experiment had failed. I continued to plunge ahead with the plan—eating mini-meals every 2-3 hours and emphasizing egg white protein and vegetable proteins like nuts, nut butters, and soy.

I get fresh veggies from the University dining hall every day. They have an excellent salad bar that is quite accommodating for my new eating habits. My fellow students do not think that I am eating enough—since they just see me eating fruit for breakfast, salad for lunch, and a nut butter soy shake for dinner. However, they just do not understand that I am literally eating ALL day long. I am sure that my roommate finds it strange that I drink a shake for dinner (she is much too sweet to say anything though).

The next day, after my scare, my weight was up a little, and the day after that, I was back to where I had been when I left home. My morning temperature has been in the low 98s three of the last five days, which is a huge improvement. Then I got the best news - the doctor’s office called Friday to say that my latest lab report showed my thyroid is within the normal range. I was so excited. I had a lump of happiness swell up in my throat. I immediately e-mailed my Sunday School teacher and told her of all the AMAZING and unexpected blessings that God had showered down upon me. Who would have thought that having my wisdom teeth extracted would lead to weight gain, which led to a diet breakthrough, which led to my thyroid going back to normal?!?!?!

As much as I have learned this past year about my physical, as well as spiritual, weaknesses and strengths, I ought not be worried about my weight gain. I know with all of my heart that God is going to take care of me. He has said so in so many ways—especially through this new diet.

I found this verse in my daily Bible study: Deuteronomy 8:3
He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Prior to Christmas break, I was eating meat in an attempt to gain weight. I have never liked the way a whole serving of meat makes me feel. Forcing myself to eat 3 ounces of meat was very stressful, and I looked for any excuse to cut back. I knew I could gain weight by eating more bread and grains, but that's how I ended up with an unattractive kind of fat. While I can admit that I lost too much weight, if I have to gain it back, I want to gain muscle, not lumpy fat.

It was not until I came before the Lord desperate for His answer to my problem, that I finally began to see that I needed soy, egg white, and vegetable protein to gain healthy weight, nourish my thyroid, and feel better all the way around.

I'm searching for some positive things to say about spending the past two days at the hospital. One of them is that hospital food has really improved.

My Dad has never gotten over the UTI that he had last summer. His doctor has tried several antibiotics for drug resistant bacteria. Each time Dad finished a course of antibiotics, they waited a week and did another urine test. He would e-mail saying, "I failed another test," and back on antibiotics he would go. When he failed the last test, I called his doctor and said I thought he should see a urologist. He had an appointment for the first Wednesday in December.

When we left their house on Saturday after Thanksgiving, he was happily waving good bye. Saturday night he sent me an e-mail detailing things we had accomplished on our Thanksgiving visit and making plans for the Wednesday appointment. Sunday morning my Mom called to say she could not get him to wake up. EMS took him to the hospital, and I grabbed my bags and started for their house. During the night the UTI had exploded into a full body infection. He was dealing with pneumonia, kidney failure, and a possible heart attack.

He is a critically ill man. I have had to talk with the doctors about his "directive to physicians." I have to walk a fine line between having my Mom at the hospital to see him during the brief ICU visiting periods, and making sure she gets enough rest so that she doesn't get sick herself.

In high stress situations, I ask myself two questions: What is God trying to teach me? and Where are the hidden blessings? I've found two of the latter. One is a big improvement in hospital food. Vending machines have bottled water and juice not just soda. The snack machines are still filled with things I can't eat because they are made with wheat and peanuts, but at least I can get something to drink. Today Mom and I went to the cafeteria for lunch. I wasn't expecting much, but she has knee and leg issues and walks with a cane. It was a much shorter walk to the concourse than it was to the parking garage.

We had a delicious and healthy lunch. I had grilled tilapia with onions and red peppers. For side dishes I had green beans, zucchini, and carrots. The green beans were fresh and cooked to perfection. This is not the bland, overcooked, mushy food that hospitals used to serve. If I hadn't known better I would have thought I was in an upscale restaurant.

The second hidden blessing is that I am truly thankful I have not found a job yet. It leaves me free to stay with Mom and Dad while they need me. If I had found the perfect job a month ago, I would now be negotiating for time off and wishing I could be two places at once. As always, God's timing is perfect.

I don't know if Dad will recover. It depends first on whether they can find drugs to knock out a very resistant bacteria and second on whether his heart, lungs and kidneys can recover from the damage done by the infection. We wait.

My husband and I are making progress. DD read my blog and Chanur’s comment. She e-mailed recipes and helpful suggestions. The theme of her e-mail was “Take care of my Dad, I want him to be healthy.”

One night he apologized for his bad attitude. He said, “If I have to choose between good taste and good health, then good health is a slam dunk.”

If you want to know the truth, I’m sympathetic to his plight. First of all, he has no sense of smell. Maybe it is genetic, or maybe it is because he has had sinus trouble most of his life. But most food has no flavor for him. That is why he likes pepper and vinegar, even though they are avoid. He can taste them. That is why he would rather have cheddar cheese than tofu. Unless a food has a strong or distinct flavor, to him it “tastes like cardboard.”

I’m also sympathetic because I’m the one who has changed – not him. When he married me I knew nothing about nutrition and could have cared less. I was a typical American cooking lots of desserts and serving white bread at every meal…you get the picture. Just before our first anniversary, I read my first health food book, and changed our way of eating overnight. Then five years ago I found the BTD and changed everything all over again.

It’s sort of like when two secular people get married, then one of them accepts Christ as savior. While I will pray fervently along with the new Christian that his/her spouse will also receive Christ - I do sympathize (just a little) with the spouse. He (or she) was content being a heathen. He married someone like him – who liked to party, or sleep late on Sunday, or whatever. Now he is under pressure to change, to give up bad habits, to surrender his life to God, to go to Bible study instead of clubs. I know he will be better off, both now and in eternity, if he becomes a Christian, but I can see that from his perspective it’s not fair that his marriage has been upended.

When HH & I married we were both unhealthy Christians. I changed, and I’ve been dragging him along ever since. I can’t blame him when occasionally he rebels or digs in his heels.

Here is the new plan. I’m going to set things up so that he can make his own casseroles. I’m going to fix a grain or a noodle dish (which I usually won’t eat). I’m also going to fix a meat (fish or turkey) and several vegetables. He is going to mix what he wants in a bowl. I’ll have some kind of beneficial or neutral sauce to go on top. He thinks this will work. I think it will work too.

Pardon me if this is a bit of a solemn blog. You don’t spend nearly two weeks nursing someone you love back from the brink of disaster without a lot of introspection.

It is hard to see a once vigorous man – one who used to effortlessly toss me in the air and catch me – one who loved to climb mountains and ride horses – unable to sit up in bed or stand in a walker.

It forces me to face the reality that we live in a fallen world (Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight. Genesis 6:11) and we are all heading toward death (For the wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23).

Our culture glorifies life and youth. We fill magazines with pictures of healthy, happy youngsters. We watch movies of people living immoral lives and practicing all kinds of unhealthy habits without any consequence. It’s a lie.

We are all aging. The earth is decaying. Everything in this world is moving toward death. The Bible predicts it, and when you spend a while in a sick room, the truth slaps you in the face.

One day a friend was going pretty hard on my Dad and other elderly people who stop taking medication. “Wait a minute,” I said. “I follow a pretty weird and restrictive diet so that I don’t have to take medication every day. When the BTD worked, I didn’t talk to my doctor. I stopped the medication that was no longer needed.”

Later, as I thought back over my own words, I asked myself, “Why do I stay with the BTD?” It’s certainly not an easy diet, though it’s also not as hard as it seems for the first month. I don’t do the BTD, thinking that I will live forever. That won’t happen, and I know it. I’m not even sure I would want to live to some extreme old age. It would get pretty lonely when all my family and friends were gone.

I stay with the BTD because I want to be active, productive, and independent for as many years as God gives me. I don’t want to slowly decline to a point where I can’t move and I can’t think. I don’t want to be on prescription drugs, if there is a way I can have the same results naturally. I believe that the BTD gives me the best chance to stay healthy and energetic.

I quoted the first half of Romans 6:23. It sounds pretty bleak. It is the 2nd half of the verse that brings hope: but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. My Dad and Mom are declining because this is a fallen world. But because of their faith in Jesus Christ they have hope. They will have new resurrected bodies where there will be no more disease or sorrow. (There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Revelation 21:4). Best of all, I know I will see them again. Until then, I count out vitamins for their daily pill boxes, and I eat right for my type. We want to live for God as long as he leaves us on this earth. But as recent days have reminded me; this is just a temporary home.

The pastor of our church is a cycling enthusiast. He keeps himself fit, and watches his sugar intake. Beyond that I don’t think he is a fanatic about nutritional things, and I don’t sense he is aware of the Blood Type Diet. However he made a point in his sermon Sunday that was very applicable to the BTD.

He has been preaching a series on the 10 commandments. This week was on the 6th commandment – Thou shalt not kill – or more literally translated – you shall not murder. He started off by saying that he wasn’t going to limit his sermon to homicide, because as far as he knew no one in our church had committed that crime. He said he wanted to get us thinking about other ways that we may take a life.

It wasn’t the liberal cliché type of things like capital punishment and self defense. Those are clearly allowed in the Bible.

He said that emotional sins like anger and bitterness, which shorten our lives, violate the 6th commandment. Ouch! A guy cut me off in traffic today and my temper flared. I would never have thought of that as a violation of the 10 commandments, but I see his point. Stress and lack of sleep also contribute to disease which take many lives prematurely.

I would have expected him to mention smoking and drinking – after all this is a Baptist church. But he barely mentioned those two habits. Instead he focused on gluttony, which, he said, progressively kills us.

So to the degree that I know what food is good for me, but I willfully choose to eat junk, I am slowly killing myself. If my lack of will lets me drift with the flow of popular, but nutritionally worthless foods, I am guilty of my own murder.

Sometimes the BTD becomes about ME – my health, my energy level, my quality of life. But it’s really much more than that. God made me for a purpose. I need to take care of the body He gave me, so I can serve Him effectively.

I have blogged several times that beets are not my favorite vegetable. I love beet greens, but could easily pass on beets. Sometimes I've eaten the beet greens and juiced the beets. Sometimes I've cooked the beets for HH, who likes beets.

Because beets are super beneficial for teachers, DD wanted to try them. Beets are neutral for Hunters and Type Os, however, they are beneficial on the Type O Aging diet in the D'Adamo Health Library. I agreed to try them again with an open mind.

While I was cooking the beets, I asked DD to look in the BTD Recipes and see what she could find about seasoning beets. DD said that she had been thinking about them, and that she thought we could season them with ghee and honey.

I took one bite and said, "These are great beets!" Both DD and I liked the honey flavor. HH, I confess, prefers regular beets with more of a vinaigrette dressing. I do not think it would work to combine the flavors. However, it would be easy enough to cook beets and serve them with two separate toppings.