On the Blood Type Diet, there are no beneficial grains for Type Os. That led me to be virtually grain free for quite a while…which was a bad decision…but one I've dealt with in other blogs. The GenoType diet does have beneficial grains for Hunters and Gatherers, and I make sure I have one or more servings a day of brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat, or millet.

One of the beneficial Type O grains is teff. I had never seen it in a store and never heard of anyone eating it until today.

Our Strong Son invited us to meet him in Austin for lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant called Aster's. I was ready for a food adventure, but my Honorable Husband was extremely skeptical. Aster's has a buffet for Sunday lunch that is very reasonably priced. I love buffets at international restaurants because I can sample a lot of different foods.

SS told us that instead of using silverware, we were supposed to tear off bits of bread and pick up our food with the bread. Our server must have known we were new to this, because he brought us forks. I filled my plate with delicious smelling vegetables and meats. I resolved to eat with a fork - because when I hear "bread," I think "wheat."

I had three different meat dishes. One was very spicy, but the other two were wonderful. I also got Atakelt Wott (cabbage, green beans, carrots, onions, garlic, and ginger, in a turmeric sauce) and Gomen (collard greens cooked with onion, garlic, and spices). I have got to google a recipe for Gomen. It was categorically the best collard greens I've ever eaten.

SS filed his Dad's plate with salad, rice, and some vegetarian lentil dishes. And he gave his Dad a piece of Ethiopian bread, which looks like a brown tortilla.

We were all eating, and enjoying our food, when someone picked up a card on the table that told about the bread, which is called Injera. It's not made of wheat. It's made of Teff. When I heard that, I had to try it, and I liked it. So I began to eat my meat Ethiopian style, picking it up with the bread.

The card referred to a website - teffco.com¸ where you can order Teff in the United States, and the price seems reasonable. I think I'm going to order their sample pack so I can try both the grain and the flour.

In my earliest memories, my family ate eggs for breakfast. Sometimes we had them with bacon, sometimes with cheese, sometimes with biscuits. We all liked eggs. Then there came a day in the 60s when my Aunt Cora got a devastating medical test report. Her cholesterol was high. "Through the ceiling," my mother said. This was before medication was routinely prescribed for high cholesterol. The doctor said she was headed for certain death if she did not change her diet. The first thing that had to go was eggs. She stopped eating eggs. Stopped eating meat. Stopped eating shrimp. Her cholesterol stayed high. I'm guessing it was because of all the margarine we were eating in the 60's, but that's a different story. She never did get her cholesterol under control and she lived to be 2 months short of 90 years old. Except for her last year, she was active and mentally sharp.

The effect on the family was that we didn't eat eggs for breakfast anymore. Instead we had cinnamon toast, donuts, cereal, and honey buns. This was supposed to be healthier than eggs. Arrgh...perhaps this explains why I don't trust anything the establishment says about health.

After four decades of denigrating eggs, now they are back in style. Here are quotes from a recent article about a study from Surrey University that says eating eggs for breakfast can help you lose weight.

"Eggs keep one fuller for longer compared with other common breakfast foods, and are also better for people who want to resist afternoon snacks on biscuits, cake or chocolate," according to the researchers.

Prof Bruce Griffin, said: "This study provides yet more evidence that eating eggs at breakfast can help keep us feeling fuller for longer and may help people to eat less at subsequent meals, thus helping with weight loss."

The article refers to "the growing body of evidence to support eggs as a key ingredient of weight loss diets." It refers to a previous study that found that women who ate an egg for breakfast felt fuller and had less desire to eat other foods for the next 24 hours compared to those who ate a bagel (a breakfast of equal calories).

I'm not trying to lose weight. Thanks to the BTD, my weight has been stable at an attractive and healthy level for nine years.

However - I do have a sensitive digestive system and in the first year after the publication of the GenoType diet Dr. D wrote " Hunter: To help heal and regenerate your digestive tract, aim to eat seven to nine eggs a week" Again Dr. D was ahead of the establishment research studies.

I'm so far out of the habit of eating eggs for breakfast, that I'm not sure I could every go back. However, one of my favorite suppers is an egg and spinach frittata with a sweet potato on the side. I have this combination at least once a week.

Several months ago I read about someone on the Forum who was trying to determine their GenoType, so they asked their dentist about Carabelli’s cusp and incisor shoveling. I thought this was a great idea, and made a note to ask my own dentist at my next appointment.

Yesterday was the day. My dentist says that virtually everyone has a Carabelli’s cusp. Some people’s are very prominent, others are very faint, more the hint of a ridge than a cusp. Often the size of the cusp varies from one first molar to another. He was giving me a lot of detail about people groups. The GTD had asked yes or no to Carabelli’s cusp, so this was not helping.

I changed my question, and said, “On a scale of 1-10, how prominent are my Carabelli’s cusps?” He looks for a while with his mirror, and said that I would be a 6.

Next I asked about incisor shoveling. Again he said that it’s not a matter of whether you have it, but a matter of how much. We applied the scale again, and he said I had slightly less shoveling than average. He gave me a 4.

Overall the results were disappointing. I have never been completely confident about my GenoType because my significant fingers are virtually the same length. Now I find out that these other two indicators are less of a yes/no and more of a degree. Again I fall right in the middle of the scale.

So I’ll stick with the Blood Type Diet, tweaking certain foods based on the two GenoTypes that I might be.

The dentist had one parting comment. “You need to eat more sugar,” he said, in his dry humorous way. “If all of my patients ate as healthy as you do, I wouldn’t be able to make a living.”

I am afraid I have been guilty of perpetuating what Dr. D, in one of his recent blogs, accused his detractors of saying

Here is his quote:
"(They say) the diets are dangerous. This statement is usually proffered by experts concerned that, by restricting certain foods by blood type, people will develop nutrient deficiencies. However, each diet variant (A, O, etc.) is a carefully engineered balance of foods that ensures full nutritional value."

When I started the BTD and got wheat and milk out of my diet, the improvement in my health was immediate, dramatic and permanent. Like most newbies, in had an insatiable desire to learn more. I began to read in the columns and later in blogs and on the Forum, that many Type Os were virtually grain free. Since there were no beneficial grains for Type Os, (except manna bread, which is more of a product than a grain) I decided to try it.

It seemed to work. I had a little rice bran in my breakfast mix, and on most days that was all the grain I ate for eight years. I felt good, my weight was stable, I had lots of energy, my immune system was working. This appeared to be the way for me to go. I have blogged about this many times and have encouraged other Type Os to do the same. Shame on me!

After my colonoscopy last summer which found two polyps, one of them the precancerous type, I wrote a blog about reevaluating my diet. Susana sent me this quote from Dr D.

"Grain and legumes are about the only sources of phytates, which are anti-oxidant mineral chelators. There are pros and cons to phytates (some people would argue that they block mineral absorption) but they do have fairly potent anti-cancer effects in the colon, which in the case of GT1 Hunters is a bit of an Achilles heal."

Since then I have been adding grain back into my diet. I compared the grains that were neutral on the BTD with the grains on the GTD that are beneficial for either Hunters or Gathers. Those are the grains I am focused on.

I am pleased to say that my weight has not increased with the additional grain. The only change I have noticed is that the craving I had for nuts is diminished. This has let me get my nut portions more in line with Type O recommendations.

I plan to go back through my blogs and edit out all references to grain free. And if I see references on the Forum advising Type Os to be grain free, I will counter them as adamantly as I do references to avoiding neutrals.

As Dr. D said in his quote at the beginning of this blog.
“each diet variant (A, O, etc.) is a carefully engineered balance of foods that ensures full nutritional value."

We had two delightfully uneventful travel days. No bad weather, no car trouble, no problems with reservations. The worst difficulty was that wifi at the hotel the first night didn’t work, so I am late posting this blog. I am thankful to God for His travel mercies!

We had a Fitness Room in one of our hotels. The equipment was really nice and I got in a much needed workout after a long day sitting in the car. One wall of the room was a ceiling to floor mirror. As I ran on elliptical machine, I watched myself in the mirror. I was confronted again with how I appear to be a combination of Hunter and Gatherer. The top half of me looks like a Hunter. I am sinewy, bony, and angular. But the bottom half of me is just the opposite. I look like a Gatherer. There is just no denying when I'm in running shorts that I'm well padded on my legs and thighs.

I thought I had put this conflict with the GTD out of my mind, but I’m revisiting everything since finding the two polyps. Someone posted a great idea on the Forum about asking their dentist to clarify about Carabelli's cusp and incisor shoveling. I’ve made a note on my calendar to do that at my next dentist appointment.

As we drove through New Mexico, we saw a record number of antelope. HH and I laughed as we remembered an early vacation when DD called them cantaloupe. We sent her a text, and she texted back warning us to stay away from Colorado cantaloupe because of the listeria problems. I guess we can’t order fruit salad as a side dish without checking whether it contains cantaloupe.

We asked at our hotel in Manitou Springs where we could get a meal with meat and vegetables. They recommended the Mason Jar. We were happy with a good and BTD friendly dinner. Today the weather is good, so we are going up Pike’s Peak.

I have blogged at other times about my journey from totally unhealthy eating, to being a health food nut, to the Blood Type Diet. One of the books that had an impact on my health food stage was Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Nutrition by David Reuben. His father died of colon cancer and he wanted to protect himself from that disease. His research said a high fiber diet was the best way to do that. He introduced me to bran and wheat germ which I ate for years. While his plan kept my bowels moving, the wheat worked against me as a Type O, and eventually led to indigestion.

When I started the BTD in 2003 I had to find alternate fibers to avoid constipation. I knew that colon cancer and colon polyps were also part of my genetic history. I applied Reuben’s high fiber research to the BTD.

I had my first colonoscopy in 2005. While the experience was terrible, the results were excellent. No polyps.

When I had my 2nd colonoscopy this year, I expected good results again. I did not expect two polyps, and I sure didn’t expect one of them to be pre cancerous.

I left the clinic with diet recommendations from the doctor. Since then I have been looking at his recommendations, the Blood Type Diet, the GenoType Diet, and Dr. D’s Cancer Prevention book.

The diet from colon doctor says that while fiber is important for other colon conditions – it doesn’t help polyps. Here is his list of things to do to reduce polyp formation.
* Reduce red meat intake to only 2 times a week or less.
* Eat more fruits and vegetables
* Calcium supplementation 1,200 mg per day
* Selenium
* Don’t smoke
* Be physically active.
* Maintain normal weight
* Take one baby aspirin a day.
* Study results on alcohol are mixed. Some studies show alcohol increases colon cancer, other studies show red wine may reduce cancer risks.

I already do most of what is on list yet my colon health declined. Why?

I eat more fruit & vegetables than I did before the BTD. I take more calcium than is recommended. I get selenium in my multiple vitamin, plus I eat many selenium containing foods. I have never smoked. I exercise 5-6 days a week. My weight is normal for my height, and lower than average for my age. I don’t drink wine, but I eat a lot of black and red grapes.

That leaves red meat intake and aspirin where there are conflicts between the anti-polyp diet and the BTD.

I am not going to take the aspirin. I have seen in myself and in my father what happens when type O’s take Vitamin E and aspirin as preventive measures. It leads to increased bruising and longer clotting times. My Type O blood is already thin enough. I will leave the aspirin for thick blooded Type As.

Red Meat – this is the tough one, because at first glance it seems to be in opposition to the BTD. Food portions in the Little Books – which I always reach for first since they are so easy to use, are: Lean red meat 2-5 ounces 4-6 times per week. Poultry 2-5 ounces 2-3 times per week.

Because red meat makes me feel so good, I had gone toward the high end of the scale eating 4-5 ounces 5-6 times a week. Since getting my lab results on the pre-cancerous polyp, I have made a slight adjustment. I am weighing my beef and eating 3-4 ounces. For lunch and dinner on one day I have fish and poultry. The next day I have fish and beef. Once or twice a week I substitute 3 eggs for a one of those portions. This puts me having beef about 3 times per week.

I looked at the portions in Dr. D’s Cancer Prevention book. There is a slight difference between it and the Little Books. In the Cancer Prevention book, he groups beef and poultry together saying to eat 2-5 ounces 6-9 times a week. My new plan is right in line with that recommendation. The book also contains a two page explanation of Dr. D’s position on beef and cancer. It is worth reading if you have concerns in this area.

Another slight conflict between the Dr. D and anti-polyp diets concerns apples. I used to eat an apple a day. After the GTD came out, I cut back to 1 or 2 apples a week. The Cancer Prevention book says apples are frequent neutrals. I am not eating an apple a day, but I am increasing my apple intake significantly.

I had taken myself off of almost all grain. There are no beneficial grains for Type O except manna bread, and the recommended portions for grains are 1 serving 1-6 times a week. I felt good with 0-1 servings. I am thinking that may be too extreme. I am trying to reincorporate 1 portion of neutral grains 3-5 times a week.

I won’t have another colonoscopy for 5 years. That is a long time to wonder whether my new program will succeed in preventing polyp formation.

I do not know if it’s my age or my body type, but I do NOT like low waisted pants, and I do NOT like capris. That has made shopping for summer shorts very difficult in the past few years.

I am a combination body type. The top half of me is like a Hunter - sinewy, boney, and lean. The bottom half of me is more like a Gatherer - I carry weight in my legs and thighs. Capris make me my legs look terrible. Low cut pants focus attention away from my best physical asset, which is my tiny waist.

Fashion designers do not care about my preferences. Capris and low riding pants have been the style for several years. I know I am not alone. Friends my age complain all the time about low waisted pants and shorts. Rather than buying clothes that make me look bad, I have continued to wear my old clothes. Some of my favorite shorts have been around for five to six years. They are beginning to show their age.

I cannot tell you how many stores I have visited looking for shorts. This year I have been on a campaign. Everywhere I have gone, JC Penney, Academy, Bealls, Old Navy, Izod, Van Heusen, Macys, I have told the department manager, “My friends and I do not like these low riding pants! If you will stock clothes with real waists, we will shop!” Sometimes they say, “We just get what the buyers send us.” Sometimes their eyes glaze over.

Kohls sent me a $10 gift card in the mail. This afternoon I drove to the nearest Kohls and surprise, surprise. I found shorts with waists where they are supposed to be. OK, they are a little lower than my ideal, but they are flattering. If you have a body style like mine, look for Croft & Barrow Classic Fit.

To the other stores - I told you that if I ever found clothes that fit, I was ready to shop. I bought six pairs…and tops to match.

First impression: What was God thinking when he made a pomegranate? Seriously, you cannot cut into this fall fruit and believe in evolution. The pomegranate didn’t just happen. Someone with an imagination created it.

Second impression: Do not attempt to eat a pomegranate without instruction. My sister, who lives in Europe, has talked about how much they enjoy pomegranates. When I bought my first one this fall, I emailed her and asked how to eat it. She told me to look it up on the internet. What?!? How complicated can eating a piece of fruit be? She was right. I looked at several internet sites but liked this one the best.
How to eat a pomegranate
If you cut into a pomegranate without knowing what to expect, you will make a mess and probably throw the whole thing in the trash.

Third impression: Delicious. I ate the seeds with a spoon. There was a burst of sweetness, followed by a satisfying crunch. I kept them in a covered container, eating a few spoons every night as I cooked dinner. One pomegranate lasted four days.

This pomegranate did bring back some of my frustration with the differences between the GTD and the BTD. On the GTD, pomegranates are black dot for Hunters, and toxic for Gatherers, Teachers, and Warriors. That sounds like they would be bad for my family of Type Os and Type As. However on the BTD pomegranates are neutral for both Type Os and Type As. They are rated Superbeneficial for Type Os on Dr. D's Cancer Prevention Diet.

I decided that I would consider them a beneficial food for my son and myself. I probably won’t give them to my husband and daughter.

My husband and I are vacationing with another couple in Southern Colorado. Today we went to Mesa Verde. Everywhere we went we read about hunters and gatherers.

If you are not familiar with Mesa Verde, it is a National Park that preserves the ancient dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans. The pit houses and mesa top houses are interesting, but those kinds of Pueblo ruins are scattered all over the Southwest. What makes Mesa Verde so fascinating are the cliff dwellings. They look like complex apartment communities, but they were built under overhanging cliffs. They were secure from both enemies and predatory animals, because the only access was by ladders or toe holes in the cliffs.

The Native Americans who lived in these ruins are identified in the museums, on the park signs and in all the brochures as hunters and gatherers. Many of those exhibits talk about what these hunters and gatherers ate, and believe me it is nothing like the GenoType diet!

Meat was high on the list. They killed and ate lots of game including deer, rabbits, squirrels, and turkeys. That sounds a lot like a hunter. Their other foods were pinto-like beans, corn, and squash. Neither pinto beans nor corn are beneficial choices for either hunters or gatherers. Most squash is neutral, but many are black dot for gatherers.

One of our friends commented that it would have been heavenly to have lived in such beautiful country, out in the open, with no worries about economic crises or unemployment. We all agreed that an active outdoor life would have advantages. But in spite of the clean air and water, the life span of the Ancestral Puebloans was short and often brutal. There were no antibiotics, and limited techniques for setting broken bones. There were no bananas from Central America, no salmon from Alaska, no Romaine from California, no cherries from Washington. Most of the beneficial foods enjoyed by GTD hunters and gatherers would have been completely unknown.

I will take my computer, my modern grocery store, and the probability of seeing my grandchildren grow up over the primitive life of this very interesting culture.

Speaking of hunting, our son is taking care of our dog and our house while we are gone while he hunts for a physical therapy job. We are thankful that even in this very difficult economy he is having very positive interviews.

My husband and I have gone to the same family practice doctor for 31 years. He has had an ideal balance being conservative about running tests and performing procedures yet staying up to date with the latest medical developments. I have found him to be wise and intuitive. He has weathered several crises with us, and delivered both of our babies. While he did not believe the Blood Type Diet, he admitted that it had worked for me, and he did not discourage me from following it. He is about the same age as my Honorable Husband. When we moved, we planned to make the long drive back to his office until he retired.

Recent political developments caused us to change our plan. HH turns 65 in the fall, and is mandated by our insurance company to go on Medicare. We have been warned that in the small community where we live, it is hard to find a primary care doctor that is accepting new patients, and almost impossible to find a primary care doctor that accepts new Medicare patients. We decided that we might be better off to establish ourselves with a local doctor now, before the big birthday.

HH began calling doctors that accept our insurance. The rumors were true, most doctors were not accepting new patients. Of the ones that were, some of the phone interviews revealed attitudes that HH did not like. The list got pretty short. Yesterday we had an introductory appointment with a potential doctor.

I could not be more pleased and more excited. She is as conservative as our previous doctor. She is an empathetic listener. When I got to the part of my medical history that dealt with GERD, I told her about all of the tests I had had, and how none of the medications had worked. I said that the first week on the BTD led to dramatic improvements, and that my pain was gone after two weeks.

She listened with great interest. She was familiar with the concept of the BTD, but didn’t know the specifics. She has been researching milk and immunity problems, and wanted to know what the BTD said about milk. She looked at my cholesterol numbers and observed that my bad cholesterol was very low, so the only way to get my total cholesterol (215) down would be to reduce my good cholesterol, which would affect my outstanding ratio. Obviously, she said she didn’t want to do that. She encouraged me to keep eating and exercising the way that I am.

The funniest moment came when she pressed the skin on my ankles to see if I was retaining fluid. She said, “The bottom half of you does not match the top. Your wrists reveal very small bones, but your ankle bones are large.” I told her that I was very much aware that I had two conflicting body types and that my daughter was built the same way. I decided not to go into the GTD and how the conflicting body types had made it hard for me to settle on a GenoType and impossible for DD to figure hers out.

Her meeting with HH was every bit as successful as mine. We left the office with a new local doctor, who assures HH that she will not kick him out when he turns 65. It’s hard to leave a doctor who knows us and our history so well, but I think we are going to get along with our new doctor just fine.

I bought a hard to find GTD beneficial at the most unlikely place. Because I cook a lot, my kitchen towels look shabby all too soon. Long ago I gave up buying nice towels for the kitchen. I wipe my oily and food stained hands so often, that no matter how often I wash the towels, they are discolored. I’m lucky if they look presentable for a year.

The solution is to buy kitchen towels at one of the many dollar stores. One particular store in our area always has cute towels – cheap! The other day I was folding laundry and realized that my kitchen towels looked awful. Time to toss them in the rag bag and replace them. At the dollar store, I found cute towels that matched my dishes for almost nothing. There were even hot pads to match.

Because this is a deep discount, close out store, you never know what you’re going to find. I decided to wander around and see what was in stock. I never dreamed I would find real European currants.

Back when the GenoType Diet first came out, there was a controversy about American currants really being a variety of grape, and the truly beneficial currants being European currants. To get real currants in America they had to be mail ordered from specialty growers. Sorry, that’s not in my budget.

So I forgot about currants – until I saw “reduced sugar, black currant jam” in the dollar store. “Less sugar, more fruit” the label said. There were no artificial sweeteners. The expiration date was fine. The jam was imported from Denmark, making me confident that these are real currants. I bought several jars, for a ridiculously low price.

Black currants are delicious. I have used the jam as jam on Ezekiel bread. I have also used it as a dressing on grated raw vegetables.

There is no guarantee that I will ever find this kind of a deal again. But I will keep my eyes open for currants in unlikely places and beneficial bargains at the dollar store.

I had never eaten hummus until a year ago. I was on my way home from my Mom’s house and was looking for a barbeque restaurant where I could pick up brisket. The barbeque restaurant was closed, but there was a Mediterranean restaurant across the street where I got lamb shawarma. It came with a side order of hummus and I was instantly hooked. Hummus is made from garbanzo beans, also called chickpeas. It is avoid for As, Bs, and ABs; but it is neutral for Type Os. However on the GenoType diet it is beneficial for Hunters. So I consider it beneficial for me. I know better than to trust my feelings, but I just feel good when I eat hummus.

I’ve started buying it at a local health food store. If you’ve read my blogs for long, you know that I’m not usually interested in sauces on my food. A little ghee or a little extra virgin olive oil suits me better than a fancy sauce. However, I love using hummus as a sauce.

Today I pulled leftover chicken and left over English peas out of the refrigerator. I warmed them together with 3-4 Tbsp of hummus. It was an outstanding lunch.

My Honorable Husband paid me the biggest compliment possible. He was happily eating a piece of fruitcake, and he was shocked to find out that I had made it. He thought it was a piece of genuine Collin Street Bakery Fruit Cake. DD and I have succeeded in developing a fruit cake that is 100% compliant and mostly beneficial for all Types.

For the cake part, you are going to use a variation on the Walnut Torte recipe on the Blood Type Diet Recipe Center.

Torte Ingredients:
4 eggs (separated)
6 Tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups finely ground walnuts.
1 cup dates, cut into pieces

Other Ingredients
4 cups chopped pecans
1 cup dried pineapple, chopped
1 cup dried papaya, chopped
1 cup raisins
1 cup dried cherries.

Mix the pecans and chopped dried fruit in a large bowl. Spray a tube pan with cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Whirl the egg yolks, honey, vanilla and dates in a food processor until they are creamy. (The dates are the key to making the fruit cake stick together.) Stir the ground walnuts into the creamy mixture. Beat the egg whites until they are stiff, then fold into the creamy mixture.

Pour the torte batter over the pecans and dried fruit. Mix together. I could not do this with a spoon. I used both hands. Press the fruit cake batter into the tube pan. Press it firmly, so it will stick together.

Bake until the edges of the cake start to turn brown and a toothpick comes out clean. About 45 minutes.

You may say, wait a minute what about papaya? Isn’t it Toxic for Hunters and Avoid for Type As? True, but it is also neutral for Type Os and beneficial for Teachers. DD and I have decided that if a food is good for us on either the BTD or the GTD, then we will enjoy it. It can’t be all that bad if it isn’t avoid/toxic on both diets. Especially with a fruit or a vegetable, there are phyto-nutrients that will be valuable in building health.

If you like traditional Texas fruit cake, you will enjoy this healthy BTD/GTD variety.

Pears confuse me because they are superbeneficial for Hunters, a black dot avoid for Gatherers, and neutral for Type Os. Because I’m fairly confident that I’m a Hunter, I tell myself I should eat more of them, but because they have never been one of my favorite fruits, I usually choose something else. However, in the past three weeks, I’ve eaten three varieties of pears.

My Mom always liked trying new things. Some of her finds are healthy, like cherry essence prunes - which are beneficial as well as heavenly tasting. Other finds are not so healthy, like marshmallow cream – which has no redeeming value as a food product, but it sure tastes good.

When I went to visit her three weeks ago, she had a box of apple pears. According to the box, they have been grown in California for 20 years, but they have just now made it to Texas grocery stores. Mom had been saving them until I arrived so that we could try them together. They were very crisp like a fresh apple. The flavor was more like a pear, but without any of the grittiness that pears usually have. They were very good. I wouldn’t be surprised if they grew in popularity

I went back to her house this week to clean out the refrigerator and set up an alarm system. I went to her grocery store to buy food for my two-day stay. I wanted bananas, a peach and a pear. Most of the pears were hard and green, but at last I found a bin of ripe yellow pears.

At check out, I noticed the one pear cost $1.35. I questioned the checker and was told that it was a French Butter Pear. Whatever - that was pretty expensive for a pear ($2.99 per pound)! But on impulse, and perhaps in honor of Mom, I kept it. This pear was outstandingly good. It was very juicy and very sweet. If the price on French Butter Pears went down, I’d buy them regularly.

Today I am back home. After I fed Mom her lunch – pureed beef, green beans and potatoes – I went to the grocery store. I came home with two Bartlett pears. Perhaps pears are becoming a habit with me.

We came to Alabama on vacation to see D & J get married. We've known D since before she was born, and she was a lovely bride. J is easy to like, and I think they have made a wise and lasting choice.

HH & I were invited to the Rehearsal Dinner. It was at a Birmingham restaurant called B&A Warehouse. The meal was a Type O's dream - prime rib and fresh green beans. A write up about the restaurant said they were known for their chocolate desserts. That was an understatement. The dessert table had tiers and tiers of confections, and all but 1 of them were chocolate. Though chocolate is a superfood for Hunters, because I was violently allergic to it as a child I rarely eat it, and then only in small servings. I took one truffle, because I had never had one before. It was very good.

Before the dinner, and at the After Party, they served hors d'oeuvres. Most of them involved crackers, which are easy for me to turn down. But two attracted my attention. One was a spinach artichoke dip. I enjoyed it for the sake of the two beneficial vegetables - in spite of the cheese sauce. The other was havarti cheese with a caramel pecan topping. It was as good as dessert. In fact, I ate it as dessert.

The wedding reception was on the top floor of a building with a breathtaking view of the city lights below. DD's and my eyes lit up when we saw a whole table of fresh fruit. They served shrimp and grits - a dish that I've never heard of in Texas. However on the table beyond, I saw more prime rib. Two nights in a row! It was Type O paradise.

Now it's time to head for home. SS starts his third and final year of Physical Therapy School. DD will be a college sophomore. It was so much fun for the four of us to be together for a week. I will think about that, and not how empty the house will seem after having DD home all summer.

That was the subject line of an e-mail DD sent to me after she read the GenoType Daily called “Your Body Proportions.” Of the three GenoTypes that can be Type As, she didn’t match up with any of them.

Here was the first description: “One unique characteristic of Teachers is that on one hand, your ring finger is probably longer than your index finger, while the opposite is true of your other hand. Let this asymmetry be a reminder that Teachers should always seek balance in life!” This is not DD. Both of her index fingers are longer than her ring fingers. And her body is not asymmetrical. Except for her finger prints her left and right sides are similar if not identical.

Here was the second description: “Another unique gender-specific characteristic of all Explorers: Men and women have backward finger lengths (men have longer index fingers and women have longer ring fingers — the opposite of the norm).” This is not true of DD.

Finally, the third description: “Long-headedness is a common trait of warriors — meaning your head is longer than it is wide. A Warrior’s legs are typically longer than the torso. Yet one symmetry you exhibit is that your index-to-ring-finger ratio is usually equal.” DD’s head is longer than it is wide, but her torso is longer than her legs. Her finger ratios are 63/62 and 63/60.

This GenoType Daily was a reminder of how frustrating it has been to nail down DD’s Genotype. Teachers typically have lots of whorls — DD just has three. Explorers typically have loops on their index fingers that open to the thumb. DD’s left index finger does this, but her right index finger is a whorl. Warriors usually have many arches; DD has none.

From the waist up she is sinewy like a Teacher. From the waist down she would be padded like a Warrior if she didn’t exercise so much to keep her legs in shape. None of her is muscular like an Explorer.

Because the physical characteristics are inconclusive, we took another look at the personality and emotional characteristics. Except for the tendency to be compulsive, DD has none of the Teacher personality. She is mostly like a Warrior, with a few Explorer traits.

For this reason DD has continued to follow the Type A diet — with a few Teacher and Warrior diamond foods added for variety.

This blog is not in any way to disparage the GenoType Diet!! If your GenoType is clear, by all means take advantage of the diet. However, I know from reading the Forum, that DD is not alone, and that others also appear to be Genotypeless. If you are in that category, I would encourage you to follow your Blood Type Diet. There is no guesswork about your type, and the results for my family have been outstanding.

A quick glance at the Type O/Hunter food lists could be overwhelming because of the abundance of choices. A closer look can be disappointing, because many of the foods are not locally available, and many others are too expensive. Lamb and bison used to be in that category.

Lamb was available at my grocery store – if I wanted to pay $10 per pound for a bone-in chop. (which I will emphatically say I did not!) I well remember the day I found boneless leg of lamb at Sams Club for about the same price as a roast. Suddenly it was possible to enjoy this Type O beneficial on a regular basis. Not only that, the package says that the lamb is 100% grass fed. I know that grass fed meat or yard raised poultry is better for my body, but it’s not usually good for my budget.

Interesting, while lamb is not a popular American food, once I found a good source for it, the quality was superior to the easily available beef.

I’ve eaten bison when we’ve vacationed in Colorado and Wyoming. However for years I could not find it in Texas where I live. Once I got really excited when I saw buffalo sausage in a store, but my enthusiasm vanished when I read that the top two ingredients were buffalo and pork. No way! Last year I found buffalo hot dogs in the freezer section at the Health Food store. But they were expensive and very salty.

This week I answered an ad for a used bicycle in town 30 miles from where I live. It sounded perfect, and I drove over with every intention of buying it and going for a ride that afternoon. What a disappointment, the “like new” bike was rusty, and the seat was frozen. I couldn’t even have taken it for a test ride.

On the way home I passed an HEB grocery store in another town. I went in to pick up food for the weekend. In their meat department they had ground bison and bison steaks. Ground bison was $5 per pound; bison steak was $5 per 8 ounce package. I got two packages of ground bison and one bison steak. The package says that the bison is guaranteed natural grass fed and no hormones. I have never found grass fed beef for that price!! There is an HEB in my town, and I’m hoping they will also start carrying bison. If not, I think it would be worth a drive once every couple of months to stock my freezer with bison.

The price of the steak was more than I usually spend on meat, but I really wanted to try it. In it’s defense, it was very lean and well trimmed - no visible fat. So there was no waste. I sprinkled it with Braggs liquid aminos, and cooked it at 400 degrees in the oven. It was delicious.

Once again, when I finally find an unpopular beneficial, the price is more reasonable than many readily accepted cuts of beef. Some day perhaps I will find canistel for the same price as pears or Jew’s ear in the produce section next to mushrooms.

We have three or four pairs of cardinals that live in the trees behind our house. I’m sure they have suffered along with the other wildlife during this incredibly dry summer and fall. The last time I remember it raining was sometime in June. However, today while I was fixing lunch, we had a brief shower. As I watched out the back windows, the cardinals came out and perched in the top branches shaking their feathers and enjoying the rain. That has nothing at all to do with today’s blog, but it was such a beautiful sight.

The first time I tasted flax oil I was sorely disappointed. It tastes like fish. In fact I remember looking at the label on the bottle, thinking that perhaps I had picked up cod liver oil by mistake. I use flax oil once in a while because I know it is highly beneficial, but I have to coax myself to do it.

A while back someone gave me a recipe that called for toasted sesame oil. It was ok, but I wasn’t wild about the taste. So that bottle of oil has been neglected in the back of my refrigerator. I knew that if I didn’t use it soon, I’d have to throw it out, and I hated to do that since sesame oil is beneficial for Hunters.

One night last week I mixed half and half of these two oils that I don’t like on my salad. Don’t ask me why – it must have been a masochistic moment. Incredible! The combination was good – not fabulous like the flavor of a newly opened bottle of extra virgin olive oil – not heavenly like a spoon of freshly made ghee – but good.

I thought it might have been a fluke, and I tried it again yesterday. Somehow the flax oil is less fishy, and the toasted sesame oil is less overpowering when the two are mixed together. As I’m typing this blog, I’m eating turnip greens with grilled onions and canned salmon, topped with a half teaspoon each of flax and toasted sesame oil. It’s a surprisingly tasty combination. In addition, it is very beneficial for Type Os who are Hunters. If you are not a Hunter, experiment! Perhaps you will find another tasty combination using an oil that is beneficial for you.

My husband and I are back from spending a weekend with our Darling Daughter. It was Homecoming where she goes to college. All of the activities gave me many opportunities to observe people and their eating habits. It revived an issue I had when the GenoType Diet first came out.

There was an emphasis on how life in the womb impacted the genes of the growing baby. Here is a quote, “The Gatherer's motto — Whoever dies with the most wins — stems from a lack of food in the womb. By making food a top priority, you are able to ensure that you'll always have enough in times of scarcity. But watch out — in our plentiful times you can easily put on excess weight because of overeating.” One example was that a thin mother would produce a baby with thrifty genes – in other words a chubby baby. There was a study of women in a European country in World War II that was used to prove the theory. My interpretation was that the opposite would also have to be true. An over weight mother, consuming more than enough calories, would produce a child without thrifty genes who would grow up thin.

All I can say is that when I observe people, I don’t find that to be true. This weekend as I watched families together I didn’t see skinny parents with fat kids and fat parents with skinny kids. For the most part if mom and dad are thin, the kids are thin. If mom and dad are round, they have round kids.

I can’t say whether this is genetic – in other words whether the tendency to be fat or thin is built into the cells of the children – or whether it is behavioral – thin parents eat a certain way and exercise a certain way and those behaviors are picked up by their offspring. What I do know is that as we walked around campus, I rarely saw a thin mom with an overweight child.

If the idea of thrifty genes was universally true, one place it could be observed today would be in African countries plagued by famine. However, our church has been involved in work with several African orphanages. Some of the orphans come to the US to sing and speak in order to raise funds to keep the orphanages going. These kids were born to poverty stricken, starving mothers. Yet when they are moved to an environment were they get plenty to eat, and even when they visit the US where there is an abundance of food, they are not overweight.

I was pleased with how much good food is available in this college town. We ate one meal at an Arbys – which used to serve nothing but beef for Type Os and nothing at all for Type As. My husband had a remarkably healthy chicken sandwich, and I had a Martha’s Vineyard salad with chicken, apples, and cranberries. Another meal was at a Chinese restaurant where they were happy to adjust the meals for our blood types. Sunday lunch was at a restaurant that had a great variety of fresh vegetables.

There is a grocery store across the street from campus where DD can buy almost everything she needs to supplement the dorm cafeteria food. She says the fresh fruit prices are even better than the prices at home. Now that’s my idea of thrifty.

One of the first things you read about Hunters is that we have "an overabundance of adrenaline and a fierce, nervous energy that winds down with age." I'm afraid I saw that characteristic up close last weekend.

When I first met my husband, he (though a Type A) was the runner. Once he got me started running, he knew he had created a monster. I wanted to push on to longer runs, but he was content to jog a mile or two. He had a friend who also liked running. One summer my husband hurt his back, and his running days were over. The friend went on to run marathons. We saw him and his wife occasionally, and they always looked like they were both in great shape. At the time I didn't know anything about BTD or GTD, but when I think of him now I would say - "Type O Hunter."

We hadn't seen them in several years, but we ran into them at a party over the weekend. I didn't recognize him. Even when HH called his name I thought, "No, that's not right." He looked like he had some sort of wasting disease. He held up his end of the conversation, but with little enthusiasm. They left the party early, and I turned to a mutual friend and said, "Clearly something is wrong, what is it?" I expected to hear the C word, but instead I heard this story.

He had retired early and loved it. He kept running marathons, and started gardening. He threw himself into gardening with the same energy that he did everything else. His knees began to give him trouble, but he kept on pushing. He began experiencing neurological symptoms, and went to the doctor. They tried several medications. They couldn't find the source of the nervous sympboms, but they did find that he had lost all of the cartilage in his knees. He got depressed. They tried several surgeries and several more medications. The depression deepened, and the symptoms got worse. He is in a physical and mental downward spiral.

All I could think was Hunter burn out. I have the same kind of enthusiasm, energy and drive. Now I have seen up close what I could be like in 10 years if I don't eat right, I neglect getting enough rest, and I let the stresses of life get to me.