We were traveling over the weekend. The daughter of some lifelong friends married on Saturday. Even though it was a large wedding, we were able to have a nice visit with our friends and to meet their new son-in-law.

I have conflicting emotions about wedding receptions. When my husband and I married almost 30 years ago, we had a reception at the church following the ceremony. We served cake, punch, nuts, and mints. That was typical in the 1970s. Wedding guests enjoyed a casual visit with friends and congratulated the family. The cost was modest. When I look back now, from a nutritional standpoint I realize there were no healthy choices for any blood type - except for possibly the nuts.

Today, a typical reception is a complete meal. Nutritionally the choices are certainly better. However the cost can be outlandish. I remember one friend who told me sadly that her daughter divorced in less than 2 years - but that she was still paying off bills from the wedding. I do not believe that going into debt is a good way to start a marriage!

The reception last weekend had several serving lines. There was a taco bar, a pasta bar, a sandwich bar, and a fruit and cheese bar. There were also a bride's cake and a groom's cake. Everything was delicious. There were plenty of options for any type.

For the most part I made good choices. Roast beef and blueberries were some of the beneficials. Zucchini, grapes, and tomatoes were among the fresh neutrals. I ate a spinach artichoke dip that was incredibly delicious, though I doubt the base was free of avoids. I steered clear of pasta, bread, and crackers, but I did have wedding cake.

As much as I personally benefit from the current trend in receptions, my priority at a wedding is not on the food served to guests but the commitment and covenant of the bride and groom.

So often people think bigger is better, but that is not usually true with vegetables. My vegetable guide says to look for small kohlrabi because it is more likely to be juicy and tender.

Kohlrabi has been hard to find in any size lately. Perhaps it has been out of season. This week it was back in the store. Among the large, woody kohlrabi, I found some nice small ones.

I often make Kohl Slaw with grated kohlrabi. Once I blogged that if I mixed the kohlrabi with olive oil and lemon juice it was similar to a tart vinegary Cole Slaw. But if I mixed it with olive oil and fig preserves, it was more like a sweet creamy Cole Slaw.

I was in the mood for sweet and creamy last night, but was out of fig preserves. I did have fruit only cherry preserves. I made the substitution, and it was delicious. It was a completely different flavor, but very nice.

I didn't get any Type O exercise Monday or Tuesday. It was just too cold and wet, and I was warm and dry by the computer. But last night I felt the need to get moving, so I promised myself that unless it was pouring down rain, I would run this morning.

I woke to mild temperatures and fog. I put my running shoes on. My run was on a winding path through a wooded area. It made me think of rural life and I began to imagine how nice it would have been to have lived 100 years ago when life was simpler. Instead of fighting traffic and stoplights, I would have walked down a trail like the one I was running on.

Perhaps this mood was heightened because on President's Day we saw the IMAX movie about Lewis and Clark. It was wonderful for both scenery and history. The expedition explored and lived off the land for three years. Of course, they nearly starved to death as well.

That brought me quickly back to reality. I thought about my great great grandfather, a farmer who had 3 wives and 19 children. He lived a much simpler life than I do - but two of his wives died young and 6 of his children never reached adulthood. The simple life was hard. The backbreaking work to survive left people little time to admire the wilderness they lived in.

Simplicity is one of the Christian disciplines I have been studying, and I have given some thought to how I can uncomplicated my life yet still live in the modern world. The Blood Type Diet plays a role in that. Fruits and vegetables are easier to prepare than gourmet dishes. Roasted meat is wonderful without sauces and breading. I certainly feel better eating simple foods rather than chemical laden processed food or deep fried fast food.

We don't have a big screen TV, and I could probably give up the TV we have. But don't talk about taking away my computer or my food processor. I don't want to be that simple.

I was studying for a biology test with my daughter this afternoon. We finished up about 6:00. It would take about an hour to get dinner ready, but I was hungry now!

The best thing when I am desperately hungry is a glass of juice with 1/4 tsp of

l-glutamine powder. It gets quickly into my system and relieves the craving. But today has been a chill damp day. It seemed to me that glass of cold juice would make me feel worse.

I put the teakettle on and brewed a cup of green tea. I added a teaspoon of pineapple juice concentrate and ¼ tsp of l-glutamine. It was warm; it was sweet; it was just what I needed. I was content to wait until dinner was ready.

We had chicken with barbeque sauce, broccoli (steamed for me & my husband, raw broccoli sticks for my daughter) adzuki beans, rice (for my husband & daughter), spaghetti squash with garlic & ghee (for me).

I'm spending Saturday at school working on the yearbook pages that will soon be due at the publisher for our first deadline. It is a cold, icy day, and the heat is not on in my building. I have on two heavy sweaters, so I'm fairly comfortable. I wish I had gloves, but it would probably be hard to work on the computers wearing them.

Before I left home this morning I packed food for the day. For lunch I brought a hamburger patty with grilled onions, half of a sweet potato, and asparagus with ghee. I am not particular about the temperature of my food. Room temperature usually suits me as well as hot or cold. Today's "room temperature" meant that the ghee was still solid. Even I was wishing I could warm it up!

Last week when I saw a headline saying that a new study showed low fat diets weren't as wonderful as previously reported, I smirked. This week the low fat proponents are fighting back.

A Women's Health Initiative study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found no evidence that a low-fat diet protects against cancer in post-menopausal women.

This reaffirmed what I thought when I first read about the Blood Type Diet. My Type A husband never liked high fat foods. My Type A daughter, when she was a little girl, would blot the extra fat off of pizza before she ate it. However I did not feel well or satisfied on a low fat diet. I often craved butter or oil. I never understood why we were different until the BTD.

If you want to read all the details you can go to Google Health News and search for low fat. As for me, I haven't read much beyond the headlines, because unless the results were linked to blood types, they wouldn't be helpful. A study with more As would show a low fat diet to be beneficial. A study with more Os would show the opposite.

I did find a really funny joke on the subject in Reader's Digest. "Everyone is on this low fat craze now. The Mayo Clinic just changed its name to the Balsamic Vinaigrette Clinic."

Five years ago when I went to the fish counter, I had to choose what kind of fish I wanted: salmon, trout, cod, catfish…whatever was available that day. I factored in price and family preference and made my purchase. I long for those good old days. Now, I have too many variables, and the choices are harder, not easier.

The fish at the counter is marked "never frozen" or "previously frozen." Fresh is better, so I would choose "never frozen," right? It's not that easy. There is no commercial fishing within more than 100 miles of where I live. That means I will never find fish that was caught fresh yesterday. "Never frozen" means it has been in transport for several days. Was it properly handled and cooled all the way? I look at "previously frozen" and wonder how long it has been thawing in the display case.

The fish is also marked wild-caught or farm-raised. Wild is better, so I would choose that, right? Again the choice is not as easy as it seems. Wild-caught is much more expensive (especially never-frozen wild-caught). I've read the toxin reports, but I've also read the price lists. I cannot blow the grocery budget buying the perfect fish.

With all of this in my mind I approached the fish counter the other day. No one was behind the counter, so I spent a few minutes examining my choices. Still no one came. I looked behind the employees only door, and no one was there. Perhaps everyone was restocking the sodas or donuts. I didn't want to be impatient, but I was ready to move on.

I drifted over to the frozen fish. I pulled out a bag of perch (beneficial for Os and As). The back of the bag said "Product of China Wild Caught." I read the back of a bag of cod (also beneficial for Os and As). Again it said "Product of China Wild Caught". I was suspicious. Perhaps they put wild-caught on all their fish. But no, the talapia bag said, "Farm-raised in China."

I looked at the price. It was very reasonable - less than the "previously frozen" fish at the counter. I smiled, knowing it was probably the same fish, just marked up because it was in a display case. I bought a bag of perch and a bag of cod. I have tried both and was very pleased. The fish inside were individually wrapped. They were very tasty when I cooked them.

Can you buy this inexpensive wild caught beneficial fish? Yes - at Wal-Mart.

My husband and I went to a Valentine party tonight. Everyone brought a dish of food to share. After we ate each couple told the story of how they met and fell in love. We heard some hilariously funny and some sentimentally sweet tales.

Two people brought vegetable dishes that were unusual combinations. One was steamed asparagus and onions. I would never have thought of putting those two vegetables together, but it was surprisingly good. The asparagus was lightly steamed, so it held its shape. The onions were in long strips and were thoroughly cooked. I think they were just seasoned with salt.

The other was a salad with raw broccoli, raisins, and almonds with some kind of dressing. As much as I love carrot and raisin salad, I would never have thought of broccoli and raisin, but it was very good.

This blog will eventually get around to the topic, but you may have to be patient with me while I set it up. My Bible study this year is about the Christian disciplines. When I started on January 1, I didn't plan to blog about it. It's fairly personal, and on the surface it doesn't have a thing to do with the Blood Type Diet. However because I am a holistic person, and thus my mind, body, and spirit are connected; I keep seeing such interesting applications to the BTD.

One of the disciplines is fasting. I have fasted for religious purposes in years past, but not recently. Two of the purposes of religious fasting are to remind us that we are sustained not by "bread alone," but by the Word of God, and to help us focus our thoughts on God rather than being distracted by daily routines.

I have been doing a 36-hour fast once a week. That means I eat dinner one night at the regular time. I skip breakfast, lunch, and dinner the next day. I eat breakfast as usual the following day. Because I have some blood sugar issues, I have been doing a juice fast. That means that I drink fruit juice, vegetable juice, and green tea during the day if I start to feel weak. I don't do protein powder or smoothies - just clear liquids and plain juice.

What I have noticed is that not only am I physically satisfied with a light liquid diet for one day, but the effect carries over for several days afterwards. When I start eating again, I am content with three normal meals.

I had reached a point where I was snacking a lot. Especially when I got in from school every afternoon, I wanted nuts or nut butter or a similar heavy snack. I felt very hungry, then because of the big snack, I would delay and eat a full dinner later than is customary

I often get mail from people who initially lost a lot of weight on the BTD, but have gradually seen a few pounds creep back in. I saw that happening to me, and I blogged about it last winter. My weight had been steady at 127 for more than a year, but last year it crept back above 130. I read posts on the Forum from people who want to lose more weight, but have plateaued.

What I have seen in the past month is that fasting has leveled out my hunger pangs. When I get in from school, I am satisfied with a glass of juice or a piece of fruit. I'm ready to cook and serve dinner on time. I have lost a couple of the pounds I had regained.

Because focusing my attention on God is such an integral part of my fasting; I can't say for sure what your results will be if you just fast for health reasons. However it has been interesting that my enjoyment of all my meals during the week has increased and my desire for extra food has decreased since I started fasting.

I had planned to print the February issue of the school newspaper on Friday, but there was a conflict between my computer and the print server. The tech support guy fixed the problem Monday morning. I went in at noon to print the paper so my class could distribute it during class.

I took my lunch with me and ate as I worked in the workroom. Three girls came in while I was there to use the microwave. One of them had a pre-packaged cup of soup. They warmed it, and the three of them shared that one cup of soup!

I do not know what those three girls did after their meager lunch, but it is common practice for teenage girls at our school to eat practically nothing at lunch while they talk about losing weight. By the time school is out they are very hungry, so they race to the snack bar. There are no good choices in our school's snack bar - everything is junk food. They get a diet soda, a muffin, and a bag of chips, which they eat on their way to athletic practice. (I later asked one of the girls and she sheepishly said she had M&Ms and chips rather than a muffin and chips.)

The girls did not ask me about my lunch. If they had, they would surely have wrinkled their noses. Kale was on sale last week for 99 cents a bunch. I bought two bunches and cooked up a big batch of Beneficial Veggie Trio (I posted the recipe on RECIbase long ago) This is my favorite way to eat kale.

I put a generous amount of the trio in a plastic container and sprinkled it with ground beef. It was an enjoyable lunch, and it kept me satisfied until almost dinnertime.

Yesterday I took a friend out to lunch for her birthday. We went to a nationally franchised Italian restaurant. I always feel like I'm in enemy territory in an Italian restaurant. Hot fresh bread is brought to the table even before I'm through studying the menu. Every entrée, even the salads, have wheat.

I settled on a salad with a fancy international name. The description said spinach, grilled chicken, orzo, pine nuts, tomatoes, capers, and black olives. I asked the server to leave off the orzo and black olives. It was a delightful salad. In addition to the spinach there were other dark green lettuces and radicchio. I later discovered that capers are avoid, but I didn't know that at the time. Except for those few capers, I survived enemy territory.

My eyes were drawn to a young couple at a nearby table. They laughed a lot and seemed to be celebrating something. They had a baby girl with them, who must have been 9 or 10 months old. Her daddy, especially, gave her lots of attention. As the couple ate their dinner, they broke off pieces of bread for the little girl to eat with her fingers. "This is how we get addicted to wheat," I thought. "It's such a convenient food for babies to pick up, and it keeps them happy while their parents eat."

When the couple was ready to leave, I saw him push away from the table in a wheel chair. I saw that one leg was gone from the knee down. I noticed his short haircut. The truth hit me - he was a soldier back from Iraq.

It made my thoughts about wheat seem pretty trivial. Here was a man who had truly been in enemy territory. He not only survived, but he conveyed no bitterness - only joy and enthusiasm for his family and for life. I would have liked to have said, "Thank you!"

I was reading at an old issue of a magazine and saw an editorial by Andree Seu. The headline was "Eating as entertainment" and the subhead was "Americans have the same problem with food that Imelda Marcos had with shoes." I laughed out loud, causing the other people in the waiting room to look at me with raised eyebrows.

I did not agree with much of what Mrs. Seu proscribed as the answer to obesity, but she described the problem in vivid language. "If the Philippine first lady's fetish for footwear showed a shift from necessities to entertainment, America is also guilty: Sex is entertainment, shopping is entertainment, eating is entertainment." "I advocated eating for life, rather than eating for pleasure."

None of us wants food that tastes nasty. But the quest for texture (best offered by white flour and saturated fat), sweetness, and saltiness, leads us to foods that entertain our taste buds, while providing few of the raw ingredients our bodies need for life and health.

I blogged several days ago about rice and As, saying that rice was beneficial. An observant reader called my hand on that. Rice flour and rice cakes are Type A beneficial. Rice is Type A neutral. I don't understand why, but none-the-less I stand corrected.

Over Christmas Laura posted a recipe for flour free banana bread. I made it for breakfast this morning, but since bananas are avoid for Type As, I substituted frozen peaches. Since peaches are not as sweet as bananas, I added honey - about 1/3 cup. My daughter loved it - I should say she practically inhaled it. I had some for a snack this afternoon and it truly was remarkably good.

That thread has already rotated off the forum, so I will copy Laura's original recipe here.

Banana Walnut bread

3 cups walnut flour (you can use other nut flour but I like walnut)

1/2 cup zucchini

3 eggs

2 mashed bananas

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

If you want you can add a sweetener, I think the Bananas are sweet enough though

Bake for an hour at 350 degrees F (180 C).

A Type A friend who has recently started the Blood Type Diet e-mailed me over the weekend. She said that she was doing pretty good, and that she could already see some improvement in the health issue that led her to try this diet. However, she expressed concern that since so many favorite foods were avoids that the diet would get boring.

She has a legitimate point. I remember that at first when I stopped eating avoid foods, and just ate the beneficial and neutral foods I normally ate, my diet was really limited and boredom threatened. But as I would look at the food lists, there were so many beneficial foods that I had never eaten. I went on a campaign to try every beneficial food on the list. I discovered so many new and delicious foods, that boredom vanished.

I now count parsnips, mango, and Swiss chard among my favorite foods, and I would never have tried them without the BTD. I have introduced new legumes and new grains to the family because they are beneficial to my husband and daughter. Fava beans and adzuki beans have become staples.

I would say to my friend and to anyone else new to the Blood Type Diet. If you place your emphasis on not eating avoid foods, you will probably find this diet to be restrictive, even boring. But if you keep your attention on the long list of foods that you can eat to build your health, you will have so many new foods to try that you can't possibly get bored.

Here is one quick example. Before the Blood Type Diet, the only cooked greens I ate were spinach. Now I like collard greens, Swiss chard, beet greens, turnip greens, and kale. I eat cooked greens almost every day. I usually cook enough for 2-3 days. I can go for more than two weeks without cooking the same greens twice.

An added amusement is watching checkers at the grocery store try to figure out what I am buying. This week for instance, a girl scanned the bar code on a package of parsnips and got an error message. I did not remember what the price was, so she called the produce manager on the intercom. The produce manager said, "Parsnips, what are parsnips?"

There is no boredom in that kind of variety.

I was in my little local health food store buying two of the Food, Beverage and Supplement lists to send to a friend. I struck up a conversation with a lady who said that she had bought "Eat Right 4 Your Type" but did not follow the Blood Type Diet because of some concerns she had as a Christian. Our conversation lasted 15 - 20 minutes, but I will give you the highlights.

One objection was the emphasis that the books place on evolution. I said that in my mind I had no trouble separating scientific research from opinion. The scientific research can be brilliant, but if someone has a secular worldview, their conclusions can be faulty. I look to Dr. D'Adamo as a pioneer in understanding why a diet that works for some people, makes other people sick. People in the future will look back to him as the single most important force who abrogated the one-size-fits-all diet. His research has improved my health in countless ways. But that does not mean I agree with him about origins. I skip those parts of the books.

Her other objection was that she had been taught that when you sat down to a meal and blessed the food in Jesus' name, that there was nothing wrong with eating it. In one sense that is true. When God gave Peter the vision of the clean and unclean food (Acts 10) he said, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." I don't believe that eating any food is sin. However, just because it is not sin, does not mean it is all equally healthy. If you live a holy life and eat only junk food, it will be a shorter holy life.

The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is full of examples of people who voluntarily restricted their diets. Daniel abstained from rich food. The Nazarites had strict dietary restrictions. Paul approved of both Christians who ate meat and Christians who ate only vegetables. It was certainly beneficial that the Jews (historically Type Bs) followed Jewish dietary laws, which are remarkably like the Type B diet. I believe it is consistent with Biblical teaching that God can guide us to restrict our diets for a short term fast or a long term lifestyle.

As we ended our conversation, she had a thoughtful look on her face, and said she would take another look at ER4YT.

My husband is notorious for finding a food that he likes and overeating it to the point that he detests it. So I try to keep his recipes rotating so that he doesn't get tired of food, especially beneficials. He likes rice a lot, and because it is Type A beneficial, I've been serving it in a lot of different ways. But one night I decided it was time to fix something entirely different.

I dug around in the pantry and found a box of buckwheat groats. When I bought them I had fixed them the easy way, boiling them in water. They were a little sticky for a side dish, more like oatmeal than rice. My husband and daughter gave them a 5 or 6 on a scale of 1 -10.

The back of the box had a recipe for kasha. It looked complicated. While I am an innovative cook, I don't like things that have a lot of steps or take all afternoon to prepare. After a brief debate with myself, I decided to try the kasha.

I'm so glad I did. It turned out light and fluffy, very much like rice. My daughter liked it. My husband loved it and said it was almost better than rice. Here is the recipe. The preparation is like the back of the box. The celery and onion are mine.

2 cups water (or broth)

½ tsp salt

1 cup buckwheat groats

1 egg

2 Tbsp ghee or oil

2 stalks celery, diced

1 onion, diced

1 skillet and 2 pots

In one pot place the oil and the diced vegetables. Sauté them until they are soft. In the other pot start boiling the water and salt.

Lightly beat the egg with a fork. Add the buckwheat and stir to coat the kernels. Cook the egg-coated buckwheat on high heat for 2-3 minutes until the egg has dried and the kernels are separate. Stir constantly!

Pour the buckwheat and the sautéed vegetables into the boiling water. Cover tightly and simmer 7-10 minutes.

This Type A-beneficial, Type O-neutral dish will be a regular in our household.

There is a barbeque restaurant near my house that I just love. Their brisket is delicious. If I've been out running errands and don't have an idea for lunch, I often drive through and buy just the beef. I can eat it with leftover vegetables, or wrap it in sushi nori papers.

My husband has discovered that they also serve turkey, so this restaurant has become one of his favorite places to eat after church on Sunday. Side dishes are a problem for Type O at most barbeque restaurants: pinto beans, fried potatoes, and Cole slaw are the standards. Two are avoids for me. I don't really like coleslaw, and the dressing almost certainly contains avoids. This restaurant also serves green beans and rice, so I select those as my sides.

However, I keep noticing that if we eat there on Sunday, my weight is up for 3-4 days. That usually means wheat, but I'm not eating any wheat - unless it's in the barbeque sauce. My suspicions centered on the sauce, because when I get brisket to go, I don't get sauce, and I don't have any trouble.

Last week we were there again, and I asked them to leave off the sauce. When my plate arrived, I saw a problem. They cook their green beans in the same sauce. I know that sounds awful, but the sauce is tasty, and it goes surprisingly well with beans. The rice is Spanish rice. It could be my imagination, but it seemed to taste like barbeque sauce as well.

The scale the next morning told the truth. The barbeque sauce contains avoids. I did notice that they have added side salads to their menu. I guess, from now on, I will order plain brisket and a side salad. That will be good, and it will be beneficial. It is just frustrating that this restaurant has 6 "vegetable side dishes" and a Type O can't eat any of them.

It was not too long ago that a political figure got himself in lots of trouble for responding to a question at a deposition, "That depends on what your definition of "is" is." I've come to the conclusion this week that I need to define what I mean by "lots." I've often written that as a Type O I eat lots of meat and lots of vegetables.

My context when I write that is that of a former health food loyalist who tried several times to be a vegetarian. Every time I tried, I got sick, so I gave up the idea of being a vegetarian. However, the things I read convinced me to try to eat meat just once a day. That was a bad idea for a Type O - I gained weight and my indigestion got worse. When I started the Blood Type Diet, and began to eat meat twice a day, every day, that seemed like lots to me.

However, not everyone's experience is like mine. I was at a party recently with someone from one of the former Soviet republics. He said that he was astounded that people in America ate meat three times a day. "Three times a day?" I said. He said that Americans he had met had bacon or sausage for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and meat again for dinner. By his standard, I don't eat "lots" of meat.

I had lunch recently with a Type O friend. She said that until recently a can of salmon was one serving for her. A 15 oz can on salmon is three meals (5 oz each) for me. I said that if I ordered an 8 oz steak in a restaurant, I brought half of it home. She said that she ate the whole steak. By her standard, I don't eat "lots" of meat.

Live Right 4 Your Type recommends that Type O secretors have 6 - 9 servings of meat per week plus 3 - 5 servings of fish. That's 14 servings combined, or 2 per day. That's what I eat. The targeted portion size is 2-5 ounces. Two or three ounces does not satisfy me, but I consider 4 ounces a normal serving. I often eat 5 ounces of meat, and occasionally 6.

Is that "lots?" Depending on their perspective, some would say "yes" and some would say, "no not at all."

I've written before that I aim for 10 different fruits and vegetables a day (today I had 12). That seems like "lots" to me in light of the ad campaign urging people to eat "five a day for better health." But then a few weeks ago, I heard an interview that said to fully take advantage of the cancer prevention qualities of fruit and vegetables, we should eat 15 per day. My goal of 10 does not seem like "lots" compared to that.

If my use of the word "lots" has confused anyone, I apologize. In the future, I will try to more clearly define what I mean.

I stayed late at school this afternoon because we have a basketball game against our arch rivals tonight. My daughter and I decided this morning that rather than go home and come back, we would just stay at school and work on picture files. I also planned to post a recipe that my Type A husband absolutely loved. But the recipe is not where I thought it was in my briefcase. It's probably at home, so I will write about my experience with kasha another day.

I was at the health food market two days ago, and they had Swiss chard. It was beautiful, with healthy big leaves. Swiss chard is my second favorite green, but it was puny all fall. The leaves were wilted and moldy, and it was covered with sand. I haven't bought any in months. If it is possible to be excited about a vegetable - I was excited when I picked up a bunch of this gorgeous chard.

After I wash the chard, I tear the leaves off the biggest part of the stem. Those red stems I cut up like celery. My daughter, who prefers her vegetables raw, thinks they are great. My husband, who eats cooked greens only reluctantly, also enjoys what we call "red celery".

The leaves and the smaller stems I tear into pieces. I put ¼ cup water and 2 Tbsp ghee in the bottom of a big pot. Then I pile in the chard and cook it until it is wilted. I had a bowl before I came to school and it was outstanding.

The clock on the computer tells me it is game time. I'm off to cheer for our team.

The lab where I had my Lewis type test charges $52 to uninsured patients. They charge insured patients $72, however the insurance company discounts it to $10.02. Because I am over my deductible, the insurance company pays 80%. I received a bill today for my Lewis test for $2.

I was warned by both the doctor and the lab that the insurance company might not pay. So if you decide to get your secretor status this way, you must be mentally prepared to pay the full amount. My doctor's assistant said, "We have to submit a diagnosis, what should we put?" I said, "Tell them it is an experimental treatment for GERD."

If you have not read these threads on the Forum, I recommend them:

http://www.dadamo.com/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?,v=display,b=GC,m=1137424259

http://www.dadamo.com/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?,v=display,b=GC,m=1137526780

They are about Type O and vegetables. Speaking of vegetables…

Butternut squash was on sale for 89 cents a pound, and artichokes were on sale for $1.50 each. The butternut squash is baking in the oven (350 degrees, uncut, skin still on) and I will cook the artichoke in the pressure cooker (steaming would work as well, it would just take longer). Now to find a meat to go with the vegetables.

I had never eaten turnips before the Blood Type Diet. The first time I cooked them, I didn't like them at all. I abandoned the idea of eating turnips, even though they were beneficial. However, I did like turnip greens, and I grew to like frozen turnip greens with little turnip cubes mixed in. Last fall I resolved to give turnips another try, and one November blog was about my effort to find a tasty way to eat them.

Taswolf wrote and suggested I try grating turnips and adding them to salad. I usually prefer cooked vegetables over raw. I had tried a bite-sized piece of turnip and was not overly impressed. So I didn't rush to follow his suggestion. But eventually I had to try.

The first time, I added some grated turnip to a bowl of leftover vegetables. They blended in well with the other flavors. Since they were grated I didn't get a whole lot in any one bite. I've gradually gotten bolder, and tonight I grated carrots and turnips together and added them to a tossed salad. My husband seemed to like them a lot. My daughter ate them grated, but would rather have them in bigger pieces.

As for me, I have to admit I'm actually liking grated turnip. The more I eat them the more I appreciate the peppery flavor. And I surprise myself in that (except for turnips with turnip greens) I like them better raw than cooked.

Taswolf specifically suggested adding grated turnips to Kohl Slaw. I haven't tried that yet. Is it because it's been difficult to find decent kohlrabi in the winter months or because I've been scared? Perhaps a bit of both!

I reread this and asked myself, why would I type, "scared"? I had a negative image of turnips based on hearsay. That negative impression was reinforced the first time I ate turnips because of the way I cooked them. The more recent successes have not yet overridden the bad memories. It will take a while for the realization that "turnips are great" to settle in my subconscious. Just like it took a while for the realization that "wheat is bad for me" to take root and become reality.