The question I am asked most often - both in discussions about the Blood Type Diet and in e-mail - is "What do you eat for breakfast?" A conversation last week got me thinking about how culture has affected what I eat for breakfast.

A number of dedicated Type Os have e-mailed me that they eat meat and vegetables for breakfast and lunch. They eat a light supper - often fruit or salad. I've tried eating that way on a few isolated days, and I like the way it makes me feel. Yet I've never adopted that way of eating. I think the reason is partly cultural and partly practical.

When I was a little girl, we would go visit my grandparents who lived in a town of about 400 people. My grandfather was a grocer, banker, school superintendent and farmer. He had five farms where he raised cattle and chickens. He got up very early in the morning and ate a huge breakfast - eggs and all the trimmings. The mid day meal was always the big meal of the day - meat, and lots of vegetables. At night, my grandparents ate cereal. My mother remembers that this was the way it was when she was growing up. Even on school days, my grandfather and all of the children would come home for a hearty lunch, but the evening meal was cereal or leftovers.

I was raised differently in the city. My Dad worked several miles from home, and could not come home for lunch. Big city public schools frown when parents pull their children out for lunch. So, we had a light breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and our big meal of the day was in the evening.

My cousins, also city kids, were raised like me, and we though it very peculiar that our grandparents ate cereal for supper. At our grandparents' house, our parents would scurry around making sandwiches for us at night, while our grandparents wondered what the fuss was about.

Raising my children in the city, I followed the pattern of my own childhood: light breakfast of whole grain carbohydrates, sandwiches or leftovers for lunch, a big supper with meat, vegetables, and rolls. When I started the BTD, I began making changes. Lunch time sandwiches became meat and vegetables. I learned to make rolls with grains beneficial to the Type As and I increased the number of evening meal vegetables for me.

But breakfast was a dilemma. For my whole life breakfast had been a pastry or cereal or toast. There were no beneficial grains for a Type O, and even in those early days, I knew that I wanted to start my day with beneficials, not neutrals. So I came up with a breakfast mix that was highly beneficial, but had the texture of cereal. That's what I eat 6 days a week - sometimes 7.

I grind nuts in my blender and keep 3-4 varieties in my refrigerator. They include pumpkin seed, almonds, walnuts, pecans, and flax seed. Breakfast starts with two tablespoons of ground nuts. I mix and match them for variety. I add 1 Tablespoon of lecithin granules, 1 Tablespoon of brewers yeast, and 1 Tablespoon of rice bran. I toss in 2 or 3 fresh or frozen fruits. The combination possibilities are endless - banana/blueberry, pineapple/mango, cherry/peach. I moisten it with water or pineapple juice and eat it with a spoon. It gets my blood sugar up for the day, it tastes good, and it "feels" like breakfast.

Now we've moved out of the city. My husband is approaching retirement, and my daughter will graduate in the spring. I've begun to think radical thoughts. I may switch to my grandfather's way of eating. I may eat a hearty breakfast of leftover meat and vegetables. I may cook the main meal of the day for lunch. I may have my cereal imitation of fruit and nuts for supper. I think my body would like that. I can't make the switch now. The urban school and work schedule still has too great a hold on us. But it's something to look forward to in the future.

By way of background, one of my earliest blogs was about how I came up with the breakfast mix I use every morning. If you're interested, you can read it at this link. http://www.dadamo.com/bloggers/h/archives/00000037.htm