Lately my computer has become a black hole, and all too often exercise falls into it. I love my work as a photographer, writer & graphic designer. I also love corresponding with friends and family. I brought boxes of interesting family history documents home from my parents’ house that need to be scanned and preserved. All of this activity involves a great deal of computer time.

I start the day with a plan: take care of morning correspondence, spend a couple of hours on my business, exercise before lunch. After lunch spend another couple of hours on professional business, then spend an hour or two taking care of the house or working on family business. Then it would be time to fix dinner.

It’s a great plan…but. Sometimes I get bogged down in correspondence. Sometimes I get so involved restoring pictures that I lose track of time. It is as if I fall through a black hole when I am in front of the computer. I look at the clock, and it’s time for lunch. No exercise.

I adjust the afternoon plan. If I work really hard, I can exercise before dinner. That black hole opens up again, and suddenly it is dinner time. All too often I end up squeezing in an exercise video before bed time.

Of course this doesn’t happen every day, and I have some excellent exercise videos. Some are aerobic. Others build muscle. But the exercise I like best is to get outside and run or bicycle or haul rocks around the yard. I also feel intuitively that exercise does me more good when it comes earlier in the day.

I feel like I am sitting too much. I need to make some adjustments in my schedule, and I need to side step that black hole.

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.

On Wednesday while salmon was cooking, I got a package of green beans out of the freezer. I put enough water and olive oil in a skillet to cover the bottom. I was going to let the beans simmer until the salmon was ready.

Sometimes we have plain green beans. I think they are good with just a little olive oil or ghee.

My favorite herbs to put with green beans are garlic and basil. Ooooh that is good.

But this particular night I was in the mood for something different. I do not advocate yielding to that kind of mood in most circumstances. Being in the mood for a different house, car, or wardrobe can be expensive, not to mention self indulgent. However being in the mood for something different to eat can get my creative juices flowing – as long as I stay focused on beneficials.

What could I put on green beans that would be beneficial and tasty and different? Curry powder!!! So I made curried green beans. No recipe. I just added curry until it tasted right. My Honorable Husband liked them. They went great with salmon. And…they were certainly different.

At least I thought they were different until Friday, when we had to go to the city. HH had an appointment with his cornea specialist. I had two appointments with clients and I needed to get the arches in my athletic shoes adjusted.

We decided to eat lunch at a diner that specializes in meat and vegetables. On the list of vegetable specials for the day I saw curried okra. What! Someone hijacked my idea so quickly. I hadn’t even blogged about it yet.

Of course I ordered the curried okra. It was really good – not any better than my curried green beans – but really good.

So, the next time you are cooking green beans or okra, and you are in the mood for something different, grab the curry powder. Or, browse through your spice rack. You might come up with an idea that no one has thought of yet.

Amaranth is one of the confusing foods for me. The Type O Diet says it is neutral. The Hunter Diet says it is black dot toxic. The Gatherer Diet says it is superbeneficial. I have considered it a frequent neutral for me.

However “frequent” refers more to what is allowed than to what actually happens at my house. The Type A Diet says amaranth is beneficial. That is an even better reason for my serving amaranth frequently. But to be honest, none of us liked it very much. It smelled funny when it was cooking in a pot on the stove. At the end of the suggested cooking time it was a gooey ball. It stuck to the fork. It tasted ok, but it was not particularly appetizing. It did not get a good response when I served it.

I have really enjoyed enjoy the rice cooker I got for Christmas. Brown rice is perfect every time. I had a friend who complained that her rice sometimes formed a crust in the bottom of the cooker. I was putting 1-2 teaspoons of light olive oil in the water before I added the rice. Every time I don’t add the oil, I get the same crust, but with the oil it is no problem.

One time instead of rice, I cooked quinoa in the rice cooker. It came out perfect.

I was preparing to cook dinner one night and saw an unopened bag of amaranth in the pantry. I decided to try it in the rice cooker. I set a timer to check on it when it had cooked the amount of time recommended on the package. I could still see water boiling, so I decided to trust the rice cooker.

When the cooker turned off, the amaranth was in a solid piece. It was not as dry as cornbread or flax bread, but I could slice it and lift it out with a spatula. There was none of the sticky texture that always happened when I cooked it on the stove. And there was no bad smell in the kitchen.

I didn’t tell my husband what it was. I just put the slices alongside the cod and vegetables. He took a slice and liked it. We both did. We ate it with a fork, sort of like you would eat quiche.

If you have tried amaranth in the past and didn’t think you cared for it, give it another chance. Cook it in a rice cooker. If you don’t have a rice cooker . . . well, it sure makes a great Christmas gift.

I once read somewhere that in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were vegetarians, and that at the end of this world – in heaven – we will all be vegetarians again. It does appear to be true according to Genesis 1:28-29 that God’s original plan was for humans to eat green plants and fruit.

After the flood (Genesis 9:3) God said that animals were also suitable for food. For the rest of the Bible, eating meat is not only shown in a positive light, but it is often commanded. There are quite a few Biblical passages about Jesus eating meat.

One verse in Revelation mentions eating fruit in heaven, but it doesn’t say fruit will be the only thing that is eaten.

My Bible study this summer and fall has me reading in the prophetic books. Today I found this passage in Ezekiel. The passage speaks a time in the future when God dwells among His people in a newly created, perfect world. At that time it says trees will provide fruit for food and leaves for medicine. So does this mean we are going to be fruitarians in the millennium or in heaven? Not necessarily so - because the passage also mentions fishermen. If there are fishermen, people will be eating fish. And if salt is left for flavoring, then people must be doing some cooking, because there is certainly no need to salt fruit.

There will be a huge number of fish because this water goes there. Since the water will become fresh, there will be life everywhere the river goes. Fishermen will stand beside it from En-gedi to En-eglaim. These will become places where nets are spread out to dry. Their fish will consist of many different kinds, like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. Yet its swamps and marshes will not be healed; they will be left for salt. All kinds of trees providing food will grow along both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. Each month they will bear fresh fruit because the water comes from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be used for food and their leaves for medicine.” Ezekiel 47:9-12

We certainly do not live in that perfect world today. It is obvious to me that human effort will never create a perfect world. Only God can do that, and he will in His time. The Bible teaches that our bodies in heaven will not be the same as they are today, and if God creates my new body to be satisfied with just fruit, I’ll be fine with that.

In the meantime, if someone tries to tell you that the Bible says you ought to be a vegetarian or a fruitarian today, tell them to read the whole Bible, not just isolated passages that support their views.