I am a type O and just went through a bout of kidney stones a week before I started the er4yt diet. My kidney stones were composed of uric acid and it says I shouln't eat red meat or greatly decrease my consumption of it. The type O diet says red meat is very important to my diet. I do not know what to do. Can you give me some suggestions? It would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Laura



Hello, Laura! Kidney stones are not "caused" by uric acid ~ the main causes are (1) inadequate water intake during the day, (2) inadequate exercise, (3) frequent urinary tract infections, (4) regular use of calcium-based antacids. It is also a side-effect of some thyroid medications, and in some families there is a genetic pre-disposition toward stone-forming. Even if it runs in your family, just following some simple guidelines can keep you stone-free.

The main things you as an O can do are:

(A) get PLENTY of fresh, pure *water.* Six to eight 12-ounce glasses per day, away from meals, as a protective measure. Tea, juice, etc. do not count for this purpose (although freshly-made fruit and vegetable juices are fabulous for healing the kidneys). Kidney stones form when the urine becomes so concentrated that minerals precipitate out of it (like a science experiment!) forming crystals on the inside of the kidneys. You may pee a bit more and more frequently at first, but after two to three weeks your bladder will easily accommodate the higher water intake.

( an exercise plan as outlined in Live Right 4 Your Type. Good, sweat-breaking, strenuous exercise (whatever "level" that means for your current state of fitness), at least three times per week. While it is clearing out your kidneys, it will also tone all the rest of your organs and enhance both your musculature and your bones' calcium uptake.

(C) go through your O diet list, and mark as "avoid" these foods known to raise urinary oxylate levels: spinach, beet greens, almonds, chocolate, and strawberries.

There is a section on kidney stones on pages 341-342 of the BTD Complete Blood Type Encyclopedia, and a reference to the Urinary Tract Health protocols on page 492. It is an excellent resource for complementary treatment of ailments of all kinds! So DO follow your diet including your meat allowance, and I'm sure you'll be speeding along the healing trail in no time! Thank you for writing, and drop me a note on your progress!! :-D

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Hello, I'm type "O".. just wanted to know about Oat flakes, the type that's in "Jordan's Crunchy"?? And "Yeast pate" found in health food stores? What about sprouted bread, I read in the book that it was ok, but saw "avoid" on the website!!?? Brgds Stefan



Hi, Stefan!

(1) For any commercial product, check the ingredient list against your type O food list. 'Fraid I don't know what-all's in the products you mentioned! If the oat flakes contain something other than oats, just check each ingredient listed.

(2) If you have a question about food status, just use the TYPEbase 3 database. For instance, use the search term "oat," and remember to hit the "search" button, as the enter key won't activate the search.

You might be confused about "sprouted bread" because we have two listings for it in the database: one is made from 100% sprouted grain, and the other listing covers those many commercial brands who toss in a little sprouted grain and fill 'er up with whole wheat. :-) Essene (manna) and Ezekiel breads are generally fine for Os, but once again: read the labels! Several times, I noted that the "Ezekiel" *hamburger and hotdog rolls* in my HFS are NOT made of 100% sprouted grain -- they contained whole wheat flour as well. So read, read, read! :-D thanks for writing! :-D

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I am a type "O" and have been on the plan of for about 1 month now. The first 2 weeks I lost about 17 pounds. Now I am at a standstill now,have even gone back up about 10 pounds what can I do to jumpstart weight loss again. Bridget



Hello, Bridget! Do you drink three or four liters of pure water each day? And get a good lot of exercise? If you are at least 20% over your ideal weight, you can get a better picture of fat loss by measuring yourself at the waist, hips, and around the top of each thigh, every week. Make a note of the figures and see if your weight may be standing still while your fat loss continues. Muscle weighs more than fat, so if you're building muscle you may see a plateau or even a small jump in the scale until your metabolism is kicked up by the new muscle tissue.

The first thing I'd suggest is to get a copy of Live Right 4 Your Type. You may need a stricter adherence, perhaps using the Tier II diet. If you eat more than 4 servings of grain per week, try reducing or eliminating it for the time being. Vegetables three or four times per day, fruits 2-3 times per day, along with the beneficial meats and fish, are the basis of the O diet. And do take a tablespoon of flax oil, or ground flaxseed soaked in water, every evening. It's a great way to get fiber as well as support your weight loss.

If you're up for an experiment: try using the food list and portion/frequency guidelines for type O nonsecretors for a few weeks. See if that makes a significant difference.

Don't be disappointed if your weight loss continues at a rate of one or two pounds per week ~ that is a healthy rate, and one at which most people *keep the weight OFF.* :-) Seventeen pounds in two weeks is A LOT, even for the initial loss, and we wouldn't want you to continue shedding it that quickly.

thanks for your note, and I am SURE you will succeed! :-D

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I recently purchased the book "Eat Right for Your Type" I am a type O blood type. I have eaten Wheat Products all my life without noticing any problems. My wife says she is Blood Type also. Then I assume our kids are type O. We purchased Ezekiel Bread from the Local Health Food Store. It was frozen. The bread was very good tasting, however both my kids, my wife and I all had diarrhea the day after we ate this bread. All of us ate the bread on different days of the month. So we suspect the diarrhea was caused by the bread. Why would this bread which is supposed to be good for our blood type cause this reaction? Dan



Hello, Dan! Well, in brief: the diarrhea after eating the sprouted grain is most likely the result of the wheat you were eating before. Weird, huh? Go to the column I wrote entitled Type O Roundup ~ #10! and scroll down to the sixth Q, from "Deborah," and my response. Your answers are there! ;-)

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and now... the long-awaited Beer Extravaganza! :-)



For TYPE O I looked up the database for Beer. It responded: AVOID: Contains component which can modify known disease susceptibility. What is the component that it is referring to? I would like to know if this is a component found in commercial beer (is it a preservative, for example) and whether it is also found in homebrewed beer. Also, is the yeast in homebrewed beer a problem for Type Os? I noticed that yeast-brewers is listed as beneficial or neutral depending on secretor status in LR4YT. Would this contribute to candida? ~Ed

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Dear Heidi: Thank you for your continued informative and entertaining e-column. As a fellow Type O non-secretor, I have experienced immense benefits commensurate with my initiation of the Blood Type diet. However, I am also a lover of microbrewed beer, in particular, Hefeweizen (Wheat Beer) and can't seem to wean myself from this addiction:-)! Are there any other contraindications to the consumption of beer by type O's other than alcohol increasing gastrin production? In other words, are the offending lectins such as Wheat Germ Agglutinin removed during the manufacture of the beer (do they remain with the spent and eventually discarded grain or do they enter into the malt, and consequently, in the beer itself?). An answer would be much appreciated. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Kipp

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Heidi, An article in a London newspaper recently touted a great nutritional benefit of beer, silicon. Beer has high levels of silicon, a mineral needed for bone density. However, beer is an avoid for bloodgroup O's. I couldn't help but wonder if some home brewed beer made from neutral grains would be OK for an O? What do you think? It seems as if the hops and carbonation would actually be somewhat beneficial for an O! Eh? And what about home made soy yogurt? Or perhaps even almond or rice yogurt? Have you ever tried to make some? Such a thing would be great for O's in India! Wow, what a marketing possibility! Stephan

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I have the Cook Right 4 Your Type book. In the 30 day menu plan (I am Type O) white wine and beer are listed as after dinner drinks. In my Blood Type O Food, Beverage and Supplement Lists, these are listed as Avoids (white wine) or not recommended (beer). Also on page 46 of that book, Hops is listed as Highly beneficial, yet on page 49, Chapter 14, Miscellaneous Beverages, I quote "Beer isn't recommended, as hops tend to increase stomach acid secretions and most beer is made from wheat. Please clarify. Also, I bake my own bread and would like to find a recipe for Ezekiel bread. Can you help. Thank you for your assistance. M.

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I am Type O. As Type O you recommend no distilled spirts, a beer now and then, and a glass of wine from time to time. Please explain the reasoning behind your limitations. How is distilled sprits (Scoth) worse for you and wine or beer? Where in your book (Eat Right 4 Your Type) should I go to get a full and complete explanation? Thanks Dave



First thing to understand about Os and beer: we ain't well designed to metabolize it effectively. Don't hit me yet, I WILL go into detail! LOL! ;-D

Think of it as a blast of carbohydrates, much of it in a form which heads straight for the liver. The limited grain and sugar choices on the O menu is partly for lectin-ish reasons, but the short list, and the very limited frequencies in Live Right for these foods is directly related to our paleolithic-style physiology. One glass of beer delivers more liver-targeting carbs than the average hunter-gatherer would consume in a month, and the alcohol gets it there in a hurry. The more grain carbs we consume, the more our serum cholesterol (made in the liver) is likely to pop up ~ along with the cascading rest of the well-known hazards.

Second, beer does increase gastrin levels. As a point of comparison: my tummy is well-provided with ample gastrin five minutes after I begin eating. In my type A guy's tum, on the other hand, it takes 45 to 50 minutes to get the juices going. Makes sense for him to stimulate gastrin with a glass of beer, and makes sense for me to relax things with a little seltzer. Now WHAT, you are asking, IS it in BEER that stimulates the O-gastrin to get out of hand? Well, the central culprit is the alcohol from the malted barley; however, the combination of grain carbs and alcohol (as in beer and Scotch) and the addition of carbonation (in beer) work together to produce their synergy of troublesomeness.

In the case of Kipp's beloved Hefe-Weizen, wheat rather than barley is the foundational mash. There are many styles of beer, notably the Belgian brews and "white" beers, in which unmalted (whole unsprouted) grain (often wheat) is added after the fermentation to produce a particular look and flavor. A mash of up to 60% wheat is used in the Hefe-Weizen style, and it is the *protein* (read, unsprouted, lectin-loaded part) that gives H-W and similar-looking beers their characteristic cloudiness. This does magnify the avoid quotient of those brews, but as I mentioned above, drinking clear beer instead is no solution. ~ pun unintended! :-( ~

Scotch, even just single-malts, encompasses such a huge variety that I'll stick to generalities (you're chuckling, right? ;->) -- The basic ingredients are barley mash and water, and the distillation process produces a beverage (?) which delivers all the above-noted hazards of beer but at ten times the speed and power. This from a longtime single malt fan, sorry to say. On our yearly trip to our favorite steakhouse, I'm now reduced by BTD-compliance and personal wisdom to sniffing and sipping perhaps only two or three out of the 200+ Scotches they have on offer. Bringing a crowd of friends helps raise the potential number and lower the actual quantity I'm responsible for drinking ~ but still, more sniffing and less drinking has become the order of the day. :-}

For the individual questions:

~ Ed, the yeast is not a problem. Nor does brewer's or nutritional yeast contribute to candidiasis ~ as a matter of fact, these forms of yeast feed beneficial organisms, thereby actively helping to re-establish balanced intestinal flora & fauna. They're GOOD for the condition! :-)

~ Stephan, silica is abundant in horsetail, too! ;-> and... while I've never made rice yogurt at home, I fully support your exploration of alternate yogurt products to market in India! :-D keep that imagination fertile, my dear!

~ M., that text regarding Hops in the Blood Type O Food Beverage & Supplement Lists is incorrect. Oops! sorry! ;-) Hops is still Beneficial! and I think "barley" may have been what was intended there. For your baking plans, here's a starter on your Ezekiel bread recipe: Seeking Recipes for Essene and Ezekiel Breads.

Thank you all for this opportunity to touch on a favorite subject! ;-D

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AND: Please Help Natasha, California BTD’ers!

Hi, I've just moved to California from Australia and I'm at a complete loss looking for the foods I could buy at the regular supermarket that I now need to buy from a health food store. People back home don't know how good we have it! My problem is that I don't know where any are here all the ones I seem to find sell only vitamins and protein drinks - I want to buy regular health food. I couldn't find the groups that used to be on yahoo to ask them so I'd really appreciate someone replying to me as soon as possible. I've been eating take out ever since I got here a month ago because I can't find too much in the local supermarkets - so my body isn't enjoying it right now!!! Help!! Cheers, Natasha.

OK, readers, the ball's in your court: write in with your recommendations on shopping spots for Natasha! THANKS, EVERYONE!!! :-D

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