last night, just watched Friends and just finished eating MPLS Cafe. I had their caviar dish. scrambled eggs with Sevruga caviar in the egg shell, minus the sour cream. Followed this by over marinated Haricot Vert and then a nice Wild Rice Chicken soup.

Last night I went to Barbette and ate a crepe with chicken, cremini mushrooms and a mixed greens salad. Also had a nice glass of Beaujolais. They were supposed to leave the Gruyere out of the crepe but put it in by accident. Oh well.

Also had a nice juice at Fresco with Bee Pollen and Spirulina. It was quite nice.

A quickie because it is late, and please forgive any typos - I'm writing this directly instead of in Word. No spellcheck here.

I am so surprised that people are taking on "Norman" as the lable for their "beast" or "lower" voice. Just a hint. Give yourself the permission to completely ignore Norman. Give yourself the permission to give Norman's voice no significance whatsoever. Keep in mind that I named my "beast" voice Norman because Norman was such a pig of a horse (weird sentence, that one) - he truly was a beast. He would just as soon walk over me as around me, and never much gave me much more consideration than a fly. If I got hurt in the process it had very little impact on him, unless he was immediately and severely reprimanded. I didn't try to reason with Norman, nor did I expect him to respond to anything but a simple and effective "no" (usually followed by a swift correction). There was only one way for me to deal with Norman the horse: I decided that that there could only be one boss, that the 1000 lb. horse was NOT the boss and that I was willing to do what it took for him to know that. There were no negotiations at that time.

There are none now, either. I am the boss. I won't be ruled by a beast.

This month has been hell at work for myself…I have come home after 10-12 hour workdays completely exhausted and mentally drained. It seems when I have pressing deadlines at work I totally forget my BTD routine and put anything that I have time to in my mouth. Today at work we had a barbecue outside our offices… it was a blistering 78 degrees, which for Toronto in April is hot. I had a hamburger with salad but I put it on one of those white bleached enriched buns and paid dearly for it all afternoon. You might say I could have easily just had the meat patty without the bun but my brain sent me a signal, probably deeply entrenched in the pre BTD corner of my brain saying….”you can’t have a hamburger without the bun” My lower brain won out over my higher BTD compliant brain. This routinely happens when my stress levels are up. I’m sure other type O’s experience this too?

What I have decided to do is to start packing my lunch from now on. If on the odd chance I forget or do not have time, I am going to take a 15 minute time out somewhere in an empty office with the door closed to collect myself physically and mentally before I venture out to get something to eat for lunch. This should help my higher BTD brain choose B’s and N’s instead of A's.

I’m also going to take fellow blogger Janet’s advice and spend some time when I get home and do some meditation, turning the brain off for twenty minutes before dinner. I read it helps with the digestion especially after a long stressful day at the office. I’ve had bad bouts of indigestion all month because of the constant hurried state I have been in

I think Dr D should have put “vacation” somewhere in his protocols section because I think it might just be the "Beneficial" I'm looking for right now

Yesterday I had the great good fortune to be among the select audience as His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama was awarded an honourary law degree at the University of Toronto. His Holiness has been in Canada for a week or so now, and will remain in Toronto for another week or more. His visit has been marked by a great many people who have been drawn to see this great man, who want to hear his message of personal peace and compassion, no matter what their own particular religious persuasion might be. Yesterday’s procession included several chaplains affiliated with the University, including the Hindu and Sikh chaplains, amongst others.

His Holiness began his little speech with the comment that although he was a Buddhist monk, he felt that all the religions had a unifying force, for they all speak of peace and love and truth, and in that sense he was united with everyone present.

During his visit, which began last week, His Holiness was invited to visit a hospital where research was being conducted on the effects of meditation upon the brain, something that could not have happened twenty years ago because the technology that is being used today (MRI scans) was not available then. The research had some very interesting results, and it was the subject of a television documentary.

First, they scanned the brains of over 150 ordinary people to see what happened in the brains of ordinary people. They found that if a person tended towards depression, there was a great deal of activity in the right side of the brain, and much less in the left side. However, if a person was of a happy-go-lucky nature, the major activity was to be found in the left side of the brain, with much less happening in the right. Then they checked Tibetan monks, who are the most disciplined meditators in the world today. They could not measure all of the activity on the left side of the brain!

They then experimented with teaching people who had various difficulties to meditate. They found that it wasn’t necessary to make the commitment to Tibetan monkhood to obtain good results fairly quickly, and that these effects could be made permanent through the medium of regular meditation. Meditation helps to slow down high blood pressure and has other health benefits such as strengthening the immune system of meditation practitioners. The effects are so positive that a large downtown hospital in Toronto is now teaching meditation to quite large groups of people!

The conclusion to be drawn from this recently published experiment is that meditation is not only good for the soul, it is extremely good for improving your attitude in life, and it even helps one to become more healthy, almost as a side effect. It is important to remember that although eating food that agrees with one’s blood type is very important, following certain practices will only enhance what has begun through diet and awareness of what we feed ourselves. Feeding ourselves a little meditation just takes it to another level.

The weather has cooled down now and with the cooler midday temperatures I’ve begun walking during my lunch break. A couple of years ago I had foot problems caused by extremely high arches. This has made it more comfortable for me to walk and I enjoy it more than I have in years. I regularly get a walk at weekends with Sue my lunchtime walk of 20 to 25 minutes doesn’t sound much. Added to what I do at weekends, I am now walking approx. 3 hours per week.

I have been dropping hints at home that Muffin Season is due to start. Our apples are all ready on the trees and last winter Sue baked the most beautiful Apple and Walnut Muffins using light Rye flour. How beneficial is that !!!



Hint, Hint, Hint.

Back to work today. Not too many dramas waiting for me thanks to my relief taking care of things for me.

Continuing on with foods I could but don’t eat.

F & G

Farmer Cheese. Not known in Australia.

Fiddlehead Fern. ???.

Fish Oils. Not vegetarian.

Ghee. Not vegetarian and prefer to use Olive oil.

Ginseng. Crops up now and again in a herbal tea.

Gooseberry. Not widely seen unless you grow your own.

.

Grapefruit. Not one of my must have foods.

Guava/juice. Not in Tasmania.

Tomorrow will be brought to you by the letter H.



"I have enforced the laws against killing certain animals and many others. But the greatest progress of Righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favour of non-injury to life and abstention from killing living things. "

Pillar Edict of King Ashoka (268-233 BC)

Hello Boys and Girls,

Please excuse any future typos as I am at an internet cafe of sorts and do not get to type at the comfort of my ergonomic keyboard. Instead, a Mac with standard keys.

But let me just say that after working eight days in a row, there is nothing quite like getting a nice massage at Pagoda and eating right for my blood type!

Yes, right next door to the beloved spa, there is the Williams Uptown Peanut bar. The name says it all. Type A snack paradise. Well, the rest of the food is not so healthy for As, but I did manage to pair the crunchy messy peanuts with a glass of Merlot and Honey Mustard chicken wings w/celery.

I ended my indulgence a few feet down at Zeno. There I ate the Lava cake. Oh dear. If I'm ever on my death bed, this is what I want as my last meal!!!!! The waitress took one look at my face as the warm gooey chocolate filled my soul when she asked me how my food was and knew it was heaven on earth for me. I needed this souffle!!!!!

Paired it w/French pressed decaf since it behooves me to be at work to open the pharmacy tomorrow (vs. staying up all night on a caffeine buzz). It was a Sumatra decaf. I asked how the caffeine was taken out and she said, "it's the 3rd way; not the Swiss water way nor the harsh chemical way." That's all I know. Does anyone know what that means? Oh, yes, and like a good non-secretor, I paired the coffee with soy milk.

Earlier today, I also ate a gyros plate with lettuce, tomato, onions, feta cheese minus the olives and pita bread. Can someone please clarify how lamb ranks for A non-secretors? One book says neutral as does the website, but the encyclopedia database says avoid. Anyone, anyone? (Peter D'Adamo?)

Over the weekend, I was able to maintain a fair amount of compliance. On Saturday, we the corporate slaves (aka my two techs and I) satisfied our hunger with Chipotle. Had the veggie fajita burrito. It was loaded with rice, mild salsa, guacamole, onions, bell peppers, black beans, tomatoes, lettuce. Yum! It was an adventure in itself ordering it from the fax machine at work!!!! I think this may become my new workplace staple since the deli next door is getting old.

Hmmm....Sunday ate a Caesar salad. Picked out the olives. Not sure about the deli dressing (ingredients) but it did taste delightful. Too bad I had to scarf it down. Felt bad because I had to eat it discreetly in the corner of the pharmacy and it was a little messy with the dressing and all. But anyone who has a problem with my lunch being eaten in the pharmacy can gladly allow me to shut it down for a personal lunch break on weekends. Oh, wait, you need your prescription filled? You can't possibly wait one half hour? Well, then guess what? Your pharmacist needs to eat just like you do. Oh, the vicious cycle continues....if they don't treat us like professionals (and humans for that matter), we can't quite be truly professional....and on and on. I do know of a competitor in town who gives lunch breaks to their staff. And the employee discount is great! But, I'll sacrifice that for the mother of all pharmacy computer systems at my company. Yes, you can't ask for more user-friendly software. A monkey could run it. It's that good.

Yeah, graduate school is looking really good right about now. You never really appreciate the benefits of studentdom until you are in the real world. I won't complain about the salary though. But I will complain about Uncle Sam taking 44% of it out of my paycheck! Ah, the incredible shrinking middle class......



Hope to go back to ND school in the next year or two. It's difficult to give sound advice on supplements when I don't have the degree and confidence behind a doctorate degree of Naturopathic medicine. I know what I know from my passionate extra-curricular reading as well as the minimal knowledge I was given in pharmacy school, but I want to go all the way with this. I am called to it. Or it's calling me. Or something like that. Could that be the Merlot talking?

Till next time,

Erika the cornfused Iowan

Well, it’s been interesting! I had only a few responses to my request for ideas how to deal with headaches or give myself an extra boost if I was feeling a little tired but had to stay awake and aware for the evening ahead of me without using coffee. Basically, other than sympathy being offered by other lovers of coffee, the only useful information was that headaches are often caused by dehydration, (though not always, of course) and perhaps adding more liquid to my day might stave off the headaches.

Now for the experiential part of the dilemma. I posted my message on Wednesday, having had coffee and tested my pulse on Tuesday. I didn’t have coffee for three days because of appointments that took me out of the house early in the day. That was good. When I did make my coffee – weak, half the amount of coffee – it was barely brownish swimming in the goat milk, but it felt good. However, I woke up the next morning with a headache – I think it actually woke me up – and it persisted into the morning. My friend insisted I should get some coffee since I had a busy day ahead of me and I might not be able to perform as I wanted, so we headed to the coffee shop at the market – and the headache dutifully went away. Yes, I know, it might have been a withdrawal headache. And yes, I was trying to drink more while I was in the throes of the headache. So we start again. Someone I once knew (a dancer) described progress as two steps forward and one step backward. I am not discouraged, just starting again, and hopeful that in time the new system will kick in. Perhaps if I had been able to stay with the original plan of half the amount of coffee every other day, I might have been able to stave off the headache. Perhaps this week will tell the tale. I don’t have to be out early any day this week! In the meantime, those of you who are addicted to prayer could offer a few words on my behalf, for which I’d be more than appreciative.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I’ve had today off work. Sue and I went for a little retail therapy this morning, it didn’t work. I’m married to the only woman in the World with the recessive shopping gene. She hates it. We were shopping for clothes and the biggest down side to lovely Devonport is the lack of variety and range in clothes shops. The fact that Sue is 5’ 2” tall and only weighs 7st 5lb (103lb) also doesn’t help in clothes shopping. Is it me or have clothes sizes got bigger each year.

E

Today I”ll list a few E foods I should eat but don’t.



Egg - Chicken. Very occasionally.

Elder Tea. Never seen it.

Elderberry. Not had them since I was a child.

Escarole. A variety of Chicory, which I already eat..

Essene Bread. Tried it and to be honest wasn’t impressed.

8:56 AM

I see that I haven’t managed to blog since last Monday. I guess that it is unrealistic for me to think that I am going to get it done much more than once or twice a week. The days just get away from me. Last Tuesday I drove to Corpus Christi to meet with a very interesting woman. She started a custom drapery business when she was pretty young, and has grown it into a good, strong business. I really enjoy meeting women like her. She went over my products and helped me understand a few of the sewing processes that could be done in a better way. It’s amazing when you are an inventor. You have an idea to put something together to solve a certain problem, but by the time you are through you know a little bit about this and a lot about that, and realize that you still no nothing about something else that it important to your invention. I am now putting together a letter for our manufacturer suggesting that these changes be implemented. I’m pretty sure that my contact is going to be resistant to this, but that’s too bad. The products are going out with my name on them, too.

Like my intention to blog more regularly, but the reality being that I just don’t get to it, my workouts have fallen into a similar pattern. Though my intention is to work out 5-6 days per week, the reality is that I am averaging 3-4 days per week. Something just always comes up. I start each week with a Sunday workout (hopefully – didn’t make it last Sunday), almost always make it to Monday’s step class, but things start getting murky from then on. Last week I was off to Corpus on Tuesday, so didn’t get that class in. We to a “boot camp” class on Wednesday and ended up so sore on Thursday and Friday that working out was impossible. I also had some excuses. It is Fiesta here in San Antonio, which is basically a 2 week party for the city. Thursday my daughter’s Kindergarten class had THEIR fiesta, so I went to help out, and Friday the entire city, including the courthouse was closed for a parade. Oh brother! I don’t work out on Saturday, in general. It just doesn’t work for me. So I only will have worked out twice last week. That isn’t enough for me.

Well, I’ll go tomorrow for sure, and recommit to my program. I would like to just get through 1 week the way that I would like it to be. I haven’t given up.

I still haven’t put any starch into my mouth. It’s been interesting. I really haven’t had any problems with it. I just ignore the voice of Normal – I put that voice into perspective – and I choose meat, veggies, fruit and nuts (basically in that order) instead. I still eat chocolate each day, but I have realized that I am going to have to cut that WAY back. It used to be that corn syrup would give me an IMMEDIATE back flare-up. Now it looks like sugar does it, too, including my beloved organic dark chocolate. Truthfully, the pain just isn’t worth it. I find that to be the most amazing part of this dietary plan: your body, after a certain period of time following the program carefully, will tell you, in no uncertain terms, if a food doesn’t work for you. I feel so much better having eliminated all starches, that I can’t even describe it to you. I no longer get dragged down, I am much stronger emotionally, and I have a lot more energy. It’s pretty clear that I have to cut the sugar out as well. I don’t feel the need to be as strict with it as I am the starches – it’s not as much of a trigger for me – but my back would appreciate it if I left it alone. I hate that piercing sciatica pain.

I’ve been having a lot of problems with my ankle. Last year I was taking a lot of dance classes. Of course, I was also a Vegan at that time. About 6 weeks into Veganism, I twisted my ankle in dance class. I’ve twisted my ankle many times in my life, but this time I ended up in a walking cast for 6 weeks. Now, of course, I have no doubt that my diet played a big part in my injury. Actually, since ER4YT, my ankle has felt very good. That was, until about 1 month ago. I twisted it just a little bit in step class. Since then it has become a problem. It’s not the same injury as last year, but same ankle. I need to break down and go to see my podiatrist, but I’m scare that he’s going to put me back into “the boot”. It’s weird because I can actually feel a knot above my ankle on the outside, and this is where the problem source. Last time I had 6 weeks of physical therapy on the ankle, too. I really think that the ultrasound helped the most. Part of the problem is that I don’t have health insurance. Yup, we are upper middle class people with no health insurance. We are a living example of the problems with this issue. We are both self-employed so we have no benefits. We’ve had insurance off and on, but they keep raising the rates until it is out of the question. The thing is, we are very healthy and rarely sick. It is so much cheaper to just go to a Med Clinic when we are sick rather than pay so much money each year. It’s outrageous. No matter WHAT I have to pay for the doctor and the therapy, it will be less that 1 or 2 months worth of premiums. What really chaps my hide is that the last insurance policy that we had had over a $5K deductible to boot and was STILL too expensive. I’m currently looking into just a major medical policy. Our country is in a sad state where providing for health care is concerned. Of course, when you are looking into getting new insurance, you don’t want to make any claims either, or that will increase the premiums. It’s a vicious cycle.

Well, gotta run. Got things to do and places to be. Must go FIESTA~~~!!!

There is a perception, often ill conceived that all vegetarians are “health nuts”.

Most of us are no different from the bulk of the population, we like quick snacks, junk food or the reason for this blog a good old fashioned fry up.

I was idly surfing the net yesterday and I’ve no idea how I got onto the subject of ‘Tofu bacon’. I read a few of the recipes and today at lunch time I had a glut of mushrooms freshly picked after overnight rain. Tofu bacon was still fresh in my mind and I thought mmmmmmmmmmm, grilled mushrooms, tofu bacon and toast.

I made a side salad of mixed greens and bean sprouts lightly dressed with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and a couple of spring [green] onions. Heated up the health grill. 4 slices of Tofu approx. ¼” thick, dropped on the grill, followed by mushrooms and two slices of Rye bread. I drizzled about 1 tsp of extra light olive oil over the Tofu and turned it after about 3 minutes.

When everything was ready I spread Miso on the toast and laid the now crispy Tofu on the bread. Sprinkled lightly with Savoury[nutritional] Yeast and topped with grilled mushrooms, a little plum sauce with no vinegar on top and as healthy a vegetarian fry up as you could wish for. All in all I used probably 2 tsp of oil for cooking and dressing and that was it.

It tasted so good it couldn’t possibly have been vegetarian, and as for healthy, well you’ll have to make your own minds up on that………………..



"Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. To harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator."

Native American Indian Chief (1854)

Well, just got back from a quick vacation to Madison and Chicago. It had been a year and a half since I last visited Chicago. Can't say I really ate at any special ritzy restaurants while there, but did manage to make my second pilgrimmage to Vosges Haut Chocolat. Check out their selection at:

http://www.vosgeschocolate.com

What else did I eat while there? Lots of omelets filled with spinach and/or broccoli. Japanese chicken dish at a mall (whoo hoo!). Green beans. Lingonberry jam in little Sweden (the boyfriend insisted we go eat Lingonberry jam and bread. It was a lot of fun actually). We also went to IKEA!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, THAT'S something you have to experience.

There I ate a salmon dish before roaming around looking at all the lovely Eurotrash furniture. No pun intended, but a part of me is a closet fan of IKEA. I have reservations about whether it's ethical to buy stuff from them as there is no way they aren't oppressing SOMEBODY in some country to make furniture so cheap, but this is a dog eat dog world I guess. And hey, I now own an 80 inch CD case which I obtained at a reasonable price.

Ate at Hooters on the way back through Wisconsin. I'm sorry if it seems a bit unethical to support to restaurant which "degrades" women, but I just love the hot wings and once and a while I get cravings for them. It's also quite fun to eat the steamed oysters with lemon and butter. Since the boyfriend is a type O, he can eat those and doesn't have to worry about any blood type issues. Lucky me. We'll leave it at that......

Oh, when I came back into town I opened up a DVD which I purchased a week ago. It's called Hemalaya Behl's Yoga for Urban Living. I would highly recommend it for anyone looking for a good home yoga workout. The music is good, and the instructor is hot (incentive for all you type A men who might think yoga is a sissy exercise). Give it a try.

I also have been throughout all my travels to the Institute for Human Individuality conference CDs from 2003. These are a lot of fun for anyone who wants to convince friends and family to consider the diet. Hopefully I'll get to go in 2005. The nerd in me loves to listen to audio books while I drive. It's really nice to have these on the road.

Well, that's about all for now. Just working like a dog again now that I'm back from vacation.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend!

Suzanne’s blog about a failed Tofu sauce and also a comment from her set me thinking. If other people try Tofu and fail the first time, do they ever try again. At least Suzanne wasn’t about to give up.

It got us looking through some old cook books for recipes and whilst I can’t vouch for it’s BTD compliance [ you will have to make your own adjustments if necessary], this comes from a book called Soy Source, A practical guide to cooking with soy foods. It was published in Australia in 1987.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

1kg of mushrooms

5 cloves of garlic coarsely chopped

2 bay leaves

1 tsp salt

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1tsp dried basil

freshly ground black pepper [no no for A’s]

5 cups of chicken stock or kombu stock [kombu is a dried seaweed often used for making a stock base]

3tbsp of your favourite dark rich Miso

200 gm Tofu and a squeeze of lemon juice [or silken tofu]

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over high heat. When very hot toss in the garlic and bay leaves. Stir briefly and add all the mushrooms all chopped to about the same size. Stir over high heat for about 5 minutes until the mushrooms are sweating. Add the tsp of salt, cover and simmer rapidly for 15 minutes stirring occasionally. The mushrooms should lose much liquid. Add the basil and stock and rapidly return to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, strain the soup and pound, puree or blend the solids with a little of the liquid and the miso. Mix back into the remaining liquid and simmer for 5 minutes before serving. Add the black pepper [if you must]. Puree the tofu and lemon juice with a little water if needed[not if you use silken tofu]. Swirl 1tbsp into each bowl and serve with a crusty bread.

Never tried it, can’t guarantee it, your life is in your hands.

D

Today I was going to list a few D foods I should eat but don’t. There aren’t any so instead D will stand for day off.

Sue has her 50th birthday today, so I scheduled a day of my holidays to spend some time together, I’m also having Monday off as well for a really long weekend. Unfortunately the weather has been unkind to us and rained all day. We got out for a brief sojourn after lunch and it’s been lovely to spend the day together.

The BTD Blues(a la B.B. King)…in the key of O



I wake up in the morning…da…da.da.da…da

Get my blue shorts on…da…da.da.da…da

Plop by butt straight on…da…da.da.da…da

Ride my wheels till the songs all done…da…da.da.da…da

Yeahhhhh…I got the BTD Bluezz (long high pitched guitar riff)

My best friend Frigidaire…da…da.da.da…da

Has all my O stuff…da…da.da.da…da

I grab for the figs…da…da.da.da…da

And mix it with some (wal) nuts…da…da.da.da…da

Yeahhhhh…I got the BTD Bluezz(long high pitched guitar riff)

What’s for lunch you say? …da…da.da.da…da

I say some beef roast a la slice…da…da.da.da…da

My friend Ezekiel (bread)…da…da.da.da…da

Makes it look oh so nice…da…da.da.da…da

Yeahhhhh…I got the BTD Bluezz (long high pitched guitar riff)

My sweet little Yams…da…da.da.da…da

And my broccoli…da…da.da.da…da

Can’t beet my collard greens…da…da.da.da…da

Or my kohlrabi…da…da.da.da…da

Yeahhhhh…I got the BTD Bluezz(long high pitched guitar riff)

The wheat devil he tempt me…da…da.da.da…da

I see a donut…da…da.da.da…da

I put it in mouth…da…da.da.da…da

And feel it’s full wrath…da…da.da.da…da

Yeahhhhh…I got the Beee…. Teeee….. Deeee

Bluezz(short low guitar riff)

I’d just like to point out before we start that any vegetarian ideas that I promote through my blogs are purely of a personal nature. I don’t advocate that everyone become a vegetarian or anything like that. I am speaking purely as a blood type A vegetarian. “Horses for courses” now there’s a vegetarian quote if ever I heard one.

I include the quotes at the bottom of my blog purely to give an insight into what many world renowned scholars have had to say about vegetarianism over the years.

More foods I could eat, probably should eat but for various reasons don’t.

So here goes.

C

Cabbage Juice. Not for me, thanks.

Cantaloupe. All our melons go by different names, so I steer clear.

Carp. Not vegetarian.

Celery. Can’t abide the taste.

Cod. Same answer as Carp.

Corn. An avoid for Sue, so we don’t

.

Cranberry. Not widely available in Australia.

Cucumber. All types give me serious indigestion.

Tomorrow will be brought to you by the letter D.

Forgive me my taste, but I found this cartoon amusing.

http://kurma.net/images/HappyThanksGivingTurkeys.jpg " WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=400 ALT="Turkey Revenge">

Yesterday I suddenly thought I would start taking my pulse at intervals, to check on the correctness of what I was eating. I did that many years ago after a massive gall bladder attack, and I didn’t know what was making me sick again. It worked very well, but at that time, I did it very scientifically, according to instructions I’d read on the subject (of course now I can’t remember the names of the book or author!). The scientific approach is as follows:

You take your pulse for a full minute, not less. You do this when you wake up before you get out of bed, to obtain a resting pulse. Then you take your pulse just before eating each meal, and then 30 minutes, 60 minutes and 90 minutes following the end of the meal, and one last time just before going to bed. (Yes, 14 times throughout the day, if you eat three times a day.) If there is a difference of more than 12 points between the pulse rate before you ate and any of the three checks, something you ate is not good for you. It is good to record these results for your own information, and if your pulse rate goes higher than 12, to record the food items you ate at that particular meal so you can pull it apart to find the culprit. This includes what may be hidden ingredients in a sauce or dressing.

Yesterday was most unscientific, but it brought me face-to-face with an important fact I have been trying to avoid for a very long time. I missed the whole routine, generally, but found that throughout the day my pulse ranged between 59 – 61. My waking pulse tends to be around 53, or was, the last time I checked, so the range of 59 – 61 while walking around is within completely acceptable limits, and since I didn’t do the control check before eating anything, it was probably very good indeed.

Now we get to the sad part. I like coffee. I like the smell of coffee, and I like the taste of coffee, even though it is an avoid for this B non-secretor. So most days I make a cup of coffee using my tiny expresso coffee pot, warming goat milk with a little honey in it simultaneously to receive the coffee when it is done. Voilá! Home-made latte! It’s very delicious. But almost immediately after drinking it, my pulse shot up to 80 and stayed there an hour later. I have to admit that along with the higher pulse, I could detect a slight amount of not feeling great, which didn’t stop me from doing what I needed to do.

This experience made me really rethink my desire to drink coffee. I can justify it on the basis that I have little to live for in the way of treats (at least the way I used to have them), I don’t drink alcoholic beverages (I just get red in the face and soon after that, tired), I don’t smoke, and I’m a really good person, morally speaking. Also, being a pastry chef’s daughter, I’ve managed to stop eating a huge variety of sweets because they really do make me sick. So having something that is an avoid that still allows me to function really isn’t all that bad, is it? Except…ingesting avoids on a regular basis is an invitation to (a) slow down my healing process (b) speed up my aging process and (c) turn me into a liar of sorts when I talk about following the BTD. None of these makes me feel good.

SO – here’s my plan. The little Italian coffee pot makes two demi-tasse cups of expresso coffee. I can first of all only have coffee every other day (to lessen withdrawal symptoms), but when I do it, I can put only half the amount of coffee grounds into the pot. This would have the immediate effect of having only one-quarter of the amount of coffee I’ve been drinking. I can then, after a week or two, stretch out the days between the cups of coffee until there aren’t any. I think it will be easy to quit following this system, and if I ever slide into thinking I need to drink coffee again, I can remind myself about the greatly increased pulse rate and what that means to my overall health picture.

The problems I can think of with this plan of action are that I usually use coffee as an occasional headache remedy since none of the regular over-the-counter headache cures work on this body of mine (it most often works), and sometimes, if I am going to a class in the evening and feel a little sleepy, a cup of coffee helps me to stay awake. I think, at this point in time, that I’ll have to make these decisions as they occur, based on careful assessments. In the meantime, if anyone has discovered a non-coffee solution to headaches or drowsiness, I’d be most happy to know about them!

Now there's a question !!!

Before we get into today’s blog, a big thank you to Sarah in the UK. Sarah wrote in to tell me that Arugula is also known as roquette or rocket. So not only did I know what it was I’ve been growing it all summer.

Today I thought we’d look at some more foods I could eat, probably should eat but for various reasons don’t.

So here goes.

B

Barley Malt. In a house with two blood types this is an avoid for the other half.

Bass (sea). Vegetarian, nuff said.

Beechnut. Not a product I’ve ever seen anywhere.

Beet/greens. I get enough greens without this one as well.

Berberis Vulgaris. I feel a vulgar comment coming on. Don’t know what it is.

Bergamot. If we could get the Earl Grey Green tea here it might be a goer.

Black Bean. Avoid for my AB in the house.

Black eyed pea. Used to be a favourite of both of us, unfortunately not on my wife’s list.

Tomorrow will be brought to you by the letter C.

On a non food related issue, I've just taken delivery of my new computer for work. I'm now the proud owner of a 2.6ghz Windows XP Pro system with a 15" flat TFT monitor. Beautiful.

It's taken me nearly two days of fine tuning to get it how I want it after personalising settings, transferring files and then finding that my scanner couldn't talk to my printer on the new system. Went for the cheapest solution, it was cheaper to buy a new USB enabled scanner than pay some tech head to come in and tell me "it doesn't work".

All is now well.

We’ve looked at a number of foods over the last few weeks. Today for something different I thought we’d look at some of the A type beneficial/neutral foods that I don’t eat and why. All the foods are based on their ER4YT food values and not the later LR4YT because due to copyright restrictions the free dissemination of food lists on the Internet ceased after ER4YT. To check a foods current value you will find it on this site in the typebase.

So here goes.

A

Adzuki Bean. Used to be a favourite but it’s avoid for my AB spouse and no longer used.A good ‘meaty’ tasting bean, ideal in vegetarian stew.

Aloe in all forms. Maybe in a hand or face cream but not in anything else.

Artichoke. Only ever tried canned. Didn’t like them and can’t get them fresh where we live.

Arugula. Quite frankly, haven’t a clue what it is.

Avocado. An old favourite for both Sue and I, sadly missing now as it’s avoid for AB wife.

Tomorrow will be brought to you by the letter B.

"There is just no reason why animals should be slaughtered to serve as human diet when there are so many substitutes. Man can live without meat."

The Dalai Lama

Well, I didn’t blog with any increased frequency BUT I did lose 4 pounds since my last weigh in! I lost weight AND I feel much, much better. I haven’t eaten any starches, whatsoever, since my commitment two weeks ago, and I can tell by the way that I feel that it is the right choice for me. Each day the habit of not eating these things become more natural, and the voice of “Norman” gets easier and easier to ignore. It’s strange, it’s only 4 pounds, but I feel so much thinner.

So, what do I eat? Meat, meat and more meat. I also eat tons of veggies. I eat fruit each day, too. I also indulge in some really dark rich chocolate when I want it, so that I don’t feel deprived. Perhaps the biggest struggle is not eating anything “munchie”. I miss rice crackers a lot, but it’s weird because if I don’t eat them, then I don’t eat the stuff that I would put on them either. I used to love those “oriental” mixes, but I noticed that the last time I ate some it gave me a headache. I don’t have to deal with that anymore.

One thing that I like to do is to wrap whatever I am eating up in sushi nori. In case you don’t know what that is, it is the dark green seaweed “paper” that is used to make sushi rolls. I LOVE it. This is one of my favorite meals:

I take some beef or lamb (I precook a lot of my meat because I have one of those Showtime Rotisserie Grills), slice it thinly and sauté it in some ghee. Now, I have to say something about ghee. Basically, it is the only thing that I use to cook. About 10 years ago I decided that I wasn’t going to use aluminum or Teflon cookware anymore. I wanted to switch to cast iron because I tend to get anemia and I had read that cast iron would help with that. I knew that good cast iron cookware needed to be “cured” and the more cured a pan was, the better. None of the cast iron cookware that I could new was cured, so I went to a thrift store and low and behold, I found two skillets – one big and one small. I have used them ever since. With cast iron, you try very hard to never wash it with water. Instead, you put fat into the pan, heat it until it smokes, and scrape anything left off of it. I use lots of ghee when I cook with my pans. You can affect oil oils and others at high heat, but ghee is stable – not only that, it seems to keep my pans in really good shape.

Anyway, so I will throw some thinly sliced meat into my hot pan with the ghee in it. I am quite generous on the ghee use. It makes it taste better AND it’s good for my pans. I add an egg if the mood suits me, and I just scramble everything up. I then season the mixture with salt and curry. I take out one of the nori sheets and put some of the mixture along one edge. Then I just roll it up and eat it. You can add some asparagus to this, or some goat cheese or feta too. In my mind everything tastes good rolled up in nori.

I have found that I really need a lot more fat than I thought. I tend to snack on walnut with apples or apples with almond butter. I also eat at least 1 big salad each day, with olive oil and either lemon juice or apple cider vinegar on it.

The other big change is that I am making sure that I get in all my water each day. I drink nearly a gallon of water each and every day. Other beverages, such as club soda, every Sip Right, don’t count. I have these big glasses that hold 3 cups of water, and I drink 5 of them each and every day. The first thing that I do when I get up in the morning is down 1 or 2 glasses.

I’m still working out 4-6 days per week. I really like it best when I am working out nearly every day. I wish that my time worked out better to do so. I do what I can, and that’s the best that I can do. Gone are the days when I had 2 or 3 hours per day to work out. I miss that, but I don’t, too. It was too much.

Well, gotta run. I have to make that rip to Corpus Christi tomorrow, but if I can, I’ll blog tomorrow, too.

If you’ve j

ust started the BTD journey and only just found out you’re blood type A you probably think, Vegetarian no way mate, I’m not eating all that hippy freak food.

Don’t think like that, just because you’ve been a carnivore all your life until now is no reason to fear vegetarian food.

I’m going to tell you about another one of the staples of the vegetarian diet today,

LEGUMES

Legumes, put simply it’s French for beans. Beans come in all shapes and sizes and there are many that can provide a valuable protein source for the vegetarian type A.

Lentils both red and brown, Pinto bean and a variety of Indian dhal are all readily available and easy to prepare. There are numerous recipes in the database and also on many of the wonderful vegetarian web sites. I’m not going into details here today, I gave you a basic savoury lentil dish the other day. Combining any of the beneficial legumes with a grain or rice is a superb way of getting enough complex protein into your diet.

A number of people are asking me about meat and or fish in the type A diet.

I’m sorry you’re not going to find the answers in this blog.

I’m a vegetarian and to quote an old phrase ‘I don’t eat anything with a face’.

I’m not apologising for that, just that I feel neither qualified nor inclined to discuss meat and animal products here.

If you’re interested in the vegetarian’s approach to type A BTD then this is the spot to read about it, if not go and enjoy your Turkey or Salmon and we promise not to talk about you behind your backs.

"Vegetarian food leaves a deep impression on our nature. If the whole world adopts vegetarianism, it can change the destiny of humankind."

Albert Einstein

Relegation, an insidious creeping sickness that has hung over my football team since last August.

I wish my football team knew about the BTD.

We have been fighting a season long battle against relegation, which is like fighting against sickness [only much, much worse].

A beneficial result overnight , Wolves 2 Middlesborough 0, means we’ve staved off the final blow for another week. My brain and the points table tells me we can’t get out of it, my heart tells me we’ve still got a mathematical chance.

With only four weeks of this Premier diet to go we need to look at what we can do to help ourselves.

Defeat - Avoid. We can’t afford to entertain any more of these for the next four weeks.

Draw - Neutral. Not an ideal solution and at this stage probably won’t help anyway. Better than an avoid though.

Win - Beneficial. Four more of these and who knows, we might just scrape through and survive. It would give us a chance to strengthen and replenish our system for the next year.

Today is a beneficial day. The surge of hope and enthusiasm that a win gives you is like a meal of totally beneficial foods. Come on you WOLVES.

Thanks to Mike who responded to yesterday’s blog to say that Broccoli greens are nice cooked with a little garlic and olive oil.



”Vegetarianism is a way of life that we should

all move toward for economic survival, physical well-being and spiritual integrity."

Father Thomas Berry, Fordham University, New York

I was listening to a gardening talk back show on the car radio this morning and Peter Cundall the gardening guru came up with a suggestion I’d never heard of or even considered.

Peter is a legend in Australian gardening through his weekly TV show ‘Gardening Australia’ . and his hourly radio talk back in Tasmania. A vociferous champion of organic gardening and all its benefits he is always entertaining as well.

The suggestion that surprised me was that if your Broccoli plants weren’t hearting and even if they were, that you could cook and eat the leaves of the plant, similar to Kale, Spinach, Chard and Collards. I had never heard of anyone cooking or eating Broccoli leaves. Have you ?

I have that much of the Broccoli head at the moment that eating leaves is the last thing I need. Sue is actually freezing Broccoli whilst I sit here tapping away.

Let me know if you’ve eaten Broccoli leaves and what they taste like.

Dr D , if you are reading this maybe you could let me know if the leaf is as beneficial as the head.

"The earth affords a lavish supply of riches, of innocent foods, and offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or slaughter; only beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh, and not even all of those, because horses, cattle, and sheep live on grass. As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."

Pythagoras

‘A good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to an human being, while an

act of cruelty to an animal is as bad as an act of cruelty to a human being.’ Prophet Mohammed.

I don’t necessarily think this is against the eating of meat per se but I think it speaks well about our daily intentions towards others (animals included).

‘Any interference with the body of a live animal which causes pain or disfigurement is contrary

to Islamic principles’ Iman Al-Hafiz Basheer Ammad Masri.

I don’t want to imagine what goes on inside a meat packing facility but a high school friend of

mine worked in one and he assured me it is done humanely and quickly.

“If we eat the flesh of living creatures, we are destroying the seeds of compassion’.

The Surangama Sutra.

Compassion is a human trait and if we as early man did not partake in the eating of animal meat we would not have the brains to even know what compassion is. Ingesting of protein from animals made us the higher thinking primates (homo sapiens) we are today.

‘Killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventure, and for hides and furs is a phenomena which is at once disgusting and distressing. There is no justification in indulging in such acts of brutality’.

The XLV Dalai Lama

In some parts of Ontario, I know that deer are hunted and shot if their numbers get too large for ecology purposes but hunting as a general sport has never really excited me or would I ever

partake in it. I do own two leather couches, which I am sure, was a byproduct of the meat that was supplied from the cow. Never liked fur coats on a woman…men look dumb in them.

‘Spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants’. Mohandas Gandhi.

Gandhi was a great man and leader and went on many hunger strikes for what he believed in. My body needs animal protein…there may come a time in my last days that I may stop eating it because

I can no longer…at that time, if I am able, I will meditate and reflect to prepare myself to

meet my maker.

‘We, the Christian leaders, practice abstinence from the flesh of animals. The unnatural eating of flesh meat is polluting.’ St. John Chrysostom

The question here, John, is what is considered the “natural’ eating of flesh-meat?

‘Thou shalt not kill.’ GOD

“I have since an early age given up the eating of meat’. Leonardo Da Vinci

Great thinker and artist who probably figured out he was a type A

‘It is my view that vegetarian manner of living would most beneficially influence the lot (type A’s mostly) of mankind’. Albert Einstein



“Meat eating in any form, in any manner, and in any place is unconditionally and once and for all prohibited. I have not permitted meat eating to anyone,’ The Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama.

So much for converting to Buddhism…I surely wouldn’t last a week

8-)

There is only one way to begin a blogging journal – and that is to say one huge thanks to Peter D’Adamo and his father, James, for recognizing the importance of our blood types in terms of how to maintain optimum health for each person on this planet. I fear that without this specialized information, I should at this very moment be a basket case somewhere, mumbling incoherently, while various poisons in the form of food that is “good for me” and/or medications are being pumped into this body of mine.

Instead, at the ripe age of 66 (an age neither of my parents lived to see, incidentally), I stand tall and proud, with more energy than some younger than I, and somehow afflicted with only minor problems that seem to be gradually clearing – or at least slowing - rather than worsening, in spite of the fact that every year I become one more year older, and I cannot deny the gradual inroads of aging in spite of following the blood type diet for the past almost seven years.

At the time that the Eat Right book was shown to me, I suffered with chronic headaches – they came regularly every week to ten days, and lasted two to three days, relentlessly, night and day. By this time, I had discovered that there was no headache remedy that would remove the pain, so I simply suffered. I did not want to add more poisons to my system than already existed by taking something that had no obvious benefit and was also a chemical substance. As well, I did not want to take codeine to manage a headache, and there it was left. At the same time, I had the curious experience of having my head completely congested after eating my evening meal. I was convinced there was an environmental toxin lurking in the house I inhabited that did this to me, because it happened quite regularly, though not every night.

It took a while to clear some of the toxins out of my body. Then I realized that eating a meal consisting of wheat (pita bread), tofu fried in sunflower seed oil, avocados and sprouts (to list only the avoids) was creating at least some of my physical discomfort and congestion in the evenings. I also enjoyed eating a meal at a local Chinese restaurant once a week, one of my few extravagances. The food was deliciously prepared, I liked the family who owned the business, and the food was cheap like borshcht! What more could I ask for? But as the weeks went by, the distress I felt after consuming my meal became bigger and bigger, until finally I simply stopped going.

It didn’t take long to sort out that much of the food in the Chinese restaurant was avoid for my B+ blood type. Several years later, after testing for secretor status and discovering that I was a non-secretor, the fact that I responded so quickly in a negative fashion to eating avoids suddenly fell into place.

Because of my great sensitivity to foods and almost immediate reaction to eating the wrong thing, I have been forced to stay on the straight and narrow path to better health. Had I been able to cheat even a little, I probably would not be as healthy as I am now. Our blessings come in mysterious ways!

There is much more to be said about living with or on the BTD for an extended period of time, but I will leave this to a later time. Talk to you again soon!

Fetta cheese is a beneficial for us A’s. Unfortunately and I can only speak for Tasmania here, most Fetta is made using cows milk.

I was fortunate to find Dodoni brand Goat’s milk Fetta imported from Greece last year at a local specialty store. It ranges in price from Au $4.50 to $4.95 for a 200gm vacuum pack.

Over the last three months the same brand of Goat’s Fetta has started to appear fresh in our supermarkets varying in price between AU $15.95 to $22.00 per kilogram. Good stuff and good value so I have had a Fetta treat from time to time. I also noticed last week they are keeping a Fetta made from Goat and Sheep milk as well.

Over Easter Sue & I drove to the Nut House in Ulverstone about 15 minutes from home. It’s where we buy our Walnuts and Almonds in bulk. Well they’ve been undergoing a re-vamp in the store and in an expanded deli section they keep a fresh Goat’s milk Fetta produced at Gunns Plains not 10 minutes inland. 150gms cost me $3.20 and it is pure nectar. It’s fresh, It’s Tasmanian and it’s cheap. It doesn’t get any better than that. I’ve kept it in the fridge at work and just shaved it onto my sandwich for lunch with my salad greens.

It’s a tough life being a gourmet sandwich builder.

What constitutes a small serve. Is yours bigger than mine or is it smaller.

Whilst I follow the BTD with a fervour I have never attempted to get my head around eating small serves and often.

I'm from a generation raised on the 'three square meals a day' ethos. I'm a big lad and I like my food.

The phrase most often heard around our house at tea time is 'it won't all fit on the plate'. Don't you worry it's not just me either, pound for pound my wife punches well above her weight in the eating stakes.

Anyway I'm a three mealer type and we start with a hearty cereal of muesli for breakfast at 7.00 am.

No mid morning munchies and lunch of a sandwich with dried & fresh fruit at 11.30 am.

Recently I have been snacking on about a dozen of our Buckwheat thin crackers at about 2.00pm.

Dinner or tea depending what part of the world you're in is at 6.00 pm. Todays meal and the whole reason for the subject was:-

Savoury Lentils containing Kale, Collards and Chard.

Served on a bed of Couscous.

Accompanied by steamed Carrots, Parsnip, Cauliflower and Broccoli.

Oh and two of my marvellous free mushrooms that are appearing like magic in my garden.

No not that kind of magic mushroom.

Anyway I'm not apologising, a man is what he eats, so I guess I'm a vegetable.

We are meandering into Autumn here in the Southern Hemisphere. It really is the most beautiful time of year in Tasmania. We still get temperatures in the high teens and the benefits of the residual warmth of summer. Calm clear days, except today and just fantastic to be alive. Our climate is probably classed as Mediterranean temperate and because it is considerably cooler than the Australian mainland we have inherited the Autumn legacy left by the original founders of Van Diemens Land [Tasmania].



All of the original settlers were of European origin and they planted flora that they were comfortable and familiar with from their homeland. We have beautiful trees that are just beginning to change colour to show their Autumn finery of gold, bronze and red in all shades.



From our garden we are just starting to reap the bounty from our earlier plantings. Parsnips this year are magnificent and I've never had a crop so large at this time of year. We cut our first broccoli the other day and it was 'so sweet', all it needed was lightly steaming. Kohlrabi have been tender all through summer and look like continuing for a little while yet. Celeriac looks a bit iffy, last year was the first time we'd grown it and it was a great success. This year I think the heavy unseasonable rain in January may have done it in, never mind, there's still hope. Carrots are tremendous and you really can't beat the taste of a freshly dug carrot, bursting with juice and flavour. All the greens are progressing well and we have been eating Kale, Collard and Chard for a couple of weeks now. The leeks that were planted out in February are probably 4 - 6 weeks away from being ready but are progressing nicely.



To quote an old saying 'Everything in the garden's rosy'

PS; Thanks to Suzanne for the tip on freezing Collards, I think whilst I can I'll stick with fresh.

No wonder Dr D advocates light exercise and Yoga for Type A and not too much in the way of a strenuous workout.

To coin a well known phrase 'I'm knackered'.

Obviously re-locating a quarry load of huge boulders [well it felt like it to me] is strenuous work.

Me back aches and I think I've done a hammy. The backs of my legs feel like s....

In the words of the Togmeister 'Mustn't grumble'

Too all those poor unfortunates around the world who don't know who the togmeister is go to BBC.CO.UK Radio Two and listen to Wake up to Wogan.

All will be revealed.

Just a little frazzled from work however. Man, that store just never sleeps. Easter was quite nice. People thought the store was closed, haha! But it wasn't. So I was nice to have a day where you can actually hear your thoughts and organize the place.

Had a nice massage at Juut. There is this guy named Michael who gave me the massage. He had really strong hands. His handshake was enough to prove it. Then I went shopping. It was really nice to shop!

I ended my journey at Passage to India. I had chicken and egg curry, jasmine rice, dal, and ended it with a rose lassi. It was a nice, quiet restaurant.

My brain is so fried right now by stress. I long for a vacation. A real vacation. Or even a chance to take a week or two off to just clean. Nothing but clean. And then I'd do a fast/cleanse/detox at the same time.

And somehow, school is looking really good right now, too. Now THAT'S scary!

And somehow, jury duty is looking like a relief, too! Do you remember that commercial about the guy who opens his mail and starts shouting, "Jury duty! Yeah!" It was for some sort of employment agency/job search type of business. It's that whole, are "you THAT unsatisfied with your career" type of commercial.

Nah, maybe it's not that extreme, but there is something appealing about not standing all day, even if only for a while. I do have to thank God for giving me legs to stand though. You know what I mean? However, I don't thank him for the chance at some gorgeous varicose veins.......

What else have I eaten lately?

Oh, wait, while I retrace my foods, let me tell you about an interesting person I met at a bar. He manages a sushi/hibatchi type restaurant. When I told him I was worried about getting fish tapeworm from the sushi, he told me not to worry because in the state of Minnesota, fish must be flash frozen and kept frozen for 72 hours before it can be served. That apparently should kill most unwanted organisms. I'd have to do some research in order to confirm this but I think I'll trust the guy.

Well, I'm really tired and need to lie down. It's been a long day. I need to start logging on more frequently, but I've been a bit burnt out as of late.

I think it's time to give this lifestyle and diet away.

Today [Monday] is a public holiday in Australia and after 24 hours rain on Sunday Sue and I were itching to get back into the garden. Sue has been cleaning out the climbing beans and mulching all the residue.

I had a pallet load of bush rock delivered on Saturday afternoon and was planning to use it to edge a couple of garden beds. I lined and edged an 11 metre bed in the back garden and then attacked a 10 metre bed in the front garden that fronts the footpath. Both finished and cleaned up before lunch.

What am I on.

This diet is killing me, I've got that much energy and enthusiasm for life.

I just want to do it.

Something in this diet is causing me untold grief, how can I sit down and watch the telly or read a book, I want to be doing stuff.

The previous ramblings do not in any way reflect the personal opinions of Paul Buckless, Paul is a devoted follower of BTD and will be back at his keyboard when he's finished in the garden.

It has always been a tradition at the Staffieri household growing up to have lamb on Easter Sunday and today was no exception (I just got back from my parents place an hour ago). I love my mom’s lamb and I have never bothered to ask her in all these years how she makes it till today…all O’s and B’s…have your pencils and printer ready. My mom is a simple cook and she uses simple ingredients and you will find this recipe easy to make…so here goes:

Serves two:

2 nice cuts… 1 ½ to 2 inch thick cut of leg of lamb (preferably cut fresh and not pre packaged)

Fresh rosemary (not dried)

2 to 3 cloves of garlic

Fresh ground pepper (peppercorn)

1 medium Spanish onion

1 medium sweet potato

Olive oil

Take your cuts of lamb and the first thing you want to do is seer in the juices…take a frying pan, make it nice and hot and place the cuts on it and seal in the juices and blood…30 seconds both sides (this is very important because it leaves the meat nice and tender when it’s all done)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and place the lamb in a Pyrex glass cooker (3L)…cut up the Spanish onion into ½ inch rings and the sweet potato into 1-inch slices…place in the Pyrex container around the meat.

Cut up your fresh rosemary…enough to fill the palm of your hand…chop the garlic up into fine pieces…sprinkle the garlic and rosemary on the lamb, onions and sweet potato…add some fresh ground pepper. To top it off, drizzle some (don’t go crazy) olive oil over everything in the pan. Cover Pyrex container with aluminum foil with the dull side up, shiny side down. Place it in the oven for 1 to 1 and1/2 hours (cooking time depends on the oven so make sure you check it after an hour to see if it’s done).

Enjoy!

Buona Pasqua

4/8/04 10:32 PM

Whew. This has been one helluva week. I have every intent of blogging each day, but like so many, I run out of time and energy. Right now I would like to be headed to bed, but I just refuse to do so until I blog. I tell you, I don’t know how fellow blogger, Cassandra, does it. I couldn’t possibly do all that she does. Wow.

With respect to my life outside of ER4YT, it has been a stressful month. Just to fill in, I invented some products for the horse industry (yup – have patents and everything), and these products, mostly luggage that stores and transports supplies, was picked up by the military for their field hospitals. To make a very long (10 year) story short, my company has teamed up with a manufacturer, who, though sews an OK product, has really let us down on a lot of accounts. We’ve (my brother, who I brought in as my partner) been struggling for over a year with problems with them, and we have finally reached our boiling point. So, attorney’s have become involved and we are trying to figure out if we are going to have to go back to square one with regards to our manufacturing. It’s extremely exhausting both physically and emotionally. While all of this is going on, we are revamping our websites and getting new photos, and generally moving forward. We are both so sick of not making a living doing this. Last year was supposed to be “the year” that we started to “make it”. Didn’t happen. Now it is “this year”. I’ve stuck it out this long and I’m not giving up now. I’m in it for the long haul. I just would like a break at this point. A break would be nice.

The commitment to never eating starches again has gone very well. Thanks for all of your support. It is very interesting how many people cautioned me about saying, “never”. The theory of AVRT allows me to say this with complete conviction. It actually feels good to say this and believe it to be true. Our world is so wishy washy now. Nobody commits to anything. I do understand why we behave this way – there is very little reason TO commit. I have committed to feeling better, however, and there is no doubt that I do feel good. I haven’t eaten any starches/ grains at all. I did make the mistake of eating some Gorgonzola cheese at lunch and boy did I pay for that! I had an absolutely HORRIBLE intestinal reaction to that food. I HATE it when that happens. I haven’t eaten anything like that in a long time, and, guess what? I don’t think that I will again.

Speaking of bodily functions, have I pitched The Keeper here yet? It is one of my favorite things! For all of the women out there, check it out:

http://thekeeper.com/

It’s a menstrual cup, and it’s fantastic. No more putting tampons and pads into the landfill, complete comfort, no worries about leaks, and best of all – no monthly expense. It’s one of the best “new” products I have ever found (even though it is a really old ideal). Try it and you’ll love it, I bet.



4/10/04 11:46 PM

I meant to post that up a few days ago, but hadn’t finished. I was so dead tired when I wrote it, that I didn’t even have the energy to reread it and check that it sounded OK. That is how this week has been. We finally got things hashed out with my manufacturer, but there are still some problems that will require me driving to Corpus Christi this week. No biggie – it about 2.5 hours there. I’ll see if my girlfriend wants to go. They have a great Vietnamese Restaurant there (or at least they used to). It has this amazing hot and sour soup. The soup is made hot by the use of jalapenos, sour by the use of lemon juice and sweet by the use of pineapple. Mmmmm.

I just saw Janet Jackson on Saturday Night Live. She looks great. I really would like to have a stomach like hers just one time in my life. I had a tummy tuck 2 years ago, but I haven’t been thin enough to really take advantage of it. It is inspiring to me to try (or to do). I have been completely successful in eliminating starches, as I noted above. Using this Addictive Voice Recognition Technique has really helped. I have sort of learned to ignore the voice in my head that prompts me to do what I don’t want to do, and I am learning how to shut it down. In AVRT they call this voice “the beast”, because (as they say) it comes from the animal part of us that drives us. I call the voice Norman after a horse that I once owned.

In case anyone didn’t know, I was a professional horse trainer for over 15 years. I have trained horses for over 25 years. Anyway, I had a system for classifying horses. They would fall into 4 categories: 1. Smart and Willing 2. Smart and Resistant 3. Dumb and Willing 4. Dumb and Resistant. I was always happy to work with numbers 1 & 3. Any horse, even the really dumb ones, if they were willing to learn, were trainable. Some of my best horses have been category number 2, but they were always difficult to work with and often ended up coming back to me as a trade-in after someone else had owned them for a while. The majority of horses from group 2 were sent “down the road” immediately. They were smart and dangerous and were the type of horse that could really hurt someone – especially if they were crazy and/or mean, which some were. Even the ones that WOULD make it as polo ponies, I didn’t like selling very much. They could figure out a lesser rider pretty quickly and become a terrible horse. Horses in category number 4 rarely worked out, and were often sent “down the road”. This means that they would be sent to the auction, or traded for whatever we could get for them. Fortunately we didn’t get those very often.

One horse that was in category number 4 actually made a decent horse, after a LONG training period. That horses name was Norman. Norman was exceptionally dumb. Now there are a lot of people who would say that all horses are dumb (dumb animals you might say), but keep in mind that I have worked within the constraints of the horse mind for most of my life, and I truly believe that there are some amazingly smart horses out there. Norman was on the other end of the scale. He came in from Mexico and was pretty ugly, also. He was short backed, big-headed, disproportionate and had short legs and big feet. A lot of Mexican horses that are used for work there look like this – this sort of body style isn’t pretty, but they DO tend to be sound and not get crippled up very easily. Just so people don't get up in arms about Mexican horses, I want to say that I bought some absolutely beautiful horses in Mexico that ended up being some of my top horses AND some of my most expensive. Norman just didn't end up being one of those. Norman came in with a pretty decent training on him as far as riding was concerned. He was also not shy or spooky by nature, so he took to polo pretty well. The problem that I had was that he would forget the basics that I would teach him from one day to the next. Smart horses learn something each day and retain it for the next day. This is how you build their skills. Norman didn’t have this. This especially showed up in his manners. I required my horses to have excellent manners “on the ground”, meaning that I expected them to not walk all over you, pull you here or there, or run you over to get from point A to point B. Norman could never get this in his head. If you were standing there and holding his lead line and he got the impulse to walk over you to get to something he noticed, he would do so. It was so strange because he would do this constantly, and then look surprised when I would correct him on it.

He ended up being an OK polo pony only because he was sound, reliable, and predictable. He didn’t care if you swung a mallet around him, if a ball hit him in the butt, or if other horses ran around him or into him. He was sort of like a tank in that respect, but he also never learned very much. He wanted to do what he wanted to do, he had very few manners (he just couldn’t seem to remember them and also didn’t care), and he really didn’t want to learn anything. He was what I call “a very horsy horse”. My average price for a decent polo pony was between $8K and $10K. I have to say that I am pretty sure that I eventually sold Norman for around $3K. That’s the other problem with horses from group 4 – they usually don’t bring a very good price, but they take more training than the others. I wasn’t worried about Norman showing back up in my stable – he wasn’t mean and he would have never changed, either for the better or for the worse. I’m pretty amazed that a horse that stupid was actually as rid able as he was – most of that group never get that far.

So, I call my Addictive Voice “Norman” because it reminds me of that horse. It wants what it wants, and it doesn’t mind running me over or hurting me to get it. It thinks on a very low level and doesn’t take into consideration what is best for me or what I see for myself in the long run. I have found out that the AV is virtually un-trainable. It seems that the best way to deal with it is to ignore it or to tell it to shut up and to move on. I don’t give that part of myself very much significance anymore. I know that it hasn’t even been a week, but it has changed the way that I think and feel about things that aren’t good for me. I have been using this technique to stop biting my nails. I haven’t put my nails in my mouth – for ANY REASON since I started this approach. For the first time in my life, my nails are growing and I feel OK putting polish on them. I am also taking MSM and biotin to help them grow. It seems to be working.

OK – I’m off to bed. I am going to start making more changes in my diet this week. I am also going to try to blog more – I have all the desire in the world but I just plain get tired. Have a GREAT Easter and watch out for overeating that bunny! For me, I am going to pass on the bunny entirely. I have some dark chocolate that I really like, and if I want some chocolate, that is what I am going to have.

It’s funny where meal ideas come from. Whilst gardening on Friday I came across four of the most beautiful mushrooms in my veggie patch. I use a lot of spent mushroom compost as soil conditioner in my garden and one of the bonuses is the unexpected arrival of a few mushrooms from time to time.

I picked them, put them in the fridge and said to Sue, wouldn’t it be nice to have scrambled eggs with mushrooms. Sue can’t eat mushrooms and eggs aren’t high on our food list, so we tossed a few ideas around and this was what we prepared for tea on Saturday night.

We prepared toasted spelt Foccacia with scrambled tofu, green salad and steamed vegetables. [with mushrooms for me].

The Spelt herbed Foccacia was in the freezer from earlier in the year. We froze it in serve size packages. I grilled the four mushrooms on our griller before wiping it down to toast the bread.

We pre-prepared a mixed green salad dressed in Olive oil and Vitamin C.

Chopped fresh carrot and our first head of Broccoli from this seasons crop. Lightly cooked and dressed with Olive oil.

Sue fried an onion in Olive oil until just turning golden and then added finely chopped garlic. After a minute or two she added finely sliced Golden Zucchini, after it had softened she added finely sliced kale and collard greens. When this was done it was followed by mashed firm Tofu which had been marinating in soy sauce and Chinese five spice for a couple of hours. This was all stirred together and cooked before the final addition of half a dessert spoon of savoury yeast.

Time to plate it up [ a professional cooking term for you there]

Green salad followed by steamed vegetables, two pieces of foccacia drizzled with Olive oil. Topped with scrambled tofu and veg. Mine had four grilled mushrooms on top with a grating of goats Fetta cheese.

Sorry I didn’t take a photo now, but I couldn’t be delaying eating it for anybody, even you.

That’s it for salad meals this season, the lettuce have past their best and it will soon be time to pull them out and get the soil ready for the next crop.

I had a week at work I am grateful is behind me…we converted all our purchasing/credit systems over to a new and tested one (our parent company uses it with great success) that eventually will make us a more efficient, stronger and healthier company. The greatest challenge with any type of corporate change is getting everyone involved to believe and be positive about the new systems…much like getting someone to believe that the BTD diet will do the same on a personal level (stronger and healthier)

My whole week was filled with comments from subordinates…mostly negative…about how the systems were cumbersome and hard to use. I was using every analogy in the book to overcome the negativity…short term pain for long term gain…you just traded in your skis for a snowboard…. you are going to fall down many times and you will not be flying down the hill as you did with the skis until you have mastered the board…you just purchased new skates, your feet are going to hurt till you’ve worked the skates in (we Canadians like to use winter sports in our analogies) Sometimes I would say: your company has worked 13,000 man-hours to get these systems up and running because we are committed to your success (we have many sales reps in the US who make well over $300k a year on the new systems). Slowly, but surely, by the end of the week the negativity slowly subsided.

My point here to this is to draw an analogy with the BTD diet. When I first started on the diet, I found it very hard to give foods up that I was accustomed to eating for 30 years…pasta was the big one for me, as well as milk, coffee, pork sausages, and corn bread (one of my favorites). My mind wanted to stop eating them but my body kept craving them…the first few weeks was hard and melancholy for me. I replaced coffee with green tea and I hated it, even though I love the taste now. Pasta was so easy to make and being single and on the run a lot was a convenient food to make when stuck for time. I have switched to rice and spelt pasta which at first I found not to my liking, but have grown to like. Pork Italian sausages with corn bread and rappini(n) was the hardest because it was one of most favorite meals. I have since replaced it with lamb kebobs(b), and brown rice(n) and I’ve kept the rappini. As I was going through this change, I had at my disposal, encouragement from people’s experience with the diet, written testimonials etc as well as biofeedback from my body that I was feeding it better (more energy, less stress)

I’ve eaten O foods that I would never have eaten…one is figs (b) with walnuts (b)…a snack I now eat in between meals for a quick energy boost (I read somewhere that figs contain an enzyme in it that helps breakdown the walnuts and the protein that it carries). I could go on and on but the fact remains the initial change in my eating habits was a hard and painful one but the result or journey was well worth it. This journey…which is still ongoing...has many pitfalls, but what journey hasn’t? I have great support from the web site and the daily articles and tidbits from the Doctor and his colleagues and 14 other fellow bloggers with their daily challenges and helpful hints to help me on the way.

Winter is only 10 months away…maybe I’ll hang up the skis and give snowboarding a try…I may have a sore butt the first few times down the hill, but I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it eventually.

I should have remembered from last Year. The Thursday before Easter is not a good day to be at work. I've got two girls around the office stuffing their faces with chocolate eggs, the Admin Manager has been and brought a tray of Hot Cross [Easter] buns.

I've weakened. I've had one tiny tiny tiny really tiny choccie egg [naughty Paul].

The only thing that's kept the Easter buns at bay is the thought that I've got better beneficial ones at home.

It isn't easy being on this diet.

I think I'll schedule a holiday for next Year.

Happy Easter to you all and I'll write more after the holiday break.

Stay compliant.

Excuse me if today I’m a little self indulgent. A quote from a fellow blogger has got me thinking, and I thought well if I want to know the answer maybe you will as well.

Collard Greens

“The first few times I fixed collard greens I ate them only because they were beneficial. Now I grill an onion, then add a small amount of water and the collards. They taste pretty good that way. They are really good when I season them with curry powder OR Cajun seasoning. I buy fresh when I can, but I keep a bag of frozen collards in the freezer all the time. They taste about the same to me.”

The above quote is taken from a blog by Suzanne G earlier this week. A great tip Suzanne now what I need to know is:-

1. Do you rinse and freeze the leaves whole ?

2. Do you blanche and freeze the leaves whole ?

3. Do you shred/dice and freeze whole ?

4. Do you shred/dice/blanche and freeze whole ?

5. Do you cook completely and freeze ?

Come on Suzanne, share the tip. I have times when my garden produces a glut of Collard and Kale and others when it’s scarce. If I can freeze it and store it I want to know and I want to know now.

If you’ve just started the BTD journey and only just found out you’re blood type A you probably think, Vegetarian no way mate, I’m not eating all that hippy freak food.

Don’t think like that, just because you’ve been a carnivore all your life until now is no reason to fear vegetarian food.

I’m going to tell you about one of the staples of the vegetarian diet today,

TOFU

Tofu has been around in Asian cuisine for centuries and most Chinese or Japanese communities would have had their own Tofu manufacturer.

Tofu on its own is pale in colour and has very little or no taste of its own. What it does have is a unique ability to absorb and take on other flavours that are cooked with it.

There is no mystery to Tofu, think of it as a Soy cheese. It is made by a very similar process to conventional dairy cheese. Soy beans are cooked in water and then processed to make a soy milk. This is then heated to a particular temperature and a curdling agent added [exactly like a cheese maker]. The curd [Tofu] and whey separate in exactly the same way. Curd is then scooped into moulds and pressed into firm Tofu blocks.

There are a number of different types of Tofu available and please understand the packaging I am talking about here relates to what I can get in Australia, obviously product will be packaged differently for you. Read the pack or ask an assistant to be sure you get the right Tofu for the job.

Silken Tofu, is a soft, sometimes acidic tasting block. It is the softest of all the Tofu and is commonly used to make desserts and sauces.

Fresh Tofu, is a bit of a misnomer because like silken Tofu it comes in a vacuum sealed brick. Less acidic than it’s silken relative it makes a delicious cheesecake and also mashed with Turmeric and sautéed in a pan makes a wonderful scrambled egg alternative.

Both the above have a similar texture to thickened cream and are too soft to use in normal cooking.

Fresh Tofu can also be obtained in plastic trays if you are fortunate to have an Asian Grocery store near you. Similar use to the above it has a texture similar to a fresh egg custard and is generally too soft to cook with.

Firm Tofu, this is the one you will most likely find in your supermarket or health food store. It comes in a vacuum sealed block and is ideal sliced, diced or scrambled in stir fry, soups, stews or casseroles.

Without mentioning any brand names if you have one of the George Foreman health grills or similar here is a simple quick way to try firm Tofu.

Cut slices about 1/2" thick, rub both sides with a dark soy sauce and wrap tightly in cling film. Leave in the fridge for a couple of hours. Pre-heat your grill and grill your Tofu steaks for about 2 – 3 minutes on each side. Remove from grill and slice on the diagonal and serve on a bed of mixed green salad. A simple and easy way to try Tofu.

There are many recipe sources for Tofu on the web and lot’s of variants on the recipe data base here as well. Try some, I think you’ll like it.

Firm Tofu will keep well in the refrigerator for at least a week once opened. Once again no brand names will be mentioned, but store it in water in a Tupperware container. Remember to change the water daily and it will keep fine.

I’ve given up starches completely. Completely. I will never eat starches again.

That’s an amazing statement for me to make. I’m not even 100% comfortable making that statement, but in a certain part of me – the strongest part (and let me tell you – that part is VERY strong) – I know it to be a fact.

I felt very down and depressed after my last blog. One of you wrote to me to check out a website, http://www.rational.org. I went there and looked over the site, and it just spoke out to me as clear as day. I am going to say, right now, that this is ME that we are talking about – not any of you. I hope that I am being very clear by saying that what makes sense to me and what might work for me, furthermore, what I might choose to experience is in absolutely no way meant to mean that any one of you reading this should do the same. I truly believe that we all must walk our own paths and make our own choices.

Anyway, this site spoke to me very clearly. If you are interested in what the site is about, then take a look at it. It became very clear to me that my struggle with starches (again, I don’t call them “carbs” because “carbs” is too broad a word for me to use with my struggles) easily fits within the realm of the word, “addiction”. I can’t eat starches sensible amounts. No matter how good my intentions are to keep them limited, I always revert back to consuming too many each day and in too large portions. Consuming starches make me feel unhappy. Eating them regularly causes me to gain weight, to feel tired, and to feel bad emotionally. The clearest point for me was the discussion about the “addictive voice”. It is the voice inside my head that leads me to believe that I need to consume starches to feel good, to be happy, to be nourished, because not doing so indicates that I have some sort of emotional or mental problems with food (gee – you THINK!). It is also the part of me that is terrified to say the words, “I will never eat starches again”.

I’m not terrified of those words, only my AV. I know that putting away starches for good will open up a new path in my life – one for which I am completely ready. I feel so much better when I ER4YT. Dr. D’Adamo is very clear that type O’s don’t need grains in their diet, and it is obvious that I am one of those people.

So, I have been 3 days without any starch at all. No grains. Guess what – I feel great. My clothes fit better. I am looking forward to getting on the scale this Friday. I’ll give you a report.

I’ll try to write more before that. My business is a mess and that is taking up a lot of my time and emotional energy. That being said, I would still like to blog more often. Oh, and by the way, thanks so much to those of you who wrote to me such nice words of encouragement. Every word was appreciated and taken to heart.

Sunday morning dawns full of hope. Then I check the English football results and my team has been beaten 4-1 by Southampton. It’s no use, I think I finally have to face up to the prospect of r…….re……….rel……… [no it’s no good I refuse to type it] from the English Premier League. To top it off Arsenal were beaten by Manchester United 1-0. Don’t get me wrong I don’t really give a stuff about Arsenal but I hate Man Utd. It goes back to 1967 when I got a good slap from a Man Utd fan for giving cheek [what me ? I hear you say] when we played them in the FA cup that year. I’ve hated them ever since .

Finished the gardening with Sue this morning and apart from the normal ravages of an Australian summer it looks tip top. Lunchtime I watched the replay of the Spurs – Chelsea game from England before Sue and I went for our walk. We took the opportunity to walk to an open show home about 10 minutes walk from us to see what $295,000.00 AUD [$220,000.00 USD] would purchase. It was listed as a 3 bedroom villa unit and I was shocked at the lack of quality of fittings and fixtures for the price.

Property prices have exploded in Tasmania as people from overseas and the mainland come to realise what we found when we moved here nearly 14 years ago.

Made me appreciate my home even more and in the current market I don’t care what it’s worth I’m staying put.

I’ve had a relaxing afternoon watching the live telecast from Sydney of the final game of the final Australian National Soccer League season with Perth Glory defeating Parramatta Power 1-0. It will all be re-formed next year under the auspice of the Australian Soccer Association as Australian Premier League.

Glorious sunny Autumn weather in Devonport whilst the game in Sydney was played in torrential rain.

Relegation………………There I’ve said it, now leave me alone ;-(

Saturday’s are good days. Sue and I were up at 6.00 am this morning. Breakfast of Muesli and green tea and a walk for Bonnie, I was in the garden by 8.30.

Took to an old rose with my mattock and dug it out. We are revitalising one of our garden beds to use as an herb garden near the kitchen. Dug it up , tilled the soil re-lined the edges with sandstone, looks a treat and still only 10.00 o clock. Sue’s groomed Bonnie and into the veggie patch with her trusty weeder. A marvellous implement which we found 2 or 3 years ago that is a great back saving device. Called Raymond’s wonder weeder it is a long handle implement with a curved steel edge, similar to a shepherd’s crook. It is spring steel and has a cutting edge, it saves hours of backbreaking weeding and is also good for lightly tilling the soil

The reason we were up and into it so early today, it’s firewood delivery day, although, typical delivery man, “I’ve got you down for 3.00 o clock”. Oh OK I’ll just get on with it and wait for you. So sheared the hedges and had a general tidy round with Sue.

We stopped for an early lunch about 11.30, breakfast seemed a long time ago. Rye sandwich with bean sprouts, miso, tofu, savoury yeast, water cress and lettuce and a cup of my very own blend of freshly brewed coffee. I brought a cheap ground coffee the other week and it had a burnt sort of flavour, so I blended it with some hazelnut flavoured coffee and it’s worked really well. Sue stuck to green tea for her drink.

A couple of hours surfing the net after lunch and the wood arrived just after 2.00 pm. You just can’t trust them can you ? Sue helped me stack it in the garage, so that’s the wood in for winter, all I have to do now is split it as we need it. We are fortunate to have a lot of North facing windows in our house and that keeps our heating bill down.

Our favourite Saturday tea to come of Savoury rice with vegetables and tofu and then feet up to watch “The Bill” at 8.30. Beddy byes by 9.30. Hope the Wolves can beat Southampton tonight and that Arsenal absolutely stuff Man Utd in the FA Cup.

Night Night.

Well boys and girls,

I was going to write yesterday to tell everyone that they messed up and now I have a permanent pacemaker (for April Fool's) but then decided that might be a little harsh. So instead let me tell you what REALLY happened on Wednesday afternoon.

I endured all that pain (actually it wasn't that painful) and radiation just to find out that they couldn't get my heart into V tach but only Atrial flutter. Therefore, there was nothing worth ablating according to the doc.

Kind of makes me frustrated. But this is also the reason I find myself turning to alternative medicine when Western medicine fails to answer my questions. Not to say I'll be able to improve the benign yet abnormal rhythms I have right now but at least I'll be able to keep my arteries healthy.

One interesting thing I learned was that I have two AV nodes. Normal people have one SA node and one AV node and somehow I ended up with two. I guess this accounts for my premature supraventricular beat.

Going into the procedure I suddenly became very nervous. There aren't too many nerve drugs to give since some of them keep the body from going into the abnormal rhythms so you have to be all nervous starting out.

They did give me some fentanyl before they sliced my femoral vein open so that was quite nice. The slicing wasn't so bad either. I'm amazed at how small the incision was. A lot of lidocaine was used to get the sheath in though so of course I got a slight lidocaine headache. I was joking with the nursing staff that for such a good numbing agent, how come it isn't numbing my head?

After the procedure, as they were pulling out the catheters (five of them total!!!!), they gave me more fentanyl and versed (midazolam). I have to say, I'm a fan of versed. It is the ultimate relaxation med. I really took the edge off after everything I went thru.

Throughout most of the procedure itself I was wide awake. It's really freaky having them control your heart like a puppet. They zap it and pace it, and then when they can't find anything wrong alone, they add an epinephrine-like drug called isoproterenol to speed up the heart. At one point my heart was going 235 beats per minute!!!! So you are just lying there on the table feeling your heart jump out of your chest. All sorts of weirdness. The nerd in me is glad I did it, but the paranoid radiation-phobic girl who doesn't want her ovaries and breasts fried by the fluoroscope isn't quite sure it was such a good idea.

Also, my right arm began hurting throughout the procedure. Most likely because the BP monitor was cutting off my circulation/irritating my nerves, but who knows? All I know is that I'm back and I'm fine. Yea me!

Oh, here's the best part: after it was over, they fed me since I had been without food all day. I was given the ultimate in Type A avoid foods: 2% milk, Lays potato chips, Oreo cookies, an orange, and smoked turkey on "wheat" bread (ya know the kind that is really white but has specks of wheat?). Keep in mind, this is a hospital, and a cardiac center part of it for that matter. It just cracked me up that they would serve trans fats! But I figured after all those harsh drugs and radiation, what the hell, right? Plus, I was quite hungry and would eat anything. They gave me some juice, too, but now I can't remember what kind of juice since the drugs were still heavily circulating through my system.

Well, that's all for now. I have a lovely weekend ahead of me. Thanks for all your prayers and thoughts during this strange roller coaster.

Easter is nearly upon us and leaving aside the Religious Significance for another time and for another place, like the Christmas period it is often a time of over eating.

The Easter Bunny or as we have in Australia the Easter Bilby doesn’t visit us delivering chocolate eggs. Sue has a very nasty side effect of chocolate Migraine, so we don’t have chocolate in the house.

However we do have the wonderful home baked Easter fruit buns that I mentioned some time back and also Oat Shortbread Cookies.

If you miss the real shortbread biscuit made with butter [avoid] and wheat [optional] you’ll truly enjoy these. They stick to your teeth and roof of your mouth just like the real thing. So settle down with a couple of these and a freshly brewed coffee. I promise you’ll like them.

Oat Shortbread Cookies

20 minutes , makes 12 cookies.

These are a rich, dense biscuit. They are also good used as shortbread with strawberries. You can vary the taste and texture by varying the second ingredient, we actually use Macadamia nuts as these give a wonderful taste to the biscuit.

1 cup Oat Flour

1/4 cup Macadamia, slivered almonds or sesame seeds.

1 tsp baking powder

A dash of salt

2 tbsp Extra light Olive Oil

2 tbsp honey or other sweetener[we use apple juice concentrate]

Preheat oven to 350o F or 180o C. Mix oat flour, nuts, baking powder and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Mix oil and sweetener in a glass or plastic measuring cup. Heat for 20 seconds in the microwave to soften. Mix into the dry ingredients, adding a little water if necessary to make the dough stick together.

Shape dough into a circle about 1/2” thick on a baking sheet and cut into 12 triangle shaped biscuits. Score the top lightly with a fork. Bake for about 8 – 10 minutes then cut again after baking to separate.

Let me know how you get on.

Hello again. Yesterday I mentioned a buckwheat cracker that we make at home and today I’m going to give you the recipe. Once again this comes from our trusted Food Allergy Cookbook by Marilyn Gioannini. I hope she reads these, she may feel inclined to post a royalty cheque. As with all her recipes you can substitute different flours and seeds so these can be compliant for whatever blood group you happen to be. This particular one is Type A compliant and is a very satisfying snack on it’s own with a beneficial glass of red, it would make a terrific cracker to use with dips and a bowl of them at a Type A Blood Type Party [now there’s an idea for someone] would be an ideal alternative to a bowl of potato chips. Don’t be put off by trying to bake your own crackers, my darling wife had an inherent fear of anything that involved making pastry up until we found the aforementioned book. So let’s get baking.

Buckwheat Thins

20 minutes and the quantity makes about 100 small crackers.

These grain free crackers are exceptionally crunchy and good tasting.

1-1/2 cups Light Buckwheat flour

1/4 cup Arrowroot powder

1/4 cup Sesame seeds

1/2 tsp salt

3-1/2 tbsp light olive oil [divided use]

Water

Soy Sauce

Preheat oven to 425o F or 220o C. Combine flour, arrowroot powder, sesame seeds and salt in a medium bowl. Starting with a spoon, and eventually using your fingers, rub in 3 tablespoons of oil. Gradually add about 2/3 cup of water to form a soft workable dough. Add a little more water if dough does not stick together. Knead lightly.

On a well floured board, roll out half the dough at a time very thinly. Brush dough with 1/2 teaspoon of additional oil [mix a little soy sauce with the oil] and sprinkle with a little sea salt. Cut crackers into rectangles or any shape desired. Place on baking sheet.

Bake for 6 to 8 minutes, or until lightly browned. If thinner crackers turn brown first, remove them and continue cooking the rest. Cool on wire racks and store in an airtight container.

These will actually keep for 3 to 4 weeks in an airtight container although I have only managed to keep them for that length of time on one occasion.