Yesterday, I mentioned the fact that multi-blood type families need to be the most time efficient. If they try making those lists that I talked about yesterday and then try to find the matches between three or four different blood types plus find recipes to go along with them, it can easily leave them ready to quit this lifestyle before they even get started.

If you are in one of those families, please, do not give up. Instead, try what worked (and still works) for me:

1) make out the grocery list I explained yesterday for each blood type in your family (this may or may not be a list for each family member).

2) make out the menu list I explained yesterday for each blood type in your family (again, this may or may not be a list for each family member). Tip: buy some cheap, clear plastic page protectors to keep each one in. Use the holes that are down the left hand side of the protector that are intended to hold it in a three ring binder to hang it on a hook, thumbtack or some such item in your kitchen for easy reference. If you find that they get in your way, try putting them in a folder and put the folder in your kitchen drawer underneath your silverware.

3) If you have two or three different blood types to work with, decide which ONE of the blood types you will use as your base type to work from. From my own experience, I would suggest this be decided either by chosing the blood type of the person who will be doing most of the cooking and/or shopping or by choosing the O blood type if you have an O in your family. For some reason, which I do not understand myself, the O type is easier (at least for me) to match the other three types with. If you have all four blood types to take into account then I would suggest that you pick two to use as two separate bases to work from.

4) Next, match up all the items that the base can have with all the items that each one of the other blood types in your family can have. Mark them with a highlighter. These are the foods that you will need to base your cooking on the most. They will be your “workhorses”. If you are using two bases, pair each base with one other blood group. That will make it so that you are working with two sets of two different blood types. Proceed with each base and the blood type you are matching it with. Use a highlighter to mark the items that match up with each of the corresponding bases. Since you have two bases, you will now have two master lists. One for each pair of blood types that were compared. Compare these two masters to each other to find the ones that they share in common and mark those items as well. Since they may or may not be already highlighted, I would suggest circling the items that you find in common between the two lists with either a different type of pen or a different color. As with the person only using one base, these are now your “workhorses”.

5) The next highlighter step is to compare all the items that are not yet highlighted and find matches between them. You will need a second (or third) color to do this. These are your secondary items and so they will be used the second most often. The items that never get highlighted at all will be needed so do not just discard/ignore them. They are just not as important as those that are highlighted. After you have completed these lists, I would recommend that you make copies of them in an Excel spread sheet. That way you can use the program to designate the different colors and easily change items around should their values change as you get your secretor test results back, a food’s value changes as further research is done, or as your family structure changes because someone is born, moves out to attend college, gets married, or whatever. It also will enable you to print out the lists should you find that you need multiple copies for whatever reason. If you are really feeling inspired, you can make one list per blood type and one list that is ALL of the foods and color code it as well. The optional list that has all of the foods listed needs to have the same versatility that the computer gives you for changing things around should they need it and you can print out one single list to work from rather than all of them should you ever want to later on.

Before you go heading off to the grocery, you will need to check out your herbs and spices cabinet. These are what you will use to flavor the recipes you will create with your grocery items. You do not want to invest your precious time and then spend your hard earned money only to find that you have created something that you would rather feed to the garbage disposal. To give you an idea of what you will need, I recommend looking over a list of recipes that all of the blood types have in common. There is one in the Cook Right For Your Type Cookbook (pages 116 & 117 in my copy). Then, add any relevant items you feel you will need to your shopping list. The reasons that I recommend doing this is because many people are not familar with many of the foods that they find they should be eating and therefore do not know what herbs or spices will compliment what they find at the store and bring home to try. Secondly, many of the foods on the resulting shopping list(s) are not called for in recipes that those of you who already were cooking were using. Lastly, it helps keep it simple for the beginner and/or overwhelmed person(s). Then, and as the saying goes - shop ‘til you drop.

One more thing before I close this blog: please, do not throw out all your favorite familar recipes...there are many ways you can adapt them to your new lifestyle...but that’s another blog.