BR: Nick, please introduce yourself! Where were you born, your family, how many brothers and sisters you have and where you lived.

NB: Hi Cocky, Here are my vital statistics: B+ NS MN INTP. I was born an only child in Bahrain in the middle east on the 17th July 1956, and lived there until I was shipped off to boarding school in the UK when I was 11. Awali, Bahrain was quite a surreal ‘back to the future’, time-warped little place, - a pre-fabricated fully equipped American town in the middle of the desert, and inhabited largely by about 4000 Brits. The reason for it being there was of course oil, and although it was an American company that ran it, the Royal Navy maintained a base there, so the ruler was very pro-British. After school I had a 3 year stint in Sheffield University before getting my first job selling industrial precious metals in London. Two years later I was stationed in Copenhagen, then four years after that I jumped ship and started my own business. That has continued until this day, but now I have moved to Scotland, and am working in the Natural product industry, which is a welcome return to my roots in regard to my scientific background.

BR: Could you tell us something about your professional life? You are a biochemist. You are in charge of Stacktheme Ltd. in Scotland (European distributor of NAP products). Are there other offices in Europe, or is the Dutch office the only one? What are your professional plans for the future?

NB: One thing you can say about this business is that you can take nothing for granted. Every day presents new challenges and opportunities to a much greater degree than in most professions. As the science has moved forward rapidly over the past few decades, and the internet has spread information to an unprecedented degree, business has boomed. Unfortunately the orthodox health establishment has used its influence to discredit anything deemed to be alternative, and the consequence is that it has been difficult to stand out from a crowd in which there are many charlatans. The BTD is a case in point of course, because in many people’s minds it is still just another fad diet, and many health care professionals hope it will stay that way. This is because rather than embracing it as a major new tool in their arsenal, they see only the threat posed by the undermining of their current understanding. We are planning for a future which will see the Blood type theory becoming accepted as the first avenue of investigation of every serious practitioner’s therapy regime, so we have to prepare for how we are going to facilitate that transition and deal with the consequences. Our business strategy in Europe is to build a central hub for distribution and administration, with local offices providing language and technical back up. So far we have offices in the UK, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, covering most of Northern Europe. We plan to open up similar representative offices in the Southern European arena over the next couple of years. We will be investing a lot of effort on our new website www.right4EU.com and in company communication infrastructure, as this kind of dispersed organisation demands good links between all personnel. Luckily for us, technology and the politics of the single market are working for us in this venture.

BR: You live a fully occupied life! Is there still time left for your hobbies? And if so, what hobbies do you have?

NB: My hobbies tend to be of the sporting kind, indulging my competitive instincts, as this seems to get me furthest removed from thinking about work. I find that a game of squash, a cycle ride in the countryside or a round of golf does the trick in terms of ‘getting away from it all’. Otherwise you can find me in the kitchen, trying out a new blood type recipe on my long suffering family.

BR: Can you give us a bit of insight into why you started the blood type diet? And how you got started! Gradually or cold-turkey-wise? Tell us how you ran into the Diet and of the consequences for you personally and your family?

NB: It was just after I moved to Scotland in late 1997 that I read a synopsis of the book in a UK nutritional publication. I had been working in the food supplement business for about a year, and had been struck by the fact that the dietary advice offered by health food stores and nutritional practitioners often didn’t work as well as it should, given the power that I knew the products I was dealing with had. Reading the article was one of those ‘aha’ moments that you get when the truth hits you right between the eyes. You can take two steps forward from illness by using high quality supplements, but if you then keep taking three steps back by eating foods that burden your immune system, you don’t improve at all! There are going to be many more ways found about how to tailor health advice to individual need in the future, as the information available from the genome project is ‘mined’, but I doubt any system to be devised will turn out to be as powerful a tool for the practitioner to use as the blood type theory allows. I had personally run through a lot of different alternative healthcare methods over the previous years as I had a serious neurological condition which developed in late 1993, so I had a good understanding by then of what worked for me and what didn’t. What I noticed right away about the diet was that it controlled my blood sugar crashes which seriously aggravated my condition, and also my tendency to bloating and gas. However I had never been overweight, so nothing changed there. I reckon that I was fully on the diet within a couple of months, although travelling is always a major problem, so I use ‘Deflect’ a lot then. The consequences for myself and my family are profound – you might say that we work, eat and sleep the BTD now!

BR: Are there any diseases that tend to run in your family?

NB: On my mothers side there was a definite tendency to Breast cancer, but otherwise nothing particular.

BR: Nick, your family, your wife Eileen, your daughters Sarah and Lucy and your son George, how did they react to your following the diet? Are they ‘in’ as well, or are you a ‘loner’ following the diet?

NB: The family has followed my example with varying degrees of enthusiasm, however we are now all aware that the BTD is the ‘right’ path, but for the kids at least sinning can still sometimes be fun! At home we all eat what is available, and since we only buy items that are compatible with BTD there is no problem with distractions, but away from home is a different situation, then it’s a case of ‘damage limitation’ instead.

BR: How many bloodtypes are there in your family? How do you manage?

NB: Only two luckily, Eileen is an O and the rest of us are all B, which leads me to believe that I am probably homozygous B, and the kids are all heterozygous of course. The diet choices are more similar between these two groups than any other two, so there are few problems buying provisions.

BR: Is Eating Right 4 Your Type easy or difficult in Scotland: when at work, at a restaurant? On the road?

NB: As I mentioned, outside the home is where the problem starts, but as long as I am not away too long I can resist straying, but after a while hunger wins over any other considerations, and you end up just trying to make the least bad choice based on what you have felt in the past. The longer I am on the diet, the more sensitive I am to eating incompatible foods.

BR: Looking at your diet: what was easy to integrate into your basic diet, what still gives you problems?

NB: As a B non-secretor I have the widest choice of foods available, although not so many are beneficial as for a secretor. Nuts, grains and pulses are really the only things that I used to eat that I now avoid and there is no bread in the house any longer, but I don’t really miss these at all. I have a bit of a ‘sweet tooth’ so removing sugar containing foods from the diet is the hardest thing for me, but I have been working on that for many years now anyway!

BR: Do you get support from your Medical Doctor? Could you convince him/her of the positive impact of the blood type diet on your health?

NB: I really don’t know, I havent been under the regular care of an orthodox physician since I took charge of my own healthcare after I lost faith in my own doctor back in 1994, when I first presented with my health problems. He prescribed anti-depressants and referred me to a psychiatrist, even though I had hardly ever needed to visit a doctor for other than minor complaints before then. The MD’s that I have talked to in a professional capacity tend to be either very enthusiastic (rare) or ostrich like (common).

BR: What kind of medication did you take for overcoming your healthproblems? And how is your medication-intake after having started the blood type diet?

NB: I found the best things for my problems are anti-inflammatory in their effect or are glutamate antagonists. Bromelain, cats claw, taurine, kava-kava, lactoferrin are all such examples. These days I get by with just the ‘basic pack’ products and only occasionaly need to ramp up on other specific products.

BR: The country, city, village you live in: Is it a problem or not to find the organic foods you need?

NB: We live in the country so it is a long way to the larger food stores where we can find a good organic selection. However we are lucky enough to live near a large organic farmer who produces all kinds of seasonal fruits and veg, and also has an organic meat mail order business. We get weekly deliveries to our door so we are well supplied.

BR: Are there any other experiences, advice, you have in stock for us, as far as the BTD is concerned, you wish to share with us??

NB: Yes : just do it! It is the single most profound health promoting change you will ever make in your life.

BR: Nick, thank you very much for this open and very informative interview! Our readership (including myself as your Dutch ‘Stack’-Team office-manager!) has now more insight knowledge about the man behind the Stacktheme Company! With you I wish you many more foreign ‘stacks’ on your team! Enjoy working for you in the Netherlands! It’s challenging! Thank you!