Following up on my previous blog ("Taking it Easy: Life in the Normal Lane", 12 Feb. 2011), I notice that one of the terms in vogue on the dadamo Forum lately, in describing adherence to Dr. D'Adamo's principles, is "this lifestyle". I confess I don't know what this means.

The Bloodtype and Genotype diets are adaptable to almost any lifestyle, as I see it. To call their use - and/or Dr. D'Adamo's view of medicine - "this lifestyle" is alien to what his work means and has always meant to me. Are "Individualists" thus becoming conformists? Choosing a "lifestyle" wholesale is often related, rather, to cult-involvement!

My own lifestyle doesn't involve inordinate attention to the purchase of foodstuffs at the market, their preparation and their analysis. So I don't share what Forum participants proudly call "this lifestyle", even though I've been an avid D'Adamo proponent for 14 years.

When you call it a "lifestyle", that implies you have more of life in common with the Forum's other people (sitting in front of computer screens across the globe) than you do with human beings (in your actual vicinity) who shop and eat differently from you. If two neighbors are carpenters and each has a wife, 2.3 children, a dog, and drives a Jeep and belongs to, say, a bowling league, do their lifestyles differ that much if one avoids dairy products? Me, I don't think so. Does the vegan I know have a different lifestyle from his meat-eating friend? Not necessarily. Does Dr. D'Adamo expect his readers to adopt a lifestyle? I don't think so.

I confess: I've never really sweat this diet much. I've been more or less compliant at different points along this 14-(!) year-long path thus far. I go a year here or there without a tomato product, and then a year of having some tomato sauce once a month - much longer without peanuts, buckwheat or lentils - that sort of thing. But I generally opt for my beneficials wherever possible. Dr. D'Adamo has written that he doesn't have a problem with 60-70% compliance as the norm for someone in good health - as we B-secretors so often are! So I'm no stickler.

Maybe B is the easy blood type. We're the most omnivorous, after all, and we're frequently recognized for easy-goingness and "balancedness". That holds true for me, thanks be to God.

Being of the Nomad genotype, I've found that diet to open up even more former avoids to occasional use.
I generally avoid most: Corn, soy, buckwheat.
I'm not a big bread-eater.
I don't go for hard liquor.
I lay low on tomatoes, pork, lentils, peanuts, shellfish.

But most important is that I favor lamb, turkey, fish, eggs and beef as my animal foods, plus some dairy, almonds as my nuts, rice as my starch, that sort of thing. I favor beneficial vegetables and fruits over "avoids". I favor green tea over black, generally. I drink coffee on-again-off-again (usually year-long breaks between months-long morning coffee ways). I don't smoke or take medications/drugs.

I think it's important to remember that any American who generally opts (as I do) against corn, soy, chicken, tomatoes, pork and shellfish, say, is already an oddball. To add plenty of other items to that list is really unusual. And then to favor one's beneficials goes a lot further. So I'm definitely "on board" with D'Adamo, even though I'm casual about it.

If you're one of those B's who takes an approach similar to mine and is also sensitive to the positive effects of certain permitted foods (the energy-zap of hot peppers, for instance, or the power-station that is eggs), then there's room for you, too, at the dadamo table, IMO. Pull up a chair.