I'm having a nice time with beer these days. I never liked it, never drank it, until I started a midlfe passage involving tennis at age 41. After a sweaty round robin, we went for Chinese food and Tsing Tao's all around. Perfect! Refreshing! Magnesium-richer than most quenchers. Beer became the hot weather libation of choice after tennis, bearing in mind that hot weather is relatively nonexistent here in San Francisco where I live. So I indulged quite infrequently, and I was virtually never in the mood for a "brewski" otherwise.

Enter: The Genotype Diet by Peter D'Adamo...What?? Beer as a "weight loss superfood" for the GT6/Nomad? Indeed.

I haven't sampled many brands. Tsing Tao with Chinese food, Sapporo with Japanese (love that bitterness with sushi rolls), Heineken or Becks as the standard default order, as I don't know where else to go. If y'all have faves and picks, share 'em here; if you can clearly articulate your reasons, I just may sample some of these.

If I have trouble with weight, it's not because of beer. It's more the bread/starch problem we B's have. The Nomad/weight loss phenomenon is real for this Nomad. I can vouch for it, having been on a beer-jag lately and dropped some pounds.

B+ Sec.

BTD follower since 1997

I live In San Francisco, where my work is with postpartum women and their mates, their newborns or older babies, and older children, if any. It includes nutritional as well as behavioral counseling of adults and children, as well as occasional public speaking, both to practitioners and to the public.

During the past several years, Dr. D'Adamo's principles have played a role in numerous cases, as well as among friends and family, with great success. I consider his work to be a compelling contribution to The New Medicine.

Spoken language, like wine, has "mouthfeel", and I intend to here rattle on about it.

American English, my native tongue, feels elastic -- perhaps because I can stretch it every which way. And French, my second language, is mellifluous on the palate. German is lofty, and Italian is chewy.

My "Tertiaries" first:

German is serious and "meaningful"; it can go unctuous, like Beerenauslese, or gossamer, like Spätlese Trocken. There is a melancholy streak in German, providing the structure for bouquets ranging from gloomy to joyful, its consonantal breadth and multitudinous cases, declensions, and genders holding interest and keeping one alert and intrigued...or wearing one out!

Italian, on the other hand, is engaging of romantic energy, not dark and mysteriously passionate, which is more of a (castilian) Spanish tone, but a youthful and less serious "Dolce Vita" sort of attitude, with the glorious chewiness of perfect pasta. Italian is, indeed, a highly textured language; it whines and poses and acts out, rages, demands, and seduces.

Castilian Spanish plays for keeps. It slowly creeps over mountain ridges, like fingers of fog; whispering, but making ancient and irrevocable statements. Spanish vines are often very old, but they can produce exquisitely fine and quiet sherry, for instance, as well as Priorat from Priorat, from the deepest chthonic earth: Tortured, twisted wines, crucified (for you) on their stakes, and yet: smooth, even gentle, kind...hushed...dry.

I have minimal experience SPEAKING, as opposed to, say, reading, other (quaternary?) languages, but I find one to be like dark coffee and another like pilsner, when I trip them across the tongue.

It's English and French which are hardest for me to describe, perhaps because of my fluency. It's tempting to say "French is like Champagne", but it isn't, really. There's a certain frontal consonantalness, yes, but those R's keep pulling one back to an ultrasuede soaveté more akin to a Viognier. The overall impression of the spoken language is, I think, elegant à la Bourgogne...(but the country can be Funny, like Beaujolais: Jolly. Some of the pinks and Loire chenins deliver this, but usually there's something UltraFine even there). The exquisite nuancedness of French is actually best related to a different palate altogether, that for experiencing fine perfume, leaving materiality almost entirely....

As I come to know a given language better and better, I distinguish its many regional dialects. Thus I'm rendered incapable of nailing down only one overall "mouthfeel" for that language. That's the problem with French. A small country (the size of Texas), with "infinite variety", not to mention its numerous "offshore" accents!

Speaking of variety, American English can be jazzy and snappy like CocaCola; it can be happy and down-home like a cuppa chowder. I don't know if American English has -yet!- the depth, the sheer maturity to be compared to wine. The language feels "youthful" (and the country invented phony chipped-oak flavoring methods to mimic barrel-aged winemaking. Cute, huh?). American English is the Imperial, global language of our day. And it's marketed to be drunk young: Go figure.

While British English(es) can be redolent of resinous Port or antique single malt Scotch (when deliciously pronounced), or swingier, like a pubby sort of brew, or even downright cream-y, American English is like punch, or (orange pekoe) tea...

For all that, it has no pretension, as a language. Though immature regionally, its venerable origins give it complexity that may very well be unequalled, at least in the Western World and perhaps globally. When those roots and its world role are factored in, we come up with something almost plaintive, wistful, Celtic, beneath the apparent soda pop - something more like Rain and the rolling, surging immensity of Ocean.

Isa, de la terre de Riesling, Silvaner, et Müller-Thurgau, du pays des wursts et brots et biers...N'as pas honte du lieu des naissances de Bach, Handel, Beethoven et Brahms, de Luther, Goethe, Schopenhauer et Nietzsche...et de toi-même!

Puis: Tu étais adoptée par La Terre Des Vins Parfaits, des parfums exquis, de la cuisine excéllente, de la mode, de la peinture, des couleurs (surtout où tu habitais...le Midi!) et (moment de silence, svp) des maquis ("Allons Enfants de la Patrie...") Quel héritage!

Et, maintenant, tu te trouves dans la terre des montagnes, et des fromages formidables (célestiel d'y avoir un allèle B!). Le vin n'est pas mal non plus: J'aimais le Dôle et le Fendant, par exemple.

Suisse: Le tout petit pays de plusieurs niveaux à explorer: L'on monte au-dessus des nuages pour trouver le soleil aveuglant sur la neige, tandis que, en bas, on se trouve dans le brouillard.

La Suisse: Terre de la liberté et de la neutralité, des horloges de précision, des banques privées, des trains, et des petits autobus-de-poste qui vont absolument partout!

Le pays où les ouvriers dans les supermarchés ressemblent aux médecins, aux manteaux blancs, mais qui ne font qu'arroser les légumes!

Où dans le monde peut-on trouver un Mets National qui s'agit d'un petit four sur la table, où chacun a sa petite poêle pour fondre une tranche de fromage, avant de la racler sur ses morceaux de pomme de terre, petits oignons, et cornichons? Que cela représente la Suisse, n'est-ce pas? L'opération chirurgicale et précise: A table!

Il y a, aussi, le Franc suisse, basé (toujours?) sur l'étendard d'or! On y trouve des chalets, avec leurs boîtes-aux-fenêtres pleines de géraniums; et la broderie des plus petites fleurs sauvages des champs alpins.

Suisse: C'est là un pays où la plupart des résidents se souviennent des grandparents des autres...Quelle phénomène (aux yeux des américains, par exemple, qui se déménagent fréquemment, et parfois franchant de longues distances).

Et l'Armée! Ses exercises, ses fausses-montagnes comblées de nourriture pour toute la population en cas d'urgence! Ses camouflages de fermes, de vaches, de chèvres; sa Force Aérienne (de laquelle les Israeliens ont appris comment ça se fait)...

Et le chocolat, tombé d'en haut.

La Suisse: Une merveille, à mon avis. Le monde est meilleur à cause d'elle. Et je n'ai pas même mentionné son histoire: Des Romains, des "barbares", des éxilés, des Réformateurs...

Moi, j'ai habité Montreux (et ses environs). J'avais mon lac, mes montagnes, ma vue sur tout (une de mes fenêtres a donné sur un bananier, dans le jardin -- SI! En Suisse!), et chaque petit paquet montre ses ingrédients et les instructions en mes trois langues de préférence (la quatrième, le Romansch, n'est pas encore une de mes études).

Alors, l'on peut soit se baigner, soit s'asseoir dans le WC, soit prendre son p'tit déj, tout en lisant les boîtes et les bouteilles, occasions de pratiquer son allemand ou italien -- c'est absolument formidable.

Et les aéroports de Génève et de Zürich, qui correspondent directement avec le train, leurs gares étant juste au-dessous. Et si tu prends le train, de Lausanne au nord, par exemple, tu peux parler en français aux autres passagers jusqu'à Bienne/Biel, où le poli est de vite commencer à t'éxprimer en deutsche, notamment si les autres -- tout à coup -- prétendent de ne plus te comprendre.

On n'est jamais trop loin de la frontière pour devoir faire ses commissions uniquement en Suisse: S'il ne te gêne pas de passer par la douane en rentrant, tu peux acheter des viandes et pharmaceutiques en France (ou Allemagne, Autriche, Italie, Liechtenstein, je suppose?) comme tu veux.

Quel superbe pays! O je remercie le Seigneur pour Sa création des Alpes, et la tradition suissaise de liberté, gardée par cette même topographie. Et pour la domicile de mon amie, Isa, AB, qui sait naviguer le cyberespace, et qui n'a pas peur de s'y mêler avec nous les Anglos.

Vas bien, amuse-toi bien, notre superbe Isa-Manuela!

"'People need the fellowship of whole, balanced individuals', or 'Community is an INGREDIENT in the Balance of the Individual'...I return to my cave, grateful to God for the Imbalance that alone is capable of saying anything". --- From my Journal, October, 1995

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A little book of Feng Shui advises making sure all mirror edges are beveled or framed, lest a rough edge be duplicated by "rough edges in one's life"! Oh dear. A life without rough edges? Why bother? Is this to be desired?

I think of Heroism: Is that a "balanced" Way? Where would France be today if Général DeGaulle had framed his mirrors instead of organizing the French Resistance, an accomplishment virtually demanding "rough edges"? Would his strong radio voice have encouraged Parisians under curfew, had his "chi flow" been more serene?

I think of poets; I try to imagine Shakespeare or Goethe or Whitman or Rilke seeking to place his (framed) mirror on its "Proper" wall, rather than sitting down to write, perhaps by candlelight, at all hours of day and night, forgetting even to eat or sleep.

And the thinkers: Pascal, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche -
The risk-takers: Marco Polo, Wiclif, Galileo -
The greatest artists (since we're talking Decorative Space): Leonardo, Rembrandt, Michelangelo: Tell me -- Did these NOT understand The Artful Placement of Objects?

If Beethoven had practiced Feng Shui, what would this have meant for Music? Oh, woe: If he, notorious for his slovenliness and sloppiness, had been mindful of his "clutter problem", what do you think he would have composed, if anything?

Ultimately, I suppose, the issue becomes: If Pharaoh had been Chinese instead of Egyptian, if Pythagoras had been Lao-Tse, yea, if Jesus had preached "Balance" instead of Repentance, what repercussions for the West?

In this sense, Feng Shui is but one of many chic Asian modalities superceding Western traditions "dissed" by deconstructors, a mark of the ascendency of Globalthink: Eastern legalisms qua crowbar for an academically-incubated PostChristianism. For many, you see, Christianity-as-written is just too liberal ("Patriarchy" rhetoric notwithstanding). Unlike Eastern religions, there are no home-décor guidelines; unlike Judaism, no culinary restrictions; unlike Islam, no mandated time of day for prayer. Christendom itself has, from the beginning, been rebelling against the liberty preached by Christ and Paul! It is, in fact, this Rebellion that is at the forefront of welcoming, concocting, and cynically marketing to the insecure and self-absorbed Westerner these warmed-over, stylized forms.

We humans are a verbal lot, but speech doesn't emanate from Balance, the latter being a sort of Stasis, ousting or de-necessitating both rational and creative expression. Creativity, too, is the result of friction, rather than of Balance: Indeed, you and I were formed of a copulative friction. Note, too, that Western tradition recounts of epochal Salvations, always arriving via accumulated Evil and Violence (not Balance): It was when Wickedness reached a fever pitch that God spoke through Noah's 100-year-long creative task of ark-building, sending Salvation through water that wiped out a whole generation (without dictating the vessel's décor or distracting the builder with matters of his chi). Israel, too, escaped Egypt via a saving flood that permitted its passage, while drowning the enslavers; likewise Christianity issued purged and pristine from the awesome Judean holocaust of 69-70 AD. Closer to our era, even Hegel posited the achievement of Balance ("Synthesis") NOT by inner search, but opposition ("Antithesis"). Could there be something to these models?

In the Real World of Tears, Injustice, Rebellion, Stresses, Struggles and Poverty, "Balance" is not necessarily an appropriate preoccupation. Many must fight -- or succumb to -- these realities daily. Some write about them; others are even called to "scream" (artistically) about them. None, however, who hope to stem them should feign or seek "Balancedness" in denial of them. A conflagration calls for a hose powerfully spraying massive amounts of Water, not Prana; when my house is burning down, knock yourself out bringing me a ladder, but please don't be thinking about your Inner Balance or my choice of landscape elements.

Perhaps self-immersion in Balance reflects a consumer-culture's delight in ever more exotic "bread and circuses". Another possibility is that of an exhausted democracy's "Blissful Ignorance", justifying our Nation's founders' suspicions that no more than two centuries would elapse before the general public would tire of self-governance's extraordinary responsibilities.

And is it really "Spiritual", let alone aesthetically beautiful, to adhere to a legal system of color or Object Placement in one's home or office, rather than to relax with one's own personal tastes? Does the world not offer enough varieties of "will-worship", i.e., self -checking and -congratulation, according to regulated systems? Before Feng Shui came to the U.S., many of us freely created beautiful interiors and enjoyed spontaneous artistic expression combined with meaningful lives, thank you.

There are countless "gurus" today (especially here in the San Francisco Bay Area) writing books about Balance, Order, and systems, borrowing from Asian teachings, applying this repetitive theme to food, medicine, mental health, spirituality, gardening, sports, travel, you name it. All are geared to the Self-obsessed and -enclosed middle class consumer (oblivious to the world's burning houses?), and all advocate an almost one-size-fits-all no-mindedness (in the name of Zen, perhaps) ripe for following increasingly ridiculous "guidelines"; one is "enlightened" insofar as one stalks the Balanced Chakras, Meridians, Religions, Living Rooms, Relationships, or Diet. To my mind, these books could interchangeably be written by Chopra, Myss, Dyer, Hay, Flinders, Moore, Gray, Remen, Lerner, Fox, et al, et al, so predictable and uniform is the worldview.

The Blood Type Diet, as I see it, is NOT a party to that cause, which accounts for its being so misunderstood: Many assume it's just another arbitrary, legalistic system; unfortunately, its own adherents are often guiltiest of so interpreting it. Whereas Feng Shui tells you to frame that mirror, Dr. D'Adamo says, "Enjoy a big, juicy steak, or a small slab of swordfish, or a whatever-sized scoop of turkey-salad, or...". He doesn't legislate your tastes, your portions, or your lifestyle, nor does he suggest that you punctiliously do so yourself. While Macrobiotics, for instance, requires that the Western follower buy into fundamentals of Taoism and Zen practice, no such religious rhetoric finds its way into Eat Right 4 Your Type. Bottom Line: There's nothing coercive about a Science that extols Individuality; and I perceive that its very liberality, like that of true Christianity, is suspect, even frightening, to many who don't really want to be original or occupied with issues broader than Self.

If you desire to have created, a few decades hence, a population of automatons marching in lock-step and oblivious to their own political status, teach the sheep now to count calories, fat-grams, and percentages of protein; better yet, enforce Radical Veganism, admonish against decorating with spike-leaved plants or renting an apartment with its bathroom(s) on a South wall...or hanging an unframed mirror, but DON'T encourage people to choose their own foodstuffs as utter individuals (even all Type O's don't have to eat alike!), or - WORSE - to speak or create or live spontaneously and courageously, as individuals, with all their rough edges.

Give me Paul ("I am crucified with Christ").
Give me Luther ("Here I stand").
Give me Beethoven ("Da-Da-Da-DOM").