My father in law came across my 1986 college graduation program while cleaning out some old papers. Seeing that program brought me back to seemingly endless days of studying and long sleepless nights worrying over exams. During my college years I never felt very smart so I was surprised to see Cum Laude next to my name. I had graduated with honors but some how I didn't remember that. What I do remember is being relieved to be finished with my formal education and never having to take a test again, or so I thought. That was until I learned I could become certified by the IFHI which requires, what else, a test. It has taken me a long time to decide to get this certification but my passion for all things blood type has not waned in over 10 years, and what better way to satisfy my enthusiasm but to become certified in what I believe.

The certification exam will be given at the Mini Conference in Crossville, Tennesee hosted by the Pleatau Eat Righter's. So in June I sent in my $150 and Larry Nesbit (BT 0) who spearheaded the group, registered me to take the test and emailed me the manual. The manual is a total of 80 pages, double sided, with text from top to bottom, no pictures, no graphs, just words. It's a little daunting but full of important information and reinforces some of what I already know from reading the Eat Right books. It also contains some new information and links to things in The Individualist for further study. For now I am sticking with just getting through the manual, reading it in small bits, and taking notes in the margins.

I am looking forward to the conference not just for the chance to become certified but also to be with a group of like minded people, those who share my same beliefs. As one member of the Chat Right Forum put it, "sane people".

One person I'm lookig forward to meeting is Larry Nesbit. Early in the spring I was privilaged to speak with him, his passion for all things Blood Type was very evident in our conversation. He has made it his mission to share his passion with others, so he holds classes on a regular basis and now has a thriving group of Blood Type followers in Crossville. What an amazing thing to take your passion, share it and watch peoples lives change.

My conversation with him centered around how I could start classes here on Long Island and, like Larry, share my passion. I thank him for encouraging me to put aside my trepidations and take the certification. A portion of the conference will be devoted to Larry and his persistance in helping people like me who want to get started teaching the BTD. This is one of the reasons I am attending this conference rather than the one in Arizona (although I may go to that one too).

I am looking forward to meeting you all and hope they have name tags that include our BT/GT and our chat room names, that way I will know who you are.

Early Saturday morning I roused my sleepy type O Gatherer husband from bed and we went to the Farmers Market in my town. I have been trying to remember to go for over two years, I finally wrote myself a note and pasted it to the shower curtain.

It is located at the "Town Dock" a scenic spot on the water as the name suggests. It is very small only 9 vendors total, it had two vegetable stalls, one bread stall, one local caught fish, one with plants, one local group of kids selling coffee and treats as a fundraiser, a breadbaker, and a local beekeeper selling his honey.

I slowly walked from booth to booth checking out the items. I was there for the vegetables and the eggs, but wanted to look at all the booths. It didn't take me long to decide which of the vegetable booths to buy from, the one with the dirtiest vegetables. Both of the vegetable sellers had lovely things but at one booth all the vegetables looked like they came from a store rather then just picked from the garden. The bits of dirt told me that the origins of the vegetables were exactly as the seller stated, "just picked".

The onions and garlic I bought still had the tops on them. The kale and dandelion was fresh and crisp, with just the hint of dirt on the bases. The eggs were warm, three different colors and multiple sizes in a cardboard carton. The honey for my A Teacher daughter was from local hives here in my town.

My husband stood on line at the breadbaker for about 10 minutes waiting to make his purchase. It was the only booth with a line. The Breadbakers, two scandinavian men, had really beautiful looking large loaves of bread. All the loaves had that rustic look of being freshly baked in a stone oven, probably here in Brooklyn. My husband bought a 100% rye loaf and the sticky cinnamon buns which he loves. In a frenzy people bought 5-6 loaves of bread each, I wondered what they would do with all that bread

I know I will go back for the vegetables and to support Long Island farming. I do wonder if I could have some sort of booth at the Farmers Market. It did look profitable and fun. I will add it to my Bucket List of things to do in the future.

For now I need to read the Genetics Manual to prepare for my certification test in October, for the IFHI.
I know some of you will be there and I look forward to meeting you.

White Beans

I have never been much of a bean eater, so including them in my diet takes some effort. Recently on the forums white beans came up as a topic of discussion. I had never eaten them much less purchased them. So I set out to find them in my local supermarket. I found them dried in plastic bags for only a dollar a bag right next to my beloved lentils (which are not really beans at all) so I bought two bags.

Sometimes with cooking I over do things, like cooking the whole box of pasta when I only really need a small portion. So rather then repeat the past, I made only one cup of the dried beans which comes to two cups once cooked. I rinsed them in water then soaked them for about 4 hours. I added an onion some carrots and a piece of kombu seaweed, put them in my pressure cooker because it is the most energy efficient method, it only took about 45 minutes till the beans were done.
They came out soft and creamy with a wonderful flavor sort of like bacon. I pureed some in my food processor with garlic, homemade mustard and salt. I dipped 100% rye crackers in the mixture. Wow were they good. If you have not made white beans I encourage you to try some.

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I spent the day shopping. I hate it. The crowds, the cars the salespeople, nothing is easy.
We needed a new dehumidifier because after three years of running almost constantly ours decided it had enough. My husband researched the different brands on the internet and it was my job to find one and bring it home. I went to 5 different stores and each time I came away disappointed. I am convinced that the ones that the stores carry are the low end brands because they can mark them up drastically for the most profit. I finally gave up and came home. Searching Ebay I found exactly what I wanted for a great price. I checked the feedback profile of the seller, they had good feedback, I hit the Buy It Now button, and in a few days I should have my new dehumdifier at my door. Gee, that was so much easier.

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Tonight we have a party at the neighbors house, to celebrate the 4th of July. From their backyard you can see the fireworks over the Long Island Sound, it is beautiful. Hope I can survive the mosquitoes long enough to watch the fireworks with my hubby.

I don't mind pulling weeds in my vegetable garden. When I pull weeds I tend to look more closely at my plants and see how they are growing. There is something about being close to the earth that I love.

Some weeds I leave in place because I eat them. Purslane and dandelion are two weeds I have been eating this year.

Purslane is a Warrior Superfood, it is really a lovely vegetable to eat, crunchy and slightly sweet it is a nice addition to salads. I will leave some purslane to go to seed so next year I have more of this tasty vegetable.
Not all weeds are useful some need to be pulled out so that other things can grow. Weeds take water and nutrients from the soil so that the plants nearby won't grow properly. So pulling them is essential to the health of the other plants in the garden.

For me weeds are also symbolic because they suggest things in our lives that need to be removed so that other things can grow and flourish.

My life has been unusually busy in the last few weeks. Between work and managing my home I have not had a free moment. So today, Father's Day, while my Cerebral Gatherer O husand watches golf (boring), I have a chance to write a blog.

I work both days and nights as a nurse in a small local hospital. As an institution known for its excellent cardiac interventionalists we tend to see the more complicated patient.
Because I float from unit to unit, my job as a nurse varies. Like a subsitute teacher I fill in where I'm needed. One of the units I work in is called Operative and Invasive; it is where all the post Cardiac Catherization patients recover.

A cardiac catherization examines the internal heart pressures, valves, and blood vessels that feed the actual heart muscle. A Cardiac Interventionalist passes a catether into the femoral artery and up into the heart. A dye is then injected to permit the doctor to visualize the blood vessels of the heart. A clog in one of these tiny blood vessels can lead to a heart attack or stroke. Like high class plumbers the Cardiac Interventionalists can insert a Stent, a straw like device, into the tiny vessels to improve blood flow.

Sometimes the vessels can not be stented and the patient requires surgery, or is treated with drugs. This past week I had a few tragic cases; middle aged men with disease not easily cured with stents.

One 50 year old man with cardiomypathy, basically a dying heart muscle, was my patient post procedure. Except for medication or a heart transplant the doctors can do nothing to fix his heart. He was unhappy and hungry.

No one eats on the day of the procedure so once they return from the test they are quite hungry. I am always intriqued by what they ask for to eat.

I took out the hospital menu and began to read it to him. The first items on the menu are salads.

"No" he said "I don't eat any salad, or vegetables for that matter."

"How about soup?" I said.

"Nope."

"Chicken, fish, meatloaf?" I continued to read from the menu, "Pizza?"

"That's what I'll have," he exclaimed. "I'll have two cheese pizzas, and a diet Coke."

I don't feel surprised by his choice. I feel sad. Sad that people don't understand food and how it nourishes our bodies and sad that this man is eating so poorly.

Sarah, a nurse I have known for over 18 years, is 300lbs, blood type B, early 30's, with diabetes. I saw her in the Endoscopy unit as a patient. She revealed to me that she was going for Lap Band surgery sometime in the next month, an Upper Endoscopy was required prior to her surgery.
She has done all the diets - Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and self control, nothing has worked. Unwilling to try one more diet, Lap Band surgery offers an easy alternative to changing her weight without much fuss. I guess starving yourself appeals to some people.

Once again I feel sad when she tells me this. I wish I could convince her that lectins matter. That her longterm health depends on her food choices and it is not only about the excess weight. I feel helpless to convince her, and I let it go.

John was admitted to the emergency room due to chest pain, he was 300+ lbs and 80 years old, he could barely walk and had breathing problems from his weight. His legs were mottled from poor circulation and his abdomen had grown so large it made it diffucult to use the urinal.

The nurses aide wheeled him up on the stretcher that was too small for his bulky frame to a regular size bed. When he arrived as my patient at 2am he was very cranky. He had been waiting on the stretcher for over 5 hours with the promise of being moved to a regular full sized bed. He was made to lie on the stretcher flat on his back because he had had a Cardiac Catheterization and the potential for arterial bleeding remains high for 4- 6 hours after the procedure.

I like to ask people unexpected questions. One of my teachers in college used to say that people will never answer a question unless they want to. We all know those people, the ones you ask a direct question of but never get a direct answer, they always seem to wiggle out of giving an answer. I have no shame in asking questions of my patients.

I was curious about John and how he had gotten to this size. So I asked him, "John, how did you get so heavy?" He described to me how he got his meals. "You see I can drive but I can't walk so well, so I go through the drive thru and pick up all my meals from fastfood places." I then told him that his weight would kill him if he didn't change his life. "I know," he replied, "but I can't walk enough to go through the supermarket."

I work in an industry that does not believe that food can cause disease, much less, cure it. Like a foreigner I speak a language that many people don't understand. I talk about foods, leg lengths, fingerprints, lectins, blood types and their effects on our bodies health. I see the faces of people glaze over. They in turn tell me about nutrisystems, herbalife or some fad diet they are doing and I glaze over.