Yes, it's tough to find commercial milks and condiments which aren't laden with one no-no or another ~~ if you don't make your own. Nonsecretor Os have the worst time of it in the middle supermarket aisles, but everyone faces this challenge. Following the blood type diets means we end up purchasing more whole foods for preparation at home than we used to... or at least choose very simple dishes and eschew most sauces when eating out or buying prepared food.

Some brands of soy milk, for example, have been reported as having organic ingredients in a soybeans-and-water only formula. However, a recommended national brand can actually vary in ingredients from place to place, and the formula can be changed from time to time without notice. Several people ran into this problem with one brand's Ezekiel 4:9 bread. There are avoid-free varieties among brands of soy milk (Westbrae Natural, last I checked), ketchup (Muir Glen Organic), etc., but not necessarily for nonsecretors -- so it comes down to what the product actually contains when you buy it at your local store. Read every label, even when you've bought the same product before.

This is the main reason why we have milk and condiment recipes in RECIbase and scattered through the archives. A websearch can turn up loads of adaptable recipes, as well. I make salad dressing about twice a month, with fresh organic ingredients, and it takes five minutes and far less money than an off-the-shelf product. It is not complicated to make soy, rice or almond milk in small amounts, to be consumed within a few days. Mustard and mayonnaise are simple and quick to make, and last for weeks. While it can be difficult at first, persistence pays off in the quality of your food and the enjoyment of preparing and eating it. Adapting recipes can become second nature after a while, and a great source of pleasure. You may discover a culinary talent you never suspected! And over time, your collection of tried-and-true recipes will grow, and provide the basis for more experimentation. It's all a matter of getting started. :-)

Hello, dot! The only cactus in the food lists currently is "prickly pear" which covers the entire Opuntia genus of cacti, comprising approximately one dozen different species. Both the fruit and the branches (the fat cactus-y looking "pads," sometimes sold under the name Nopalito) are edible, but all are avoids for type B secretors and nonsecretors. If you find an edible cactus which is not a member of the Opuntia genus, we would consider it "unknown," and therefore neutral for purposes of the BTD ~ but be wary of untoward reactions, OK? :-)

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I am type B and would like to know about these foods from India. 1) Black gram (Urad) 2)Pompano and King fish 3) Moringa Oleifera also called as drum sticks 4)Cutlass Bean 5)Red gram 6) gourds like snake gourd, bitter gourd 7) Sorghum 8) cluster beans 9) Colocasia Kindly tell us about these foods. If you don't have the info,can you test these foods? I will appreciate your input. Thanks, Smita

Hello, Smita ~ We have no values for most of the foods you mentioned, meaning they have not been tested. They can be considered "neutral" if you are in good health and do not need to lose weight, but use them very sparingly if you are trying to resolve a heath condition.

Pompano and sorghum can be found in TYPEbase 3® ~ just type in the food name, and remember to hit the search button, not the "enter" key. :-)

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the doc says in his eat right 4 your blood type, for B+, don't use club soda. it seems to work for me. any specific reason? thanx. blessings, dennis

Hi, Dennis ~ In the updated books, type B secretors are to avoid it, and it's neutral for B nonsecretors. In the TYPEbase 3® database, club soda is listed. The remarks for B secretors: "Inhibits proper gastric function or blocks assimilation." ;-)

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i am female 60 years old and type b+ blood i was under the impression that i could eat ordinary potatoes ie! white or red etc!in your book page 268 live right for your type that as a non secretor potatoes are an avoid for me please tell me it is an error as i have always eaten potatoes and to my knowledge they have not done me any harm i love them!!!! with thanks MMcC

Hi, Mary! sorry for the shock... The new books are an update & improvement over BTD from 1996, and I wish I could say it's an error, but it is the correct new listing. Good news... tomatoes moved to neutral for you... ? :-)

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I am blood type B and my husband is blood type A. Ezekiel bread and Essene bread are on both of our highly beneficial foods. I just looked up the ingredients in these two breads and noticed several ingredients were in these breads that are on our avoid list. Can you please explain why we can eat these breads if there are ingredients, such as barley, kidney beans, pinto beans, lentils, buttermilk, wheat flour, which are foods that we are to avoid. We are adhereing to the diet solutions according to Dr. Peter D'Adamo in his book Eat Right 4 Your Type. JoAnn

Hello, JoAnn ~ It is paramount for all of us to read the labels of products before we buy them, as you have discovered! The Ezekiel 4:9 bread in the food lists refers to a 100% sprouted, yeasted bread with no dairy, whole bean or wheat flour. Food for Life makes a fine one. Essene bread, again, is a 100% sprouted grain bread which may include fruit or nuts, or be only sprouted grain & water. Good hunting!

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Thanks for all the positive info on vegetable glycerine! Now, how do we convert recipes, i.e., 1/2cup of honey equals how much glycerine? One cup of sugar equals how much glycerine? Happy Holidays to everyone! carolyn(0+)sec

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Two questions about Vegetable Glycerine. Apparently it is not a carbohydrate, but instead an alcohol. Does this mean it has no calories? Or for calorie-sake is it essentially counted as a carbohydrate? What is the equivalency for using in recipes? In other words how many tablespoons of it equals some comparable amount of sugar? I'm very excited about this because it gives me something sweet, which is rare besides fruit and because it is available in a variety of sizes at my local Whole Foods Market. I get the largest size! I have added a dash of it to my smoothies and it really does help. Tom Tom Type O-Non Secretor

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You might add to your Glycerine discussion that Whole Foods and others may not stock it next to the sweeteners, but rather in the skin-care section. S.

Hi, veg-gly fans! Yes, I've always found it in the skin-care "oils" section. Calories? No idea! Certainly far less than sugar, if it is susceptible to the "calorie" scale at all. I've no idea how to convert it for recipes calling for sugar, except to test the taste of sugar in water to an equal quantity of vegetable glycerine. Use the amount that makes best taste-sense to you, since the flavor does not change when cooked. It's not a delicate or difficult-to-handle ingredient. Do a little experimenting, and enjoy! :-D

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Where can I find vegetable glycerin you spoke about? Can you substitute it for honey? Is it equally acceptable for all blood types? I don't know anything about it. Can you talk about it please. Maddy

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Help...STAT!In one of your responses to an O woman whose GI tract had been ravaged by erythromycin, you listed a protocol from a German using rice, blueberries & mineral water. Later in the same article, you suggested the use of vegetable glycerine, but not how or how much. Can you clarify with a quick answer? Thanks much. You're all doing a great job. Joyce

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Hi Heidi; I own a small health food shop and am a firm believer in the Blood Type Diet. There have been several references on this web site about vegetable glycerine being used for diabetics as a blood sugar stablizier and, most recently, as a sweetener for O non-secretors. There are no instructions for use on the bottles I purchased for the shop. Would you please give some quidelines for usage? I have several customers that are asking for this information. Thanks. Sharon in Alaska

Greetings, Ladies ~ As Sharon noted, veg gly bottle labels do not specify dosages for medical conditions. If they did, they'd be in violation of the law. :-} Since it is not an FDA-approved drug, its manufacturers legally cannot in any way advertise (label) it as a treatment for health problems. The most they can say is that it's pure and edible ~ you will see that note on the bottle.

So, keeping the protocol advocated by Peter's mentor in mind, substitute it in every case where sugar, saccharine, aspartame, honey, molasses, or any other sweetening agent would be used. It will quietly but effectively help resolve hypoglycemia, diabetes, and insulin resistance -- as long as the appropriate blood type diet is followed, naturally! If someone continues eating all the wrong foods, especially a "wheatitarian" diet, adding a supplemental sweetener will have little more effect than that of a pea-shooter against a Sherman tank. There is no standard dosage, but that's OK ~ just think of it as a healing food, and use it freely!

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Dear Heidi: I am an O, non-secretor. Since we cannot use certain vegetables, I thought I saw that vegetable glycerine is made from coconut oil, and if that is true, can we O non-secretors still use it as coconut is an avoid for us. I thank you for all your suggestions you give us whether they are for my type or not because they help me structure more into the way of thinking about and eating the correct types of foods for my body and I try to evaluate myself as I continue. Gwen

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How can vegetable glycerine be OK for all types when it has coconut oil? I'd really like to try it! Thanks ~ carolyn (0+sec)

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Hello Heidi, again, Sorry, I overlooked the "lectin-free" bit for vegetable glycerine, derived from coconuts. So it really is quite safe? I wonder if it's available in Holland. Don't much feel like ordering it all the way from USA! It would cost as much as the bottle? Cheers, Liesbeth

Hey there, Gwen & Carolyn ~ In Peter's explanation, above:

"Glycerine(ol) is a trihydric alcohol (not a carbohydrate), and is the building block of all plant oils and nearly all animal fats."

Glycerine is properly called "glycerol." It's found all over the place in plant & animal fats in the form of glycerides. Now: an alcohol does not contain the lectin present in the substance from which it was processed. Glycerine is plain old CH2OHCHOHCH2OH, nothing more, nothing less. This is also not the kind of 'alcohol' found in beer, wine & spirits ~~ that's "ethanol". So whether your glycerine comes from palm oil, coconut oil, or whatever: as long as it is labelled as 100% pure glycerine and OK for ingestion, it is safe, safe, safe for everybody! :-D

Hello, Liesbeth ~ I am sure there are glycerine manufacturers in Europe. It has been used in medical laboratory applications and in herbal compounds for many years. I went to www.alltheweb.com/advanced and entered "glycerine" as the main search term, then specified results in Dutch. There were over 1400 hits, and many of them appeared to be sales sites for food-grade glycerine. Do the search and see what you find! :-)

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Hello Heidi! Great job with the column :-) I read with great interest your mention of glycerine as being an acceptable sweetener for O's. I followed the attached link for the NOW glycerine, but there was no mention of the source so I called the company and was told it was palm oil, not coconut. Is it still ok? Do I need to search out a brand whose source is coconut? I did an extensive web search and wasn't able to come up with many other sources that weren't selling it in 55lb tubs! As a fellow O nonnie I'd appreciate any insight or additional information you have on this. Also, do you know why stevia is an avoid for O non-secretors? It seems the most natural sugar alternative as well as having been an ingredient in the original O bar. Thanks!! Dianne

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Heidi, I have extensively researched this and have not found a single maker of ingestible vegetable glycerine that uses coconut as their source. All the manufacturers I have contacted derive their glycerine from palm oil. I checked Typebase and palm oil is not listed. Is it o.k. for O non-secretors? I know you're swamped with questions, but I purchased a bottle and don't want to open it unless I know it's not an avoid (I can still return it to Whole Foods). Thanks a bunch! Dianne

Hi, Dianne! :-) No matter what its source, it's going to be CH2OHCHOHCH2OH plain and simple. No room for a lectin in there! The label on the NOW bottle I have specifies coconut, but we doan' care. :-D It is a BLESSING for nonsecretors, especially we near-sweetenerless Os. Tastes just like sugar, works like a charm in baked goods (even adds a bit of leavening), and actually helps normalize our metabolisms. See the link to the Harvest Moon page, above, for the 16-oz bottles.

About stevia: years ago, Steve Shapiro broke off a leaf from one of his stevia plants and handed it to me. He said that stevia was used medicinally in South America, and questioned its new popularity as a "sweeten anything" product. I noticed a tiny funny/woozy feeling from eating that fresh leaf ~ nothing to phone home about, but there was a little something going on. I do not know exactly why Peter specified stevia as an O-non avoid ~ but I trust my own reactions, and I think Steve & Peter both had good points there.

Often, people feel frustrated by the limitations suggested by the BTD because they feel they are missing out on the widely advertised benefits of a product -- like stevia or algae or wheat germ -- and later discover that these one-size-fits-all benefits turned out to be a waste of money (or much worse) in their individual case. At least on the sweetener front, we now have a great alternative for everyone ~ so pop over to your HFS (or that webpage) and stock up! :-D

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Hi Heidi! I still haven't contacted Solaray about the red yeast rice. But in one month of taking it, my cholesterol number fell (down from 346 and 300 on the last two tests, respectively) to 208! So it definitely works. My problem is: is it working because I'm taking a drug? Ack! I'm looking into that and will report back. I don't have the HDL/LDL breakdown at the moment anyway. But my real reason for writing right now is that I can't find vegetable glycerine on TYPEbase. Sounds like you eat it, so it should be fine for O-NS? If so, that's got to be a huge step up from molasses, LOL! And even for me, a B-NS, it's a nice change from honey or even rice syrup, both of which impart a distinct flavor. Anyway, any plans to get it on the list? Is there anyone who can't have it? Kathy

Hey there, Kathy ~ Yeah, red yeast rice is little short of miraculous for lowering high cholesterol. I am SO happy about your results so far!! No, it's not a 'drug' ~ although drugs have been designed "from" it. Now, go back and read that Chinese Red Yeast Rice site!! LOL!

We'll be adding veg gly to TYPEbase 3, and thanks for the reminder ~ and the progress report! Take care, dear! :-)

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. . . and many thanks to everyone!!! :-D