And maybe I'm being too compulsive about all of this...!

Bekki, I believe there can be a lot of intense learning in the first several years of BTD/GTD, so I'd hesitate to call it compulsive. My brother refered to me as "orthodox" when he saw me during a time of high compliance. At the time I refered to it myself as "hardcore."

Your dramatic O-type turnaround sounds like my own response when I started a couple years ago, fast and dramatic.
Having a partner who refuses to give up certain things isn't as bad as one who won't cooperate with the diet at all, could be worse.
PS, Welcome!

I eat differently than my husband & there is no stress. He can handle carbs & I don't too well. Now that he is older, they aren't that good for him either.
Bekki, what type is your "DH"?  Mine is AB, so definitely we are different!!
I also 'refuse' to age, although I know we all get older. But we can get older, slooooooowly! I don't feel 60, & when I'm rested, I don't look it.
Notice all the 'BTD Babes' on here(over 50). Sometimes we don't learn certain things till later in life & It's like we are young again & eagerly learning. I first heard of BTD around my 50h birthday, got ER4YT the next year, I think. But it took time to completely phase in to the diet(we all still make some mistakes-nobody is perfectly compliant).
Welcome to BTDland! You will have fun!!!!
Mrs "T"   O+  

Thanks for the support folks!

Mrs T, he's a B+ Nomad, and has been relatively supportive till now. He's the main cook in the house, because he really loves cooking and will take it on any time of the day or night, and there isn't enough room in the kitchen for 2-- metaphorically as well as actually. I love to cook and am quite good at it, but tend to do the things he doesn't-- like traditional Danish and Hungarian foods, which I am very familiar with. But that is a small proportion of our diet.

We eat a lot of ethnic foods he learned to cook in his travels and studies (trained as an anthropologist). Some of those foods I can't eat now on a regular basis. That bums him out...

Veganism I've noticed is enjoying a renaissance.  Did the diet in my 20s, worst years of my life.  Are there GTs that thrive on it?

Quoted from Bekki Shining Bearheart

And maybe I'm being too compulsive about all of this...!

I doubt it, although the people who you try to share with might not see it that way.  Explorers might come accross as a bit dogmatic.

Walking to the beat of your own drum is not dogmatic.  (spoken by an eccentric Nomad)

Trying to force another person to believe as we do is dogmatic.  (just my take on it)

As far as how much we compromise our own preferred diet in order to make others more comfortable with us is a personal matter.  I think it depends on what our health is like and what our current health goals are.  This can change from time to time depending on the circumstances.  

I'd think a Gatherer could manage being vegetarian-  between the beans, eggs, and compliant dairy products, there would still be enough overall protien (assuming, of course, that eggs and dairy were consumed in much larger quantities than Dr D recomends.) I know I did poorly as a vegetarian, but then I was eating tons of wheat and corn at the time!

But, then, I also know what happens to me when I don't eat beef regularly, and if I were a long-term vegetarian I'd most likely be on numerous prescription medications: certainly Prozac or another antidepressant, possibly diabetes meds (I don't have diabetes, but I could easily have developed it if I hadn't been careful) and maybe something for high blood pressure and/or high cholesterol (though those might be avoidable if I did a low-carb version of vegetariansim.) And then I'd probably have side effects from those medications as well.

I'm sure I could survive as a lacto-ovo vegetarian,  but I wouldn't be healthy. I might be healthy enough, though, to think that nothing was wrong other than "getting older."  As a vegan, I'm not sure I could survive, certainly not without serious health problems.

Vegetarianism ought to be easiest for Warriors, if fish and eggs were permissable vegetarian foods.

Quoted from Andrea AWsec

I am wondering if the Hunter's or the Gatherer's can survive vegan/vegetariansim longer?

I don't think there is a real answer.

Any O's love being vegetarians?

Well i'just know that i'm the classic hunter e.g. tall, skinny, high adrenalin, anxiety issues, thrive on hours of full court basketball etc. as that gets my endorphins flowing and so i feel the best when consuming mostly beef and low carb vege's. Infact  if i could only choose one way of eating between the two choices i'd choose being a zero carb hunter (beef only) over an vegetarian  hunter as far as my physical and mental well being are concerned as i've been noticing since the beginning of this year when i finally started living the o type/geno type diet.

Hi I tried veganism for a few yrs thinking it would make me healthier all I did was make myself sicker read btd and it made sense but not completely then found gtd and read it it made more sense again as I am an explorer and there it was the internal draw I always had to stay away from meat as an explorer I can pretty much have lots of fish and turkey and finally feel compete

In March (this year) I incorporated vegetarian Superfoods for my Gatherer Genotype and I eliminated many (not all, yet) toxins, including a lot of dairy toxins that I was eating before.  I have been researching and keeping track of RDA's, especially for protein.  I take many of the Dr. D'Adamo supplements, including Ocubright.  I am getting most of my protein from almonds (soaked a minimum of eight hours), flax seeds (soaked 4-1/2 hours), chia seeds (soaked 4-1/2 hours), and Dr. D'Adamo's BTO protein powder.  I also have way increased my egg intake due to eggs being a Superfood for me.  Good news -- my vision has improved!  My optometrist confirmed this yesterday.  I myself noticed an improvement within the past two months.  I am not ruling out eating meat in the future, especially after what I have been reading on this website from vegetarian BTO's.  However, I'm okay for now with the Superfood/RDA route and want to see how this goes.  

I'm glad you're doing well, Elaine.  

Elaine- that sounds like a very good approach, to help you ease into this way of eating. Welcome to the forums!

I could not survive more than a few months on a vegan diet, if that.  I might be able to do lacto-ovo vegetarian but wouldn't really want to--- I'm happier eating meat & think I have a better metabolism & better mental balance; less depressed.

Quoted from ElaineP

In March (this year) I incorporated vegetarian Superfoods for my Gatherer Genotype and I eliminated many (not all, yet) toxins, including a lot of dairy toxins that I was eating before.  I have been researching and keeping track of RDA's, especially for protein.  I take many of the Dr. D'Adamo supplements, including Ocubright.  I am getting most of my protein from almonds (soaked a minimum of eight hours), flax seeds (soaked 4-1/2 hours), chia seeds (soaked 4-1/2 hours), and Dr. D'Adamo's BTO protein powder.  I also have way increased my egg intake due to eggs being a Superfood for me.  Good news -- my vision has improved!  My optometrist confirmed this yesterday.  I myself noticed an improvement within the past two months.  I am not ruling out eating meat in the future, especially after what I have been reading on this website from vegetarian BTO's.  However, I'm okay for now with the Superfood/RDA route and want to see how this goes.  

Eggs are rich in lutein, a necessary nutrient for healthy eyesight.

Quoted from faithandjoy4

Hi I tried veganism for a few yrs thinking it would make me healthier all I did was make myself sicker read btd and it made sense but not completely then found gtd and read it it made more sense again as I am an explorer and there it was the internal draw I always had to stay away from meat as an explorer I can pretty much have lots of fish and turkey and finally feel compete

I've been thinking alone these lines. I would guess an O Explorer might be drawn to being a vegetarian or vegan because of the liver problems we tend to have. Maybe as sick explorers we would have a harder time digesting meat. I know I did for a while.

I was a vegetarian, too. Not fun.

We all must eat some meat to hit the high point on the bell curve that is health.

Ratios are different for different folks based on energy demands.  Plants are what i personally believe heal genes and give us carbon, which is the element of life for all living things.  The meats give energy for certain things to take place the right way.

Initial fitness is the most important factor here i think.  But thats just my belief!

You can have a poorly fit hunter, fair explorer, or super fit gatherer.  The most fit would prob win it out no matter what the gt.

I'll be honest. My favourite food groups, Vegetable Proteins and Fats and Oils, I would love to eat to my hearts desire. Unfortunately, I can't - I'm sure I not alone there. I gain the gain weight very quickly, so I have to balance out the groups with priority given to animal protein. When I was a veggie in my mid - late twenties my temper was almost psychotic. Then one day I bought a multivitamin and within days I started feeling sooooo much better, and finally even more so when I began eating chicken a few years ago.

I have recently sourced some extra / extra lean turkey mince, so I might go over to trying more white than red for a while.

Quoted from nowishow

I've been thinking alone these lines. I would guess an O Explorer might be drawn to being a vegetarian or vegan because of the liver problems we tend to have. Maybe as sick explorers we would have a harder time digesting meat. I know I did for a while.

Explorers seem to need quite a lot of protein from as many sources as permissable.  Perhaps being a non-secretor gives me a biased point of view.  When I review my Swami (O - non) and my wife's (A + sec) the commonality is that no one source of protein is a strong emphasis except eggs.  It is not until you count the servings of protein from all the different sources that you realize it is essentially protein at every meal.

This conveys that protein is a constrained resource.  Explorers need a lot of it, but each source has a limiting negative factor.  The only sense I can make of this is the great variety of anemias that the Explorer could be prone to.  Anemic pathologies would plague Vegetarian Explorers.

Paul i tried eating little meat at all from any source, and developed a lot of floating anxiety, like i sometimes couldn't breath or a big rush of energy would go over my body making me want to move around.  Felt unsetteled.  I had eliminated red meats almost completely.  That was back in 06'.  I started eating occassional beef, now lamb with this diet over beef, and a lot of turkey, fish, chicken, etc.  

I feel much better now, plus eliminating the toxins that build in explorers.

Still hanging in there as a BTO vegetarian -- still kinda scared -- had to way reduce my eggs intake from last year due to overtaxing my gallbladder.  I did one gallbladder malic acid/olive oil/lemon juice flush, will do another.  I can't achieve my protein RDA's with the reduction in my eggs intake but am hoping I can stay healthy without doing so.  

As a Hunter I could never go back to veganism.