Tuesday, August 17, 2010

ABO Blood Type Diet



I love apricots, have done art works featuring apricots, have made apricot jam most of my life but.....they are only on my "neutral list" for a blood type O ("Live Right for Your Type"). However, the later research in "Genotype", says that for a blood type O Gatherer, me, apricots are a super food! Knew it! I love them!


I am quoting from some books that I have read and use as reference written by Dr. Peter J. Dadamo, a Naturpathic physician and researcher who resides in Connecticut. He had a most remarkable and radical idea handed down to him by his Naturpathic Doctor father. In the '80s Dr. Dadamo researched the idea that the blood held the secret to diet ( and I believe a whole lot more).....that one diet specifically, vegetarianism does not fit the whole world population. His father thought it had something to do with blood type and before he died, he tried various protein based diets with his patients and began to see a pattern, that his son would later delve into and validate with his own research and clients. For a Naturpath to promote red meat protein for anyone of O blood was unheard of ......the "healthfood" subculture for the last 60 or so years has loudly proselyted vegetarianism for all. But the Dadamo's discovered something very different. And the fact that the Dadamo family are blood type A's which of the 4 types does best with vegetarianism, which they practice, makes this idea even more astonishing.


Blood type O's are the carnivores and that is almost half the world population. A's take up most of the other half with B's coming in way below and AB's are the fewest and according to research, the newest blood type to evolve. O's and B's are carnivores doing well to plan meals around fish, red meat, eggs and cultured dairy. But A's and AB's do well with plant proteins some fish and poultry, cultured dairy, grains and limited or no red meat. All four groups have their beneficial, neutral and avoid lists of animal proteins, plant proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vegetables, fruits, beverages and condiments.


I came upon this diet early in 2004, while single and living with another middle aged woman who rented a bedroom from me. We both had health problems and were both interested in anything that could notch up our health care, believing that diet is key. She brought home a book that she saw in Canada that was getting some attention. She handed me the book and asked me to preview it and see if there was anything to it. The book was, "Eat Right for Your Blood Type" by Dr. Peter J. Dadamo and was published in 1997. I did read it and it felt like truth to me. The simple idea in that book changed my life, health and outlook on my future.

We both decided to give it a try. She was an O and so was I. Out went everything made of wheat, corn or potatoes ( avoids for O's)...which was just about everything in my kitchen shelves, freezer and refrigerator. All prepared, or packaged foods had one of those two key ingredients; wheat or corn. That was an education right there.

We bought meat and fish and vegetables and spent the next several months experimenting with new foods and meat ....some foods we never heard of. We took turns cooking in my kitchen as we gave up convenience foods in grocery stores and fast food restaurants. We had some very interesting meals and invented new "comfort foods". Some of our experiments were not very successful. But we kept our sense of humor and persisted. For the previous 5-6 years I was practicing a sort of vegetarianism but it was really a kind of "starchitarianism" and I was putting on weight, aging rapidly and slowing down due to painful knees. But I figured this was due to aging because vegetarianism was the "correct" diet for everyone, right?

We both noticed some dramatic changes right from the start. My friend cancelled a scheduled surgery for Gerd. She had been sleeping sitting up cause the stomach acid would burn her esophagus when she laid down. Her gerd was caused by starches we later figured out, bread and specifically wheat. She realized much later that she must have been celiac or close to it.

For me, I noticed right away the knuckles on both of my hands stopped hurting and the swelling went down and also my knees. Rheumatoid arthritis was gone! It's never come back because I don't eat wheat any more. Oops, yes I do but it is in my sourdough bread and I have found that fermenting the wheat or spelt in my bread neutralizes or deconstructs the toxins (lectins) that were causing the auto-immune reaction known as rheumatoid arthritis. We both lost weight, my tinnitis stopped, my hair grew back in and darkened, my eyes and skin cleared up and I started sleeping better. Before I started the Blood Type Diet, I had a complete physical with blood tests. My cholesterol's were high with LDL way up and HDL low. Six weeks after starting this diet and dropping starchy carbohydrates and eating lots more meat, I had another blood test and my LDL and HDL readings reversed. I have continued to have yearly blood tests and it has stayed really positive.



Buffalo, or bison has been added to our diet and we love it. Our Harmon's grocery store now carries a few versions of it and we have it once a week. It's cooked hot and fast and we don't grill. We eat grass-fed beef from Redmond Farms in Redmond Utah ( where Real Salt comes from), we eat their free-range eggs, and we eat fish 2-3 times a week plus turkey and some elk when we can get it. We don't eat chicken. It is an avoid for B's which is what my husband is. We also eat lamb (love the lamb). Yes, this is an expensive diet.

O hunter/gatherer and B herder/dairy person, we eat a lot of expensive, tasty animals and their products. We figure spend money now on best fuel for us and spend very little later in life on treatments, therapies and drugs for nasty diseases. It also helps both of us that I cook.

I cook most everything we eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks. We do go out to dinner maybe once a week but have found a few restaurants where we can get meat and vegetables without a lot of filling breads, pastas or potatoes. Promoting this diet, way of life to others is a hard task....not because they don't agree that there could be some benefit for them, but it requires careful shopping, home food preparation and cooking and women, women my age don't want to give up convenience. I guess they would rather suffer the high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, etc. and have the medical community "fix" them up with drugs and surgery rather than get healthy themselves.

It was through my blood type O beverage food list that I discovered Kombucha. I bought the commercial Kombucha for a while but that led me to making my own which I have been doing for 2 years and Kombucha led me to other fermentation foods and to Sallly Fallon and NT which I believe is the next logical step from Dr. Dadamo's brilliant idea. Dr. Dadamo does not promote any dairy for O's or A's because first of all his tests were for "commercial dairy" products and not "raw" dairy or grass-fed dairy products and there is a huge difference and an O's and A's cannot digest lactose (milk sugar) as youth and adults (B's can). I knew that years ago from my own body reactions.

What Sally Fallon and the Weston Price Foundation added to my knowledge was that fermented/ cultured dairy products from non-commercial, non corn-fed industrialized animals, could be tolerated by lactose intolerant folks. Thank you, Thank you! I now enjoy Kefir and yogurt from cow and goat milk and cheese and butter from pastured cows. My B type husband can enjoy the fresh raw milk and I make kefir out of it. The whey I get from yogurts, I use to ferment my other foods. As a result my health is getting better and better and my immune system is the strongest it has ever been.

http://www.dadamo.com/

10 comments:

  1. Thank you for taking the time to write your experiences down. I too am O blood and have hypothyroidism and have begun this diet to see if I can counter some of the problems I am having. I have a question for you though, I have been drinking kefir milk for almost a year made with real kefir grains, (not freeze dried grains.) I use milk from non-hormone treated cows, however, they are not organic. Do you know if this is ok? Also, what about sour cream...

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  2. It sounds like you are using pasturized milk, right? The kefir would be much better for you if you could get raw milk. I believe the pasturization process does something to the milk proteins (I have no proof of this) so that they become harder to digest as well as the lactose. Cow milk proteins and lactose are huge problem for Os and As, but it has been my experience that starting with raw milk is an advantage. The proteins in goats milk are easier to digest. You might try making goat milk kefir even if the only goat milk you can get is pasturized. If all I had access to was pasturized milk, I think I would still "kefir" it so I could have some dairy in my diet. But do some research and try to find a source of raw milk or goat's milk. Here in Orem, raw milk can be purchased at Real Foods Market on 800 north.

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  3. About sour cream; I don't use it as I have something better.....drained goat's milk yogurt. I buy Drake goat yogurt and strain it, that is separate the whey (watery stuff with living lactobacillus in it) from the solids which I use as sour cream. Look for commercial natural "cultured" sour cream or make your own.

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  4. Thanks so much for your response Joanne. I had thought about raw milk, but it is not so easy to come by around here. I switched to organic, which is somewhat better, (as I am hoping the cows aren't "corn fed"), but less ideal than raw. I think I read somewhere that if you use goat's milk the grains have to be replaced. Have you ever heard of this? And do you know if kefir breaks down the lactose in cow's milk? It was my understanding that it did. I would hate to get rid of the kefir, as I think it is highly beneficial. I will have to look around and see if I can find goat yogurt. Does it have the tartness of sour cream?

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  5. I do not know about kefir grains needing to be replaced if using goat milk, I'd still give it a try saving some kefir grains out if it doesn't work out. Yes, the kefir bacteria consume the lactose, that is why I can do kefir. The goat yogurt I get does have a delightful tart flavor, it is the lactic acid that replaces the lactose that is so beneficial. Keep using organic milk if that is what is available even if it is pasturized. Kefir is really too beneficial to give up.

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  6. I agree with you. I think that Kefir is too beneficial to give up. I wish that Peter D'Adamo would distinguish between real kefir, and store bought kefir, and then explain if there are any differences (which I believe there are...) I did manage to find some goat yogurt today, so I will try your suggestion...

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  7. Yes, I too wish Dr. Dadamo would make tests to distinguish between raw milk products and regular commercial dairy products and fermented or cultured dairy products and so called "cultured" commercial dairy products. I believe there is a huge difference. But the tests, I suppose, were for those foods that are readily available to most people. It is a real shame that people have been successfully scared off raw milk. The commercial food industry has done a good job, but people are coming back to the natural way of food and discovering what healthy "real food" is like. this winter he store I get my raw milk from is suffering from this "come back" and too often they haven't had enough milk for all their customers. If I don't show up on Mondays, I don't get any. I am freezing milk when I can.

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  8. Can you tell me more about the sourdough bread you eat? Do you make it yourself?
    Thanks

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  9. I am A negative and cannot find if Kombucha is ok or good for me. Can you please help?
    Thank you!

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  10. don't know if you are still around but I just found your sight. I'm just starting the blood type diet for O. I read the book years ago and threw it out the window but now I'm sorry I didn't try it (long term challenges). I'm wondering about TRUE sourdough bread and type O. Do you know? I was already using sprouted grain (Alvarado Street Bakery which I like better that Ezekiel 4:9) and I'm not doing a lot of it. THANKS. BLESSINGS, Carol

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