Advice on What to Eat

Have you ever received advice on what to eat, when to eat, or how much to eat? Many people are experiencing information overload when it comes to their diet. The biggest problem arises when you quickly change your habits according to one bad piece of advice after another and end up frustrated and clueless about your health. Before you read about this piece of advice I just want to remind you that ultimately it is not your doctor, chiropractor, nutritionist, mother, or friend who can decide on a diet that will lead you to a happy and healthy life. Remember your body knows best.
This column is designed to help you receive well-grounded information that you can use to guide your own decisions in health. I recently learned more about eating the right foods for your blood type, an idea widely promoted by Dr. D’Adamo, a naturopathic physician. There is an entire diet that has been outlined for each blood type and even a food index available, but the most valuable tips are the simple guidelines, explained below in order of Blood Type evolution:
Type O is the oldest type; people with this Blood Type do well with vigorous exercise, as it increases their energy and wards off fatigue and depression. Type Os may have a hard time with dairy products (since we had not yet domesticated animals way back when), but they are good with high-protein diets because they generally have increased levels of hydrochloric acid and other digestive enzymes. They need to watch out for the more recently (last 10,000 years) introduced grains that contain gluten: wheat, rye, oats and barley, as these can lead to common digestive ailments: bloating, diarrhea, or constipation.
Type As and Os together make up 85% of the American population, although Type A is more prominent in Europe and Africa than in America. Type As, the “adaptive vegetarians”, evolved at a time when we began to eat more garden-grown vegetables and less meat. They have less digestive enzymes for red meat and dairy products, so incorporating turkey, chicken, and fish into their diet as sources of protein is a good idea. In addition, they need to be careful of overdoing it with grains. There are two types of As (A1 and A2). A1s have more sensitivity to meat digestion because of a lack of pepsin (stomach enzyme that helps to digest protein); this type might be even more prone to a vegetarian diet. Type As are less active than Os; they do well with light exercise but need to be careful of exhaustion; heavy exercise tends to deplete their mental clarity.
Type Bs predominate in Eastern European and Central Asian populations. Their digestive systems are primed to take dairy, especially the fermented kind, like yogurt. For everything else, they are generally in between the O diet (higher in meat) and the A diet. It’s the same when it comes to exercise; they just need to find a balance.
People with the AB Blood Type (pretty rare) can adopt either the A or the B diet, depending on the individual. Those leaning towards the A type diet should be careful with how much meat, dairy and grains they eat (more vegetables, poultry, fish, nuts and eggs), and those leaning towards the B Type diet can probably handle dairy a little better.
For the Biology majors interested, these recommendations all have to do with avoiding lectins (protein antigens specific to different Blood Type cells) that can cause a variety of unwelcome symptoms. There’s a lot more information on the Blood Type diet (check out D’Adamo’s book Live Right 4 Your Type) and there’s even an entire food index where you can click on foods and see whether it is good for your type; search: “Blood Type Diet/ Nutrient Value Encyclopedia.