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Eat Right for Your Type vs Blood & Food Myths

11/4/2018

 

an excerpt from John Robbins' book
The Food Revolution



The book Eat Right for Your Type by Peter J. D’Adamo proposes that there are four different ideal diets, one for each blood type: A, B, AB, and O. Follow the diet that is ‘right for your type’, he says, and you can lose weight, cure ear infections, fight off cancer, heal yourself from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and much, much more. By ‘eating right for your type,’ D’Adamo asserts, you will be eating like your prehistoric ancestors did.70

This may sound very appealing. In a time when we have strayed so far from a natural way of eating, a guide to eating like your prehistoric ancestors could be quite helpful. And, indeed, many have been drawn in by D’Adamo’s promises.
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 But according to the Tufts University Health and Nutrition Letter, D’Adamo has his blood typing all wrong. “It’s a fallacy even to speak of ‘original’ type Os or ‘original’ type As because blood types did not originate with humans,” explains Dr Stephan Bailey, a nutritional anthropologist at Tufts University. “They came on the biologic scene long before humans did. Furthermore, there is no anthropologic evidence whatsoever that all prehistoric people with a particular blood type ate the same diet.”71

D’Adamo has come up with 16 different food groups, further divided into ‘Highly beneficial,’ ‘Neutral,’ and ‘Avoid’ foods, depending entirely on what blood type you are. Type As, for example, are told they do well on vegetarian diets, but they should avoid cabbage, potatoes, eggplant, olives, peppers, and tomatoes, among many other foods. They are, however, advised to eat snails.72

Type Os, on the other hand, are told to base their diets heavily around red meat. They are told to avoid oranges, apples, wheat, peanut butter, avocados, cabbage, and potatoes, but encouraged to eat veal, ground beef, and beef heart.

D’Adamo tells Type Bs to eat a lot of dairy products, including frozen yoghurt. He tells them to avoid sunflower seeds, garbanzo beans, pinto beans, whole wheat bread, corn, pumpkin, tofu, tempeh, and tomatoes, but encourages them to eat rabbit, lamb, and mutton.

Type ABs are told to avoid corn, peppers, olives, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and lima beans, but encouraged to eat jam, jellies, rabbit, and turkey.
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Many people who have tried D’Adamo’s diet have lost weight. There is a reason, but it isn’t the one he gives. In actuality, the diets recommended for all four blood types are each extremely low in calories. Some day’s plans have only 1,000 calories, half the caloric needs of an adult woman.

Nevertheless, for D’Adamo, virtually everything in life comes down to whether you are an A, B, AB, or O blood type. According to him, “(ABO) blood type can determine so many things: how much and how often we should eat; what our optimal daily schedule should be; what our best sleep/rest patterns are; how stress affects us and how to combat it; how to maximize our health; how to overcome disease; how we deal with aging; and even our degree of emotional well-being.”73

D’Adamo believes that people who are type O and type B must eat meat daily to be healthy. When confronted with the fact that vegetarian diets have been consistently shown to produce lower rates of cancer, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, gallstones, kidney disease, obesity, and colon disease, and to enable people to live longer and more healthfully, he explains that type As do well on vegetarian diets. It is, however, mathematically impossible that the health advantages for vegetarians could be accounted for only by type As benefiting from the absence of meat. According to the Red Cross blood bank, the population of the United States is approximately 39 percent type A, 46 percent type O, 11 percent type B, and 4 percent type AB.74 There is no possible way that the consistent superiority of vegetarian diets that has been demonstrated repeatedly by world medical research could be due to vegetarian diets having health advantages only for type As, who are, after all, a minority of the population.

Similarly, D’Adamo’s explanation for the success of Dr Dean Ornish’s program of reversing heart disease, which includes putting people on a near-vegan diet with no meat, is that it has only worked for type As. It does not, he says, help type Os, type Bs, or type ABs.75

I asked Lee Lipsenthal, MD, the vice president and medical director of Dr Dean Ornish’s Preventive Medicine Research Institute, whether this might be possible. He replied,“There is no evidence in the scientific literature associating blood typology with nutrient needs. Although heart disease almost invariably gets worse, even when patients follow the American Heart Association recommendations, most of our patients have shown actual reversal of their disease, and the vast majority have shown measurable improvement in many areas – improved physical function on exercise tests, improved blood flow to the heart muscle, improved mood and sense of vitality, improved cholesterol levels, improved blood pressure, improved sleep patterns, and improved social function. We’ve had many hundreds of patients show dramatic improvements, and all this has been measured by objective tests. I don’t see any possibility that people with blood types 0 and B (who together represent nearly 60 percent of the population of the U.S.) are not being helped by the Ornish program.”76

D’Adamo believes that the risk of heart disease for type Os is reduced by eating meat.77 There is, however, no evidence in the world medical literature for this belief. The blood-type diet’s explanation for why type Os presumably need meat is that type Os do “well on animal products and protein diets – foods that require more stomach acids for proper digestion.” In fact, D’Adamo says that “type Os can efficiently digest meats because they tend to have high stomach acid content.”78

It is well known, however, that not all men and women with type O blood produce more hydrochloric (stomach) acid; some secrete normal levels and some have less than normal. Further, it is pepsin, not hydrochloric (stomach) acid, that is responsible for meat protein digestion. In people who have large amounts of hydrochloric acid, the stomach environment becomes unusually acidic. An especially acidic stomach actually make pepsin less effective at digesting protein.79

D’Adamo’s beliefs regarding the diets of early humans, likewise, seem to have no basis in fact. He writes, ‘The appearance of our Cro-Magnon ancestors in around 40,000 BC propelled the human species to the top of the food chain, making them the most dangerous predators on earth… (with) little to fear from any of their animal rivals… (and no) natural predators other than themselves. Protein – meat – was their fuel… By 20,000 BC Cro-Magnons had... decimated the vast herds of large game.”80

The foundation of D’Adamo’s blood-type theory is his belief that Cro-Magnons, who lived 40,000-20,000 years ago, were all type Os and ate mainly meat. Types A, B, and AB came along later, he says, and only they are genetically equipped for a diet that includes grains. There is no evidence anywhere in the scientific literature, however, that suggests Cro-Magnons were mainly or all type Os. Instead, there is considerable evidence that all four blood types existed in the time of the Cro-Magnons.

Were Cro-Magnons the heavy meat eaters D’Adamo portrays? Not according to paleontologist Richard Leakey, who is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost experts on the evolution of the human diet. Leakey points out, “You can’t tear flesh by hand, you can’t tear hide by hand. Our anterior teeth are not suited for tearing flesh or hide. We don’t (and Cro-Magnons didn’t) have large canine teeth, and we wouldn’t have been able to deal with food sources that required those large canines.”81

In fact, says Leakey, even if Cro-Magnons had large canine teeth, they still almost certainly would only rarely have eaten meat. Their diet would have been similar to that of the chimpanzee, our closest genetic relative.

Molecular biologists and geneticists, Leakey says, have compared proteins, DNA, and the whole spectrum of biological features and have established very convincingly that humans are closer to chimpanzees than horses are to donkeys. This is remarkable, because horses and donkeys can mate and reproduce, although their offspring, mules, are sterile. A significant difference between humans and chimpanzees, though, is that chimpanzees have large canine teeth that can tear apart their prey, and have more strength and speed than humans. Still, even with these traits, which would be advantages for a meat-eater, chimpanzees, like other primates, eat a mainly vegetarian diet. Dr Jane Goodall, whose work with chimpanzees represents the longest continuous field study of any living creature in science history, says chimpanzees often go months without eating any meat whatsoever. Indeed, she says, “The total amount of meat consumed by a chimpanzee during a given year will represent only a very small percentage of the overall diet.”82

D’Adamo’s entire theory is based on his assumptions about the blood types and diets of our prehistoric ancestors. Even though his assumptions are wholly mistaken, however, his diet has been embraced by many in the naturopathic community, and some schools of naturopathic medicine have even begun to include this theory in their curriculum. As a result, some naturopaths are now recommending that vegetarians and vegans who are blood type O or B eat meat daily
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However, other naturopaths decisively disagree. The founder of naturopathy, Dr Benedict Lust, called for “the elimination of… habits such as… meat eating.” Similarly, Henry Lindlahr, MD, whose work has been widely read in naturopathic colleges, defined naturopathy as favoring a ‘strict vegetarian diet.’ After a detailed and thorough discussion of the blood-type diet’s underpinnings, contemporary naturopaths Dr Deirdre B Williams and Dr John J McMahon conclude, “The blood type theory of diet doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”83

Footnote annotations can be found in the book The Food Revolution,
How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World.

Drink, to Your Health

10/30/2018

 

How much water do I need to be healthy?

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Last New Years I made a resolution to drink more water based on a formula for my weight and daily physical activities. Initially it felt like I couldn't fit in all the water calculated for my body in a 24 hour cycle.  

However, every day for the past 10 months I have done my best, and I have noticed some definable differences: I have more energy, both throughout my day and in my workouts. My mind feels clearer. I noticed that the fine lines on my face have lessened, and seasonal dry patches are minor to nonexistent now.

It makes sense since your body is 70% water and all the systems of the body depend on water to function at their highest capacity. Lots of people don't realize the true importance of drinking enough water everyday and how chronic dehydration can impact your overall health and energy levels.
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We Need Water To...
+ keep a healthy level of fluid in our tissues, spinal chord, and joints
+ aid the digestive process & help your body remove waste
+ keep the endocrine & circulatory system functioning
+ energize muscles
+ help the liver and kidneys with their work of processing toxins
+ assist in getting rid of headaches

Drinking the right amount of water daily can help to speed up your metabolic rate and curb overeating when your body might be confusing hunger and thirst. But how much water is enough?

Here is How to Calculate
The first step to knowing how much water to drink is to know your weight. The amount of water a person should drink varies on their weight, which makes sense because the more someone weighs the more water they need to drink. A two hundred pound person and 100 pound person require different amounts of water every day.

Next you want to multiple your weight by 2/3 or 67% to determine how much water to drink daily. For example, if you weigh 175 pounds you would multiple that by 2/3 to know you should drink about 117 ounces of water every day.

Finally adjust that number based on how often you work out, since you expel water when you sweat. Add 12 ounces of water to your daily total for every 30 minutes you work out. For example, if you work out for 45 minutes, you would add 18 ounces of water to your daily intake.
Here is a chart with recommended amounts of water for a range of weights.

Weight  -  Ounces of Water Daily

100 pounds  -  67 ounces

110 pounds  -  74 ounces

120 pounds  -  80 ounces

130 pounds  -  87 ounces

140 pounds  -  94 ounces

150 pounds  -  100 ounces

160 pounds  -  107 ounces

170 pounds  -  114 ounces

180 pounds  -  121 ounces

190 pounds  -  127 ounces

200 pounds  -  134 ounces

210 pounds  -  141 ounces

220 pounds  -  148 ounces

230 pounds  -  154 ounces

240 pounds  - 161 ounces

250 pounds  -  168 ounces

*Remember to adjust these numbers based on your daily activity level.

Tips to Help You Drink More Water
  • Morning: Wake up and drink 1-2 glasses of water
  • Evening: Don't go to bed thirsty, drink a glass of water before bed
  • In Between Meals: sip on water between meals, start an hour after your meal and stop 30 (ish) minutes before your next meal
  • Keep Track With Your Container: Have a special container for your water, and set a goal of how many times to fill and finish the container. For example, if you buy a 16 oz container and need to drink 80 ounces of water a day, your goal would be to drink 5 of those daily.
  • Infuse Your Water With Flavor: Try adding cucumber, strawberries, lemons, limes, oranges, fresh mint, or dried edible roses to create flavorful water.
  • Drink While Driving: Not anything more than water! But fill your container before you get in the car, and sip it as you manage your daily commute.
  • Keep a Bottle on Your Desk or the Kitchen Counter: If you work in an office this is a great trick that also works in the kitchen while meal prepping. Always have your water on hand to sip while you work.

Importance of Clean Water
Stop drinking chlorinated water. If you do not have a water purifying system for your home, buy water bottled in glass or large hard clear plastic containers that you can refill. Avoid drinking from soft translucent disposable water bottles as this type plastic degrades quite quickly and leaves tiny particles of plastic in your water that can damage your endocrine system and effect your hormones. Distilling and reverse osmosis systems for your home, are the best. And if you can not have this in your house purchase your water from a place that does this for you. You will find that most towns have a market or a water store that does this, if you do a little research.

Cheers! :)
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Sweet & Festive Apple Red Radish Slaw

12/13/2017

 
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I count my blessings that I have friends who enjoy being in the kitchen making healthy clean food! For one of our holiday gatherings I created this raw vegan Sweet & Festive Apple Red Radish Slaw, It is simple to make, goes really well with other Holiday fare, & is a colorful addition to any plate, wrap, or sandwich.
DRESSING
1 tablespoon Dijon or other artisan mustard
juice of 1/2 a large ripe Meyers Lemon (I picked one right off my tree here in SoCal)
1 tablespoon raw local honey (great for your immune system)
Blend all the ingredients above together.

SLAW
2 cups grated Green Cabbage, don’t use the core
2 Tart Green Apples, grated
1 large Shallot or 2 mediums Shallots, grated
6 Red Radishes chopped, not too thin
1/2 cup chopped Parsley
1 teaspoon Salt
fresh cracked Pink Pepper, to taste
In a large bowl toss the SLAW ingredients with the DRESSING. Serve fresh, or chilled one hour later to increase the depth of flavors. The day after the slaw becomes more pickled which is also good!

Yogi Bhajan's Immune Boosting Yogi Tea, aka Chai

12/11/2017

 
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This is Yogi Bhajan's Recipe for Yogi Tea, also known as chai. It comprises a specific combination of spices, milk, and black tea. It is Health promoting, delicious, soothing and a great coffee substitute. Yogi tea is easy to make from scratch and will warm your home with the fragrance of herbs and spices.
 
8 cups water
20 black peppercorns, purifies the blood
20 green cardamom pods, crushed, a digestive aid,
15 whole cloves, generates heat in the body, & heals the nervous system,
3 cinnamon sticks, good for your bones
5 inches ginger root, boosts the immune system, helps to fight colds, flu, physical weakness, helps digestion & increases potency
3 cups cows milk, assimilates spices & coats stomach lining (other "mylks" can be used)
1/2 tsp (a pinch) of black tea
honey to taste
 
Bring water to boil in a 3 or 4 Qt. pot.  Add cloves and boil one minute. Add other spices, boil 20-30 minutes.  Turn off heat add black tea.  Strain and serve adding milk (almond, coconut, oat or rice mylk work too) and honey to taste.

ENJOY!

#BodyMindGifts #IngredientsForJoyAndWellness

Kimberlee Auerbach Berlin - author, comedian, educator, mother

4/13/2017

 

...on learning to heal with food & trusting the wisdom of the body.

Inspired by Pema Chodron's book, When Things Fall Apart, Kimberlee found the Body Mind Gifts Cleanse looking for an opportunity to practice leaning into her sharp points, finding that both pain and pleasure allow access to being more awake. And in fact leaning into pain helps make sadness and anger go away.

Below is a short video log Kimberlee created as she went through the cleanse journey. You can literally see changes in her skin, eyes, and even her energy level.

Some quotes from her experience...
I  like testing my strength. I like knowing that nothing and no one owns me, that I could give up sugar, and I am going to be okay. And if anything, maybe even healthier....being better to myself, even if that means giving up something that I love.

It's not just a physical cleanse...you meditate, set intentions, and try to release emotions that you are holding on to.


I had more energy, my body felt free-er, and I didn't feel heavy or weighed down. Once you clear your body you become aware of what your body generally needs as opposed to over eating.


Currently based out of Los Angeles, CA, the Body Mind Gifts Cleanse can be an in-person experience or a journey you take via guided SKYPE sessions, from anywhere in the world.

#BodyMindGifts #IngredientsForJoyAndWellness

Brendan McCall - actor, director, teacher, father

1/11/2017

 

...on cleansing

When my wife Dushinka and I did the Body Mind Gifts Cleanse we were living in Western Australia, so we worked with Vanessa through Skype sessions. Neither of us had ever done a 40-day cleanse before, much less a fast, and so we were a bit apprehensive at first. Our daughter had recently been born, and my wife and I were adjusting to the new rhythms of having an infant while working.
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Would I be able to "keep up", and stick to the commitment for 40 days?  Would I have the energy to do all of the things I had to for my newborn and my family, and keep up with work?
Incredibly, the answer was yes!  I think part of the success was that Vanessa encouraged us to do the Cleanse together. Having this "fellowship" element to an individual cleanse was vital for it being such a rewarding experience for both of us.
 
But equally important, in my experience, was having Yoga & mediation component we did each day of the cleanse. This 30-40 min practice became a kind of clearing-house of the emotions, an arena to work out the exuberance or the frustrations of the day, but also to ride out the the roller-coaster of the different phases of cleansing. Until we started doing the Yoga along with the cleanse, I was not aware of how valuable and essential this component would be.
 
The cleanse itself was not as hard as I feared.  Not by a long shot.  Regular contact with Vanessa was very helpful, as well as the extraordinary amount of delicious recipes she provided us, as alternatives to the diet we were accustomed to. 
 
In the years since first doing the cleanse, the protein-rich vegetable-based recipes have become a staple in our house, and we have delightfully incorporated them into our weekly menus in our new home, in Norway. Our food intake includes some meat now, but has become mostly vegetarian; meat is no longer the feature of all our meals. We still feel the effects of the boost in energy and vitality that the Body Mind Gifts Cleanse gave us, and we feel great. We recommend Vanessa and the Body Mind Gifts Cleanse to anyone.
 
#BodyMindGifts #IngredientsForJoyAndWellness

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