On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, John C. Pavao wrote:

> What's a "modified Type A/Neaderthin regimen"?

Oh, it's just a little experiment I'm attempting.  After reading
D'Adamo's Blood Type Diet book, I thought it would be interesting
to try the type A diet that he recommends, modified to fit within
NeanderThin guidelines.

This is actually not all that difficult.  Although D'Adamo
recommends a largely vegetarian diet for type As, with lots of
tofu, his plan also allows for chicken and turkey and eggs as
protein sources, and olive oil as a principal fat source.  In the
vegetable food categories there is enough overlap between the two
diets to make it workable, for a while at least.

I don't know what I expect from this, but I'm trying to keep an
open mind.  D'Adamo's theory sounds plausible on one level but
very implausible on another.  I've been trying to dig up some of
the scientific material on blood types.  It's fairly clear that
there really are epidemiological patterns of disease that
correlate strongly with blood type, so that is at least prima
facie support for the idea that the types affect more than just
transfusions.  Stomach cancer really is more prevalent among type
As, while colon cancer has no favorites among the four serotypes.

But in order to believe that blood types carry strong dietary
implications you have to believe that a evolution (or whatever)
produced a rather extensive saltational change about 38,000 years
ago.  The A diet is quite different, and in many ways opposed to,
the older O diet, which is essentially hunter/gatherer.
According to D'Adamo, the proteins in beef, lamb, and in fact
most animal meats except chicken and turkey cause potent immune
responses in type As (less so in Bs and ABs), who should avoid
them.  Since Os thrive on these meats, it's quite a change.  Os
can tolerate virtually no dairy products; As can tolerate only a
few fermented dairy products, such as yogurt and a few cheeses.
Neither Os nor As can deal with wheat, but As can eat rice and
certain legumes.

There's a web site at www.dadamo.com, and in fact you can
download the entire list of foods for each blood type there in
one file.  Certain foods, he claims, are "medicinal" for each
type in that they have properties that go beyond their merely
nutritional aspects.  These are dubbed "highly beneficial"; the
merely nutritious foods are "neutral"; and the problematics ones
are labeled "avoid."

Todd Moody
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