Food

I read this book by Dr D’Adamo, Eat Right For Your Type and now I am a total convert. So what is this book all about? Dr D’Adamo claims that ABO blood type is the most important factor in determining a healthy diet thus promotes distinct diets for people with O, A, B, and AB blood types. His premise is that human blood type is key to the body's ability to differentiate self from non-self. Lectins in foods, he asserts, react differently with each ABO blood type and to a lesser extent with an individual's secretor status. Lectins which interact with the different ABO type antigens are described as incompatible and harmful, therefore the selection of different foods for A, AB, B, and O types is important to minimize reactions with these lectins.

I have been on this diet for about 2 weeks now, too early to tell if it’s actually doing me any good. I’m losing a lil bit of weight (something between 1.5kg - 2kg), but I strongly believe that its due to portion control rather than the food itself. Weight loss however is only secondary, what I really aim for is healthy body. The Avoid List for my blood type isn’t so bad. Of course I have to give up a number of things that I love but I still have a wide variety of food that I can choose from. Unlike one particular blood type, I don’t have to be vegetarian, thank God.

Lets have a look at what I have to avoid shall we?

1)Chicken. A typical Malaysian, I eat lotsa chicken. I like chicken. But not eating chicken is not actually a super duper huge loss for me because a) I only eat chicken breast b) I prefer fish over chicken most of the time. The only problem is that it’s not really convenient having to avoid chicken because chicken is in pretty much everything. Like I can’t eat nasik goreng or mende2 masakan panas lain, and fast food (Bye bye Domino’s classified chicken). And very often, makanan sedap2 kat kedai is exclusive for chicken, like nasik ayam and ayam goreng McD.

2)Tomato. I never knew how much I love tomato until now. Tomato is in good food everywhere! Sambal belacan, sos cili, masak merah and that super yummy beef pie kat Dome (ok, x sure ade tomato ke x, but cam ade je).

3)Shellfish. So no more prawn, crab and spesis2 kerang and also anchovy. So I had to bid farewell to seafood soup(lobster bisque..sob sob) and nasik lemak. Also budu and belacan and cencalok. Good thing is I can still eat squid.

4)Wheat. I’m trying, but there is just no way I can avoid wheat. So I’m limiting my bread intake to like twice a week and each time, just a bun. And I also have to switch to spinach pasta.

5)Corn. I used to eat cornflakes for breakfast 5 days a week so I had to switch to something else.

6)Coconut. Coconut shake..wuwuwu..

7)Ice cream. (BR’s strawberry cheesecake..bye bye to you too)

8)Black and white pepper. So I now have very limited flavoring that I can use at home. To be exact, only kicap.

9) Vegetable oil. ALL types of vege oils except olive oil. This is impossible too. There's just no way I'm gonna give up eating out just to avoid vege oils. At home, I try to use olive oil whenever possible, termasuk goreng ikan.

The list is a lot longer, but mostly of food I won’t sorely miss. Like lentil, persimmon, sesame, quail, nuts etc.

So my daily meal plan is like this:-

Breakfast – Skimmed Milk +granola/ oats. Weekend - Bread

Lunch – Rice + Fish + Vege (I quote directly from Dr D’Adamo – vegetable world is your kingdom. So I can pretty much eat all vege. Except for tomato)

Dinner – Rice + Beef/Egg + Vege + Fruit ( I still don’t like beef very much, but telan je lah.. the reason I eat beef at night is bcoz I have to cook beef myself. Unless its steak, sup or masak biryani/rendang mcm kat knduri, I can’t really eat beef cooked by others. But some days, I skip dinner.

Weekend – I try to eat lamb. Beef is neutral to me. In the meat section, Lamb is highly beneficial to me.

Not so bad right??

Khalis is supportive of me following this diet. He understands that this is important for me. So nowadays he too tries to reduce his chicken intake to make things easier for me. Before this, we only bought chicken when we went grocery shopping but now we also add fish and beef into the cart.