Just One Click to Share
Facebook
Google+
Twitter
The blood type diet has been around for more than a decade, with mixed results. The difference between this diet and a lot of the other diets on the market today is that the blood type diet is not designed to lose weight. Most fad diets are designed with weight loss (either temporary or permanent) in mind. The blood type diet does not have weight loss as its goal; the goal of the blood type diet is to have the person feel better in all ways physical. What that means is that fatigue will be less noticeable, energy will be increased, and overall feeling of well-being will be good.
The blood type diet is based on the distant ancestors of the person in question. For this reason, there are separate diet plans for separate ethnic groups, so your list of desirable foods is not only based on your blood type, but also on your racial or ethnic background. The scientific basis of the diet is that people of a certain ethnic background and a certain blood type had ancestors that subsisted on one type of foods. For example, blood type A had ancestors that were farmers, which means that on this particular blood type diet list of foods, there are a lot of fruits and vegetables and a limited amount of meats and seafood. For someone whose ancestors are determined to have been hunter-gatherers should eat a lot of meats, according to the blood type diet.
The scientific base of these lists is that the body is adaptable, which means that over hundreds and hundreds of years of evolution, the human body adjusts to optimally use what it has available to it. So, if your ancestors were farmers, your body should be optimally primed to process fruits and vegetables best. Having a diet of primarily meats means that the body is not optimized for the current diet and would do better with a diet that is in line with the diet that the ancestors were eating. This diet appeals to scientists who know that evolution affects the functioning of the human body in so many ways. A body that is optimized for seafood will find an onslaught of red meat to be very difficult to process.
A body that is not ‘trained’ for the diet that you are giving it will have difficulty to subsist on it. Of course, it’s not a question of the body being able to function or not being able to function, but the bottom line is that the question is HOW WELL the body is functioning. This is why people who swear by the blood type diet say that they feel better rested, happier, more energetic and just plain good since they’ve been following the blood type diet.
Although it has not been scientifically proven (feeling happier and less tired is hard to quantify in scientific research!) the bottom line is that you really have nothing to lose by trying it out. You might find the diet to have an effect on your overall sense of well-being, or you might find it to have no effect whatsoever. Either way, you’ve invested nothing in special foods or diet supplements; the diet is simply in choosing the ‘right’ foods for your blood type, based on your ancient ancestors.
Another piece of good news is that you don’t have to follow the diet 100% of the time, so if tomatoes are supposedly off limits for your blood type, but you’re out for Italian food for dinner once a month, you don’t have to refrain from eating your favorite red sauce. The diet recommends that the food lists be followed between 75% and 80% of the time for optimum effect.