Blood Groups Diet – principle and method

The scientific studies, which were initiated by Dr Peter Adamo and his father James Adamo. James was an author of the first books on the relationship between blood groups and dietsin the late 1950’s. The book was focused on the characteristics of foods and their impacts on each person according to his blood group. In conclusion, according to Dr Peter Adamo, eating “incompatible” foods can cause a variety of inconveniences.

This Diet releases 4 blood profiles:

Blood Type O (exists from the time of hunters)

Consumes foods rich in protein.
Should consume preferably:

• Meat: lamb, mutton, beef, veal, game, offal
• Seafood: monk fish, cod, sole, trout, bass, pike, halibut
• Vegetables: artichoke, broccoli, turnip, onions, cabbage, spinach, pumpkin
• Red pepper

Should avoid eating:

• Meat: pork, frog
• Seafood: squid, octopus, smoked salmon
• Dairy products, cereals and eggs
• Fruit: clementine, kiwi, melon, blackberry
• Spices: ketchup, mayonnaise

Blood Type A (appeared during the discovery of agriculture)

Consumes vegetarian foods instead.
Should consume preferably:

• Vegetables: artichoke, beetroot, chard, broccoli, carrot, pumpkin, fennel, turnip, onion, pumpkin, salad
• Snail
• Seafood: mackerel, whiting, cod, perch, sardine, salmon
• Legumes: bean, beans, soy, lentils, tofu
• Cereals: rice, oats
• Fruit: apricot, pineapple, cherry, lemon, fig, ripe, blueberry, grapefruit, plum

Should avoid eating:

• Meats
• Seafood: anchovies, squid, caviar, hake, scallops, crab, shrimp, herring, oyster, mussels, octopus, smoked salmon, sole
• Dairy products
• Frog
• Eggs
• Chickpea
• Wheat
• Vegetables: aubergine, sauerkraut, potato, tomato
• Fruit: clementine, mango, orange, papaya

Blood Type B (initially found among nomadic people)

Consume a bit of everything.
Should consume preferably:

• Meats
• Dairy products
• Cereals
• Vegetables
• Fruits

Should avoid eating:

• Meat: pork, duck, goose, horse, chicken
• Seafood: anchovies, oysters, lobster, crab, shrimp, mussels, octopus, smoked salmon, trout,
• Dairy products: ice cream, blue cheese
• Tree-nut: peanuts, pine nuts, cashew nuts
• Cereal: couscous, wheat, corn
• Vegetables: artichoke, avocado, pumpkin, radish, tomato, olives
• Coconut
• Soy

Blood Type AB (the chameleon)

Nutritional profile difficult to identify but may consume a wide variety of foods.
Should consume preferably:

• Meat: rabbit, mutton
• Snail
• Seafood: pike, bream, sturgeon, cod, salmon, tuna
• Dairy products: feta, milk and goat cheese, mozzarella, yogurt
• Olive oil
• Tree-nut: walnut, peanut, chestnut, nuts
• Legumes: soy, green lentils, rye, rice
• Vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, garlic, watermelon
• Fruit: pineapple, kiwi, cherry, fig, grape
• Drinks: green tea, red wine

Should avoid eating:

• Meat: pork, chicken, veal, duck, beef, game
• Seafood: anchovy, sea bass, hake, crab, shrimp, oyster, trout
• Dairy products: butter, blue cheese, Brie, Camembert, ice cream, whole milk,
• Sunflower oil
• Vinegar
• Hazelnut
• Chickpeas
• Corn
• Vegetables: artichoke, avocado, pepper
• Fruit: banana, orange
• Anise
• Drinks: coffee, soda

Most importantly, the Adamo Diet states that no group of blood should consume pork, smoked salmon, rhubarb, wheat bran. Also coconut, ice cream, corn and peanut oils, black pepper and vinegar.

Exercise

The Blood Type Diet recommends exercises based on your blood type. For instance, it suggests yoga or tai chi for type As, and vigorous aerobic exercises like jogging or biking for up to an hour a day for type Os. 

Advice

Because the diet dictates that you eat very specific types of food based on your blood type, it doesn’t allow much for personal tastes.

For example, if you’re a big fan of meat and potatoes, you won’t be very happy on the type A diet, which is mostly vegetarian.

There are even recommendations about the types of spices and condiments you can use.

If you’re looking for a diet that’s gluten-free, you should know that this diet doesn’t ban gluten. You may be able to make choices that are gluten-free, if you read food labels carefully.

Adventages

For example, this diet can prevent viral and bacterial diseases, lose weight. On the other hand, fight against cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, liver diseases, ageing of your body. However, the obligation to consume foods that until they were often ignored (by each person in a blood group), make this diet based on food variety.

Disadventages

To clarify, you do not really control the outcome of such a scheme. You can lose weight, and on the other hand you just do not lose it. In case, you lose weight, nutritionists say that it’s not because of the non-consumption of “incompatible” foods with your blood group. But because of a restriction of the diet’s consumable foods. In short, a restriction that causes a drop in calories consumed and weight loss. In addition, theories of this diet rely on case studies and the conjunction of several scientific concepts, but on no controlled clinical study.

Moreover, scientists also do not know if lectins actually impact human organisms. In other words, by following this regime, you risk not starting on a 100% solid and certified scientific basis, despite the “scientific” character of Dr Adamo’s book.