Beaut.ie Diet Diaries: Eat right 4 Your Type

When I first heard about this diet I rushed out to buy the book.

It sounded fantastic! Backed by the highly reliable reviews and extracts in the Sunday supplements, everyone was talking about this new diet and I was certain that this was THE ONE! Honestly they must laugh when they see me in Easons, I buy all these books...

So I handed over my cash money and went home and read. It seemed a fairly simple principle. All down to evolution don't ya know. Peter D'Adamo explained that he had discovered that depending on your blood type your body was naturally disposed towards certain types of food and could only metabolise these foods properly. Not only would you lose weight, you would also enjoy better health. Full of (made up) scientific terms - what's a lectin when it's at home? - I decided to give it a try.

Here comes the pseudoscience:

According to D'Adamo the most common bloodtype, Type O is the original one and stems from the time of the caveman who lived on a simple diet of meat and a few veg. When humans began to settle and farm they began to eat grains and dairy and so on. Type A emerged. He goes on to explain his rationale for type AB and the less common blood types.

Anyway I knew I was a type O. So I went on the Type O diet. Red meat, no carbs (because my type O system couldn't metabolise them properly) no tea or coffee or alcohol (wheat and yeast) no pork, dairy, eggs...

I was miserable, And I wasn't losing any weight. After about five hellish days in my mother asked me what kind of mad diet I was on this time. I explained all about the types and how type O could only eat certain foods (hardly any) bla bla.

"Type O?" she said. "Sure you're an A."