The Baby Boomer Diet

We Baby Boomers share collective experiences that formed our unique generational identity. But it is an identity built on individuality, transformation, self-exploration, and reinvention.

The first of the 7 Universal Principles, the Principle of Uniqueness, states that you are a singular, one-of-a-kind individual. That’s it: you’re unique. Yes, we have most of the same pieces and parts: a heart that beats, lungs that breathe, eyes that see, and a brain that thinks. And as Baby Boomers, we share many of the same formative experiences that forged our generational identity. We were encouraged to test limits and explore our world. We share a history and a community. We’ve watched Presidents come and go, suffered through pain and loss, and felt ourselves change—physically, emotionally, socially, and financially—with each passing year. We know where we were the day President Kennedy was shot. We remember the moon walk, the march on Montgomery, Watergate, and Vietnam. But while we might be similar in many ways, we are clearly more different than alike, and it is these differences that really matter. We have diverging needs; childhood experiences; and ways of thinking, learning, and being. These differences give us identity and individuality—and we Boomers love that!

Some of us are more active than others. We may enjoy the outdoors or prefer to curl up indoors with a good book. Some of us have rich social lives full of family, friends, acquaintances, and a calendar stocked with events. Others keep things simple, preferring to interact with a very small circle of intimates. Some of us live in the country, soaking up the sunshine, plants, and fresh air; while others crave the hustle and flow of city life, reassured by the sounds of traffic.

For some of us, years of stress, toxins, and poor lifestyle choices may start to surface in midlife as unpleasant reminders of aging. We may be experiencing weight problems, sleep difficulties, or pains in the places where we used to play, to paraphrase ’60s singer Leonard Cohen. We are even seeing how “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll” may have led to health problems we had never considered during our more reckless teen years.

AARP magazine recently reported that some physicians believe that past marijuana smoking may increase the risk for head and neck cancers. About four million Americans—many of them over 45—are estimated to be harboring hepatitis C, a sometimes deadly souvenir of heroin use. And speed, often the first drug of choice among experimenting Baby Boomers, assaults the brain’s dopamine system, making things slow down, just as aging makes things slow down.

Alcohol abuse has also ranked high among Boomers, and in 2002, 38 percent of younger Baby Boomers (ages 35 to 44) and 31 percent of older Boomers (ages 45 to 54) were current users of some form of tobacco. Loud music from high-voltage rock concerts may also have left its mark. Whereas hearing loss used to begin to plague 60-and 70-year-olds, it is now showing up in 40-and 50-year-olds. Postponing pregnancy, as many women of our generation did, also increased the use of fertility drugs, which can raise the risk of ovarian cancer in some women.

The sexual freedom of the ’60s also resulted in an increase in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). For example, women who contracted the human papilloma virus (HPV) are at higher risk for developing cervical cancer, which strikes some 12,800 women a year. This disease often develops when women are between the ages of 40 and 60.¹

Anti-Aging Application

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The Principle of Uniqueness is all about aging gracefully. This means adapting our diet and our lifestyle to our emotional and physical needs at each new stage of life. Baby Boomers are masters of reinvention, so this principle is especially suited to our flexibility and openness to learning new ways of being. Staying young in our attitudes and in our spirits will be critical to our longevity.

This is by no means intended to be alarmist, as there are many Baby Boomers who did not explore these paths, who experimented lightly, or who emerged unscathed. It is important, however, to point out some of the possible health consequences from our generation’s “youthful indiscretions.”

During each decade of our lives, we have different and constantly changing needs. What was important to us at 20 is less so now; and hopefully we will feel better in our 50s, 60s, and 70s than we did in our youth.

Think again! I have been living the Body Ecology Way for more than a decade now, and I feel better than I did when I was in my 20s or 30s. Why? Because in many ways my body is healthier. And today I have a much better understanding of who I am and of my own unique needs. I’m more authentically me.

And these are exciting times! Never before in the thousands of years of human history have we ever known so much about the workings of the body and the brain. Scientific knowledge is advancing so rapidly that attaining a more prolonged state of youthfulness is right here, right now.

I think something happens to us when we start to feel as if we’ve reached a level of personal satisfaction. Besides still focusing on reaching our personal goals, we also begin to act more altruistically … turning our attention to the world around us. My children are grown, and I can now better prioritize my vitality and vigor, and put my newfound energy to good use by leaving the planet a better place than I found it.

The beauty of the Principle of Uniqueness is that we all respond to and digest every morsel—be it of food or information—differently. Depending on your personality type, you are either reading these words with a healthy dose of skepticism or a hopeful kind of flutter in your heart … or are finding it hard to read at all because you’re jumping up and down with unbridled eagerness to get started. Your uniqueness will bring its own properties to this diet, and I am simply a guide to help you embark on your own path to anti-aging.

The journey begins with honest self-evaluation: where are you, right now, today; and how prepared are you to take that very first step?

Thankfully, we can look to the past and see what we have done to our bodies. This can be measured through a series of simple, effective, and inexpensive tests that give us a clear snapshot of our current health status.

The following six valuable tests can show you where your deficiencies are so that you can correct them with lifestyle choices and a healing, yet delicious, eating plan. All six are easily obtained from your holistically oriented doctor, who can interpret the results for you. Fortunately, they also come with a summary so that you can read these results yourself without medical training.

1. Hormones: A complete hormone panel would include DHEA, testosterone, progesterone, estrogen, pregnenolone, and cortisol. You’ll also want to test for other key hormones, especially those associated with the thyroid (for men and women). Growth-hormone levels also decline dramatically starting in our mid-30s. This hormone was thought to only be necessary for children who were growing, but it is one of the most important to keep us forever young.

It is not in the scope of this book to discuss hormones in depth, but diet, exercise, and Chinese tonic herbs are essential to any hormone-rebalancing program. In fact, often these three are all that is needed to correct hormone deficiencies. Eliminating stress is also key, as it destroys the life of the adrenals, where most of these hormones are manufactured.

This book will outline the foods to eat to help restore your hormones to their original youthful levels. In fact, I often recommend a three-month change in lifestyle, focusing on diet, herbs, exercise, and anti-aging therapies … like acupuncture … before you even have your hormones tested. Then you’ll obtain a more accurate reading of what your body can really do on its own. Oftentimes, these natural methods may be all that is needed.

2. Fatty acids: This simple profile determines the amount—and kinds—of fatty acids present in your blood. Such acids denote the presence of cholesterol, and levels thereof, and are important as we age in order to determine such risks as heart disease and cancer.

3. Minerals: Minerals and toxins can affect the immune system, sexual and cardiovascular functions, mental wellness, and more. A typical laboratory mineral test uses a hair sample to measure levels of 11 essential minerals and nine toxins.

4. Infections: Caused by yeast and viruses, infections can be detected with live-blood-cell analysis.

5. Heavy metals: There are many ways to test for heavy metals—for instance, by a hair analysis, urine test (DMSA challenge), stool test, and blood test.

6. Blood type: We should all know our blood type, as each specific type holds some valuable clues to anti-aging (see the next section).

You may wonder why allergy testing is not on my list. For years people have sent me their allergy tests, and I usually glance at them and then set them aside. I know that once they are on the right diet with fermented foods and certain lifestyle changes, these allergies will quickly disappear.

First, let me say that blood typing is just one means we have of assessing personality and physical and nutritional requirements. There are many others. Knowing that blood relays the most fundamental nourishment for our bodies, it seemed to me that different blood types might react differently to certain substances in food. While there is not a lot of “hard science” to date on diet and blood type, it makes a lot of common sense to look further into this theory. Blood carries the nutrients of foods into our cells, and clearly not all blood is exactly the same.

In Japan extensive research on blood type and personality began more than 60 years ago, and today it is even more common to hear the Japanese ask your blood type than it is for Americans to ask for your astrological sign.

I have a special relationship with Japan. I lived there from the ages of 12 to 15. As I mentioned, I also studied with Lima Ohsawa, who developed macrobiotics with her husband, George. During my years of travel and study in Japan, I had an opportunity to learn firsthand the ways in which the Japanese used blood types; and it immediately caught my attention—especially because several years earlier I had also become fascinated with the work of Dr. James D’Adamo.

After meeting Dr. D’Adamo and reading his book One Man’s Food … Is Someone Else’s Poison, I began to question everyone about his or her blood type in an attempt to verify if it could indeed provide clues to our individual uniqueness, as well as indicate the foods and lifestyle choices most compatible for a specific type.

While Dr. James D’Adamo’s theories were based on patient observation, his son Peter D’Adamo has tried to use a more scientific approach by studying the activity of lectins (proteins found in food). Peter found that eating the wrong lectins for your blood type could cause weight gain, early aging, and immune problems.

I have blended the research from Japan and much of the research of both James and Peter D’Adamo with my own observations. After 26 years of working with people of all ages, I want to present you with a summary of my own current thoughts only to inspire you to continue to look more deeply into this subject. Blood type is simply another example of how we are not all the same. (For more on how each blood type should eat, see The Body Ecology Diet.)

There are four blood types: A, B, AB, and O. See if you can recognize yourself… .

• Blood type A: Type A individuals tend to be cooperative, sensitive, clever, passionate, and smart. Often bottling up anxiety in order to get along with others, they may hold in their emotions until they explode. Many are tense, impatient, and unable to sleep well. While they are capable of leadership positions, they may not choose professions that cause too much stress for their tightly wired systems. In Japan many A’s are involved in research related to science, economics, manufacturing, and so forth; or they are teachers. Their uncompromising minds are always discovering more about the world and refining their expertise. The research by A’s on microflora and other areas of medicine is some of the best and most meticulous in the world. They are perfectionists.

• Blood type B: Type B individuals tend to be balanced. They are thoughtful like A’s, yet ambitious like O’s. Highly empathetic, they are understanding of others and opposing points of view, yet often hesitant to challenge or confront. Chameleonlike and flexible, they make patient and objective friends.

• Blood type AB: These individuals tend to be very charming and popular. They don’t sweat the small stuff and can be seen as spiritual and even at times a bit “flaky.” Only about 2 to 5 percent of the population are blood type AB. There is never a dull moment in an AB’s life, so if you find one for a friend, consider yourself lucky! You’ll enjoy some exciting times together! Sometimes it is difficult to be an AB. Even they are confused about who they are. Plus, they’re often changing their minds. AB’s don’t like to fit in anyone else’s “box.” If they feel too confined, they’ll break out of that box and do things their own way.

• Blood type O: O blood types tend to be loners or leaders; and are intuitive, focused, self-reliant, and daring. They handle stress better than other blood types and have strong immune systems, a welldeveloped physique, and a physically active nature. Since O’s handle stressful situations with a certain level of detachment, they make good leaders. This hardy blood type is frequently not aware, however, that the foods they eat and their lifestyle choices are harmful. They often are not as “tuned in to” their physical and emotional needs as A’s are. They can abuse themselves for a long time and then suddenly find themselves falling apart.²^, ³

One of the wonderful things about growing older is that we come to a better understanding of who we are—how much we share in common with others, and what makes us special. Because we’ve tried and abandoned many things along the way, we have now settled into ourselves more, and we find that we have less to prove. We can be more authentically who we were always meant to be.

And today there are many resources for self-discovery that our parents and grandparents never dreamed of. There are many excellent books on almost every subject, and the Internet is literally at our fingertips. A wider array of supplements and alternative therapies are readily available to us. However, it can be challenging to decipher all this information, and once we’ve decided what works best for us, we may not know how to start. The next chapter discusses Step by Step, a principle that is very useful as we begin to implement new healthy choices in our lives.