The Candida Diet

The Candida Diet is a necessary evil, as many of my patients will agree. If you are a Candida sufferer, the diet is something that "you can't live with yet you can't live without." The diet is feared, hated, despised, misunderstood, and often can make the difference between the success and failure in the elimination of the yeasty beast! The purpose of this article is not to explain what the Candida Diet is. This can actually be found on our website in the "patient only section," or by simply searching the Candida Diet on the internet. The purpose here is to explain why it is important!

I will also explain how the diet is generally healthier than most diets that are being followed in the 21st century.

The Candida Diet is low in carbohydrates, low in sugar, and generally low in fermented foods like vinegar, alcoholic beverages, etc. Candida feeds on sugars. Sugars make it grow and strengthen its adherence to the intestinal lining. While on a Candida Diet, the total amount of carbohydrates for the day should not exceed 150 grams. At the Biamonte Center, we use 3 versions of the Candida Diet that range between 30-50 grams, 60-90 grams, and 100-150 grams of total carbohydrates for the day. Avoiding sugar and alcohol are the most important factors. These substances can cause the fastest and greatest increase in Candida growth. They are the most dangerous. Starches come next. Starches convert to sugars in your body. Candida can feed on healthy sugars just the same as it can on junk food. Many of your patients will notice that sweet fruits will flare their symptoms just as noticeably as junk foods! When eating starches (carbohydrates), choosing those foods that have a lower "glycemic index" rating is best. The glycemic index is a scale that rates how fast a food converts to sugar in you blood stream. Examples of the glycemic index can easily be found on the internet. Fermented foods like soy sauce, vinegar, etc. can be important to avoid, especially if the person has reactionary symptoms from the food. These foods often produce an allergic reaction in the Candida sufferer's intestinal tract which can upset the good flora and the intestinal immune response. Foods from the fungus family like mushrooms, etc. can be allergens in the same manner as the fermented foods.

Foods high in yeast can have a similar effect to fermented foods and the foods from the fungal family. Foods that contain yeast do not contain Candida. They contain baker's yeast. This is not Candida. These foods can aggravate Candida by causing allergic reactions, but they cannot cause Candida.

The Candida Diet, though apparently restrictive, is actually higher in nutrients than the diet of the average American. The Candida Diet in fact is very similar to "The South Beach Diet," "The Zone," and "The Hunter/Gatherer Diet" (also known as the "Paleolithic Diet"). There are races of people who are all slimmer, stronger, and faster than us. They all have straight teeth and perfect eyesight. Arthritis, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, depression, schizophrenia, and cancer are absolute rarities to them. These people are the last 84 tribes of hunter-gatherers in the world. They share a secret that is over 2 million years old. Their secret is their diet- a diet that has changed little from that of the first humans 2 million years ago, and their predecessors, up to 7 million years ago. Theirs is the diet that man evolved on, the diet that is coded for in our genes. It has some major differences to the diet of "civilization." You are in for a few big surprises.

The diet is usually referred to as the "Paleolithic Diet," referring to the Paleolithic or Stone Age era. It is also referred to as the "Stone Age Diet," "Cave Man Diet," or the "Hunter/Gatherer Diet." More romantic souls like to think of it as the diet that was eaten in the "Garden of Eden," and they are correct in thinking so. For millions of years, humans and their relatives have eaten meat, fish, fowl, and the leaves, roots, and fruits of many plants. One big obstacle to getting more calories from the environment is the fact that many plants are inedible. Grains, beans, and potatoes are full of energy but are all inedible in the raw state, as they contain many toxins. There is no doubt about that- please don't try to eat them raw. They can make you very sick.

Around 10,000 years ago, an enormous breakthrough was made- a breakthrough that was to change the course of history, and our diet, forever. This breakthrough was the discovery that cooking these foods made them edible- the heat destroyed enough toxins to render them edible. Grains include wheat, corn, barley, rice, sorghum, millet, and oats. Grain based foods also include products such as flour, bread, noodles and pasta. The cooking of grains, beans, and potatoes had an enormous effect on our food intake- perhaps doubling the number of calories that we could obtain from the plant foods in our environment.

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