The Anti-Candida Diet

The following diet is a nutritional guide and is not really a diet at all. A diet suggests that, one day, you will come off the diet. Therefore this diet is really a Way of Eating for Life. So it really should be more specifically regarded as a defensive way of eating that both helps to protect and alkalize your body. This diet advice can also be easily incorporated into other ordinary Western diets or even with organic, alkaline or vegetarian diets—where the same guidelines will apply. This diet is also recommended for problems like cancer, acid body, candida etc. on Earth Clinic. We offer it here because it is a very useful and necessary complement to the anti-candida protocols, since this way of eating helps to alkalize, detox and to protect your body from the effects of chemically processed foods.

All the same, this diet is only meant as a set of guidelines to educate. It is therefore up to the reader or candida sufferer how he or she interprets and applies it. However, if you are ill with a particularly serious illness like systemic candida, then the full diet will be necessary and must be fully and strictly applied.

The main dangers of the modern processed food diet may be adequately described by comparing this diet with our more natural, older diets. The older diets – pre-1850 – were more natural in all respects, with healthier unpolluted soils and no added chemicals or chemical processing involvement. As a result of this older food diet there were, statistically, far less persistent occurrences of chronic, autoimmune or idiopathic diseases like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, osteoporosis, obesity, Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s Disease, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, fibromyalgia, depression etc. The keyword here is “natural”.

The Anti-Candida Diet:

1. NO SUGAR. Candida, viruses and all pathogens feed off sugar, which promotes their rapid growth and spread. When too much sugar is eaten constantly every day, this habit also works to greatly lower the immune system’s capability to fight disease. In particular, diseases such as cancer grow rapidly in the presence of the fructose found in fruits, and to survive they need glucose.

2. Reduce carbohydrate intake. The Western diet is effectively an energy dense but nutrient deficient diet in terms of minerals and vitamins. Therefore for sugar-loving diseases like candida, carbohydrates are banned because they so easily convert to sugar in the body. If you can, eat carbohydrates that have a low glycemic index, which are digested and absorbed slowly in the body and which do not cause high sugar spikes in the body. These sugar spikes tend to bring down the immune system and feed the invading pathogens as well. Also beware that the Glycemic Index doesn’t measure the type of sugar so is not a perfect measure or guide to go by.

2. No junk food allowed. Junk food contains way too much refined salt, MSG, vegetable oils and other additives. All bad.

3. No vegetable oils in the diet. Vegetable oils oxidize fairly quickly on the shelf from sunlight and very rapidly at high heat because they are polyunsaturated (weak chemical bonds) fats. Most vegetable oils nowadays are also made from an unnatural chemical process. As far back as 1962, Dr Denham Harman, a Nobel Prize winner who discovered the anti-oxidant nature of vitamins, proved in his famous experiments in feeding mice vegetable oils with their food, that chemically processed vegetable oils or polyunsaturated oils significantly contribute to causing cancer. So, better to use a saturated fat like virgin coconut oil (VCO) or even grass-fed lard for cooking. Saturated fats are more stable oils that do not oxidize easily and are also good for you.

Many vegetarian websites quote The Okinawan Diet as their reason for a vegetables-only eating regimen being best for you, which is inaccurate. If you read the book, The Okinawan Diet – which carefully defines this diet through the writers’ research – the Okinawans generally used pork offal and pork fat in all their healthy cooking; and, in their pre-WW2 diet they never used whole grain bread, olive oil, soy milk, apples, or yogurt.

When I had systemic candida and started taking coconut oil, my terrible daily constipation and bloating issues completely disappeared in about two weeks and my toilet habits became regular again. VCO is very healthy for your body and intestines. I only ever cook with VCO now, and it has actually helped me to lose weight.

Since the 1960s, baby-foods have been using only coconut oil for their cooked products, and those in the hospital with intestinal trauma are usually fed with food cooked in coconut oil as well. This is because VCO helps to protect the intestines and the body while also being anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal.

4. No soda pop. Apart from containing sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), fructose and aspartame, sweet soda drinks also contain carbonic and phosphoric acids as well as halogens like fluorides in their mix—all of which only work to acidify your body. Furthermore, HFCS often contains mercury and poisonous chemicals like glutaraldehyde, which is normally used as a poisonous industrial cleaner.

5. No artificial sweeteners–no aspartame, sucralose or saccharine. Aspartame is acidifying. It is also an excitotoxin that helps to destroy your central nervous system. In our bodies, aspartame metabolizes into formaldehyde and methanol, which is also a poison. (In the old days people used stills to make their own illicit distilled alcoholic beverages and if they were not careful in their process methanol would form. This wood alcohol or methanol is very poisonous and as little as 10 ml would be enough to cause permanent blindness.) Sucralose is a chlorinated hydrocarbon that, in tests, causes a shrunken thymus, enlarged kidneys, abortion and low fetal weights, as these areas are all sensitive to chlorine compounds in hydrocarbon forms. Saccharine, even a moderate dose, can increase the incidence of tumors in people with cancer.

6. Eat chicken, fish and meats in small amounts. Proteins – meats – eaten in excessive quantities are acidifying as we get older, since our bodies have difficulty digesting them. Proteins should preferably be partially cooked to ease the breaking down of proteins.

7. No baked goods like bread, cakes, pastries, etc. In the ‘70s the FDA, in their wisdom, allowed the use of bromide and bromates in bread-making instead of iodine. Bromine weakens the immune system and encourages an acid body state. Wheat also contains gluten and alloxan, the latter a poison that can help to destroy the pancreas and causes diabetes over time.

8. Add coriander/cilantro and green tea to your diet routine. In your diet, include a handful of raw, chopped coriander leaf (also called cilantro) in a salad three times a week and drink green tea 2-3 times a day. Maintaining this regimen for a month will successfully remove most heavy metals from your body.

9. No canned products in the diet. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a component in the plastic that lines canned goods, and is very bad for you. It acts as a pseudo-estrogen – a female hormone – and upsets hormone balance, thereby weakening the immune system.

10. No calcium, which means no dairy products. No milk, no cheese, no yoghurt, no ice cream etc. Avoid all calcium fortified foods. Excess calcium encourages acidity throughout the body and particularly in the tissue cells where it tends to calcify mitochondria causing loss of energy and myalgia. In 1970, the recommended calcium to magnesium ratio was 4:1. Then it became 2:1 in the 1990s. I’m guessing that, probably in another 10 years, these same RDA experts will recommend a calcium to magnesium ratio of 1:1. I recommend taking no calcium supplementation in your diet because Western foods are all over-fortified with calcium now. Calcium causes acidity inside the cells when taken in excess and when magnesium is lacking in the diet. Magnesium regulates calcium in the body.

11. No fruits. In general most fruits contain citric acid and sugar—especially the citrus fruits. In a healthy body that can cope with the acid and sugars from fruits it is fine to eat fruits in moderation. But if you are ill with an acid-loving and sugar-loving disease like cancer, then any acidic or sugary food like fruits will actually promote its spread because eating fruits uses up your alkaline body bicarbonates during digestion. This further weakens the immune system, increases acidity and glucose levels in the blood and helps diseases like candida to dominate the body. You can use fruit extracts that don’t contain fructose, such as red wine extract, grapeseed extract etc.

12. No Monosodium Glutamate (MSG). MSG is disallowed for the same reasons as aspartame. The antidote to MSG is taurine amino acid, which is mainly found in fish.

13. Avoid GMO foods. The most common GMO food is actually wheat. But there is also soy, beet and corn GMO. All soy products made from a chemical process – including soy sauce, tofu etc. – should be avoided. But any soy products made from a natural and organic fermentation process are allowed. If you buy soya products like soya milk, make sure it is organic and contains soya flour. If it contains soya protein then it has been made from a chemical process and also might be GMO (especially in the US).

14. Avoid distilled water and tap water. Distilled water is "dead water"—it completely lacks the important minerals that natural spring-water contains. If you drink distilled water, this will actually act to pull important minerals out of your body during digestion. Tap water nowadays – due to water shortages – is recycled and chemically processed from sewage (especially in cities) and stored in reservoirs that are fed from water tables polluted with agricultural fertilizers and pesticides, so goodness knows what evil goodies tap water contains. Enough said I think. Drink fresh mineral or spring water or create your own mineral water instead. You should always drink 1-2 glasses of water at mealtimes. This helps digestion and will improve your urine conductivity reading, provided your body minerals are in balance.

15. Use sea salt rather than refined table salt. Use sea salt for all your cooking and eating needs. Sea salt contains many other beneficial natural minerals, is alkaline, and also aids nutrient absorption and acts like a protective antibiotic in the body, which helps to protect the intestines and liver. Sea salt is also far more alkaline than refined table salt, which is normally acidic.

16. Try to avoid all (chemically) processed food. Try to eat foods that are made from natural processes without excess heating or use of chemicals. Read food labels carefully before you buy.

17. Eat your big meals early. Whenever you eat your meals, it is always best to eat bigger meals at breakfast and lunch. Your evening dinner should be eaten early at about 5:00 pm because shortly after this time, your body goes into another mode. This mode slows down digestion, making it inefficient, which actually impairs digestion, such that large amounts of food can end up sitting and stagnating in your intestines for up to 12 hours. This results in acidity build-up, pathogen growth and poisons being absorbed into the body from the intestines. Better as a habit to eat a much smaller quantity of food at dinner to ensure healthy and complete digestion of food before sleep.

18. Enjoy your meals! When you eat food, don't always rush and over-stuff yourself, as this can lead to poor, inefficient digestion and acid intestines. There is always a lag from when you feel hungry to when your hunger is satisfied, but if you eat too fast you will eat more than your body needs, and this is not good for you. Eat your food slower, chew food thoroughly, and drink plenty of water at mealtimes for proper digestion. The Chinese – and Okinawans – normally eat until they feel 70% full, then they stop. This is a good, simple dietary practice.

Add This Entry To Your CureZone Favorites!