Re: cost effective antifungals?

 I have seen in other posts that you suggest oat bran, rice bran, or FOS as fiber sources. What about those of us who have eperienced an increase in problems with fos/inulin? Would rice bran or oat bran be less appealing to candida?

The only reason FOS/inulin would increase Candida is if is the fructose used to make it synthetically is not completely converted to FOS/inulin. Otherwise the sugar molecules are too large for the Candida to directly feed on. Rice bran and oat bran will not feed Candida either since fibers again are too large of molecules for the Candida to feed on. A big mistake people often make though is to use the enzymes cellulase and hemicellulase for digestion and/or to digest Candida. The problem is that these enzymes merely break down the cellulose and hemicellulose in to simple sugars that the Candida can feed on.

And how important is it to take kefir when fiber will supposedly just increase beneficial flora, and thus acidity, anyway?

I actually prefer the fibers to the kefir for the long run since they will stimulate the growth of all the flora rather than merely replace a few strains like probiotic supplements will do. But products like kefir are great jump starts to get the flora up and consumption of large amounts initially will help get the Candida under control from the acids produced by these beneficial bacteria.