Candida Diet: The Foods & Supplements to Eat (and Avoid) to Treat Candida
March 25, 2021
OOriginal article and page source found here.
When it’s at proper levels in the body, candida is a fungus that aids with nutrient absorption and digestion, but when candida overproduces, it can then become a serious concern that causes a wide variety of negative and serious health problems. A yeast-free candida diet is one of the best ways to reduce and eliminate candida symptoms, but what exactly do you need to eliminate from your diet?
Read on and I’ll tell you exactly what to take out of your diet and what to add to get rid of candida for good.
What Is the Candida Diet?
Candidiasis, commonly referred to as “candida,” is a fungal infection that can affect men and women of all ages in various parts of the body. It most commonly occurs in the mouth, ears, nose, toenails, fingernails, gastrointestinal tract and vagina.
Possible symptoms comprise a true laundry list ranging from bad breath to persistent heartburn to arthritis. Due to its many and varied symptoms, candida is often ignored, undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.
If you have candida or know someone who does, the good news is that there are many candida natural treatments. The main natural treatment is a change in your diet to discourage the overgrowth of yeast.
Before embarking on your new diet, though, it’s a good idea to start with a candida cleanse to help rid the body of excess candida through flushing the digestive tract.
You have two options for a cleanse: a liquids-only cleanse or a more gentle cleanse with food. You can also start with the step one cleanse and then move to the step two cleanse.
Cleansing Step 1: Liquids-Only Candida Cleanse (Duration 1–2 Days)
Start by making a vegetable broth from organic onions, garlic, celery, kale, sea salt and pure water. Let it simmer and strain. Discard the vegetables, and refrigerate the broth.
Throughout the day, sip on warm broth. It’s imperative that you drink lots of water to help your body expel all the toxins in your system.
While this is not a long-term cleanse, it can be repeated as needed every few weeks. It can also be used as a jump-start to the food cleanse below.
Cleansing Step 2: Steamed Vegetables (Duration 3–5 Days)
By eliminating grains, sugars, fruits, starches and alcohol from your diet for three to five days, you can make great headway in your fight against candida overgrowth.
What can you eat on a candida diet? You should mostly eat:
Fresh, organic vegetables that have been steamed. For this cleanse stage, keep away from any starchy vegetables like carrots, radishes, beets, sweet potatoes and white potatoes, which may contribute to excess sugar levels and feed the candida.
Continue to drink plenty of pure water, a minimum of 72 ounces per day, to help flush the candida and byproducts from your system.
During this time, no more than once a day, you can eat salads made from leafy greens (like romaine) or bitter greens (like chard) and topped with just a bit of coconut oil and apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice).
During either of the candida cleanses above, you can use bentonite clay to help surround the toxins and efficiently remove them from your system.
Once you’re done with the cleansing stage, you can then move on to an antifungal diet that doesn’t just discourage candida — it helps your body get rid of candida for good!
Here are the dietary steps I recommend for a candida-free diet:
Diet Step 1: Remove the Problem Foods
Now you know what to eat, but you are likely wondering what not to eat on a candida diet. First and foremost, you need to continue to remove the foods from your diet that literally feed the candida and encourage it to flourish in your body.
The top offenders include:
sugar
white flour
yeast
alcohol
These items are believed to promote candida overgrowth. If you avoid eating sugar and white flour, then you will easily cut out most processed foods, which tend to be higher in calories and unhealthy ingredients and low in nutrition.
Avoiding sugar in all of its various forms is truly key to fighting candida. The candida yeast cells need sugar to build their cell walls, expand their colonies and switch into their more virulent, fungal form.
This is why a low-sugar diet is such a necessary part of your candida treatment. If you need some help, here’s how to kick your sugar addiction.
Going forward, you want your diet to be centered on:
vegetables
high-quality protein foods
gluten-free grains (like brown rice and millet)
Avoiding fruit at this time is also commonly recommended because even though fruit is very healthy, it does get turned into sugar in the body.
In terms of vegetables, you also want to avoid these somewhat sweet, starchy varieties:
potatoes
carrots
sweet potatoes
yams
beets
peas
parsnips
These vegetables are banned from a strict anti-candida diet because of their high carbohydrate content, but they’re certainly nutrient-dense and can be reintroduced later on in your treatment.
Diet Step 2: Up the Intake of Candida Killers and Boost Your Immune System
You want to make sure you include the items from my top 10 list below on a daily basis, including:
apple cider vinegar
green veggies
green drinks
coconut oil
Manuka honey
garlic
ground chia and flaxseeds
unsweetened cranberry juice
cultured dairy
spices (like turmeric and cinnamon)
How long do I need to eat like this?
In order to have success with the candida diet, it will take anywhere from a few weeks to several months. It really depends on the individual and a few key variables:
how strictly you follow this diet
the intake and effectiveness of probiotics and antifungals
the severity of your candida
Diet Step 3: Reintroducing Off-Limit Foods
Once you’re free of your candida symptoms and the candida itself, then what? As I’m sure you guessed, going back to your old habits and ways of eating will likely just bring the candida back all over again.
However, you can gradually reintroduce certain foods into your new candida diet.
Low-sugar fruits like green apples are a great example of a smart choice. If the reintroduced foods don’t cause flare-ups of candida symptoms, you can move on to reintroducing more foods that you have been avoiding.
I recommend doing this reintroduction slowly and one item at a time.
Top Foods
Here are some of the foods you should eat on the candida diet.
1. Apple Cider Vinegar
The acid and enzymes in apple cider vinegar have been shown to help to kill and get rid of excess yeast in the body.
2. Green Veggies and Green Drinks
Leafy green vegetables help alkalize the body, which fights against the acidic nature of yeast overgrowth. Research suggests that greens contain no sugars but have high amounts of magnesium that naturally detox the body, vitamin C to build the immune system, chlorophyll to cleanse the body, B vitamins to energize the body and iron to give the body full support.
3. Coconut Oil
Coconut oil has antimicrobial properties, and studies show that the combination of lauric acid and caprylic acid found in coconut oil kills off harmful candida through ingestion and topical application.
4. Stevia
We know that sugar feeds candida. That’s why it’s important to use different sweeteners, and stevia is the perfect choice for those on a candida diet.
Studies indicate that not only is stevia an antifungal, anti-inflammatory and antibiotic agent, but it also helps balance the pancreas, which is often compromised when someone has candida.
5. Garlic
Garlic contains a large number of sulphur-containing compounds that have extremely potent, broad-spectrum antifungal properties. Animal studies conclude that raw garlic benefits the fight against candida specifically.
6. Ground Flaxseeds and Chia Seeds
Polyphenols found in flaxseeds and chia seeds have been found to support the growth of probiotics in the gut and may also help eliminate yeast and candida in the body.
7. Unsweetened Cranberry Juice
Cranberry juice without added sugar has been shown to help correct the pH levels of urine, helping prevent the overgrowth of fungi like candida.
8. Kefir
Goat milk kefir has