Curing Candida Part 1

The Candida Cure. If only it was that simple. One pill, one anything. But, no.

There is no ‘quick fix’ for candida overgrowth. It is also important to remember that Candida is a natural occurrence so it will never be ‘gone.’ Your goal is to get the candida back in check. Also, beware when you see recipes that tout their candida killing properties. The recipe may, in fact, help you kill the excess candida but there is no one thing that will get your body back to where it is supposed to be.

The Three Steps to Curing Candida

1. Starve the Candida
2. Overpower the Candida
3. Build up good bacteria

Now, we’re going to take a look at each one of these more closely, but for now, let’s look at step one; Starve the Candida.

How to Starve Candida

If you don’t know what Candida is you can read my post here. Ok, so our problem is basically that your naturally occurring Candida has taken over. The only way to fix this is to kill the excess Candida. The only way to do that is to starve it. Candida lives on sugar and carbs so to ‘cure’ candida you have to cut those out. Completely. This is where this diet may differ from others. If you go on the candida diet and then give yourself a ‘treat’ in the form of sugars and carbs there is no point in going on the diet in the first place. Even a tiny amount of sugar and carbs could feed the Candida, meaning it will take that much longer to die, and all of your work up to the point of cheating was a waste. ‘Tis strict. Very strict.

There are also a few other things you should know. 

• ‘Sugar’ includes natural sugar so fruit is a no. This includes tomatoes and peppers.
• ‘Carbs’ are defined as any grains (for the starving period) as well as carby vegetables such as potatoes. Starchy vegetables are also bad. This includes carrots and such.
• Uncultured Dairy should also be cut out of the diet. It can be extremely inflammatory and should be avoided. Excluded from this are Yogurt and Kiefer which contain good bacteria.
• Fungi are also a no. This is because you are trying to kill a fungus so eating fungus is bad (I’m a little confused on the reasoning behind this but trust me when I say these are out).
  
• And last but not least, nuts are out. This is a controversial one but I would say for stage one (the starving) you should cut out nuts altogether. Nuts often contain molds which you want to avoid at all costs. Some people say that avoiding high mold nuts such as peanuts and pistachios is enough, but since all nuts contain some amount of mold, I would say that you should just cut them out altogether.

At this point, it seems that it would be easier to tell you what you can eat rather than what you can’t and I do just that in this post. Now keep in mind that the list is meant for the first stage of the diet. It is the strict list. Speaking of this I should probably cover the stages.

• Stage one. This is the strict part of the diet. It is the most important part. You also want to make sure that you do this for long enough that all of the Candida is dead. This portion should last no less than one month.
• Stage two. This is the reintroduction phase. You want to slowly start building things back into your diet that are beneficial for you but were not allowed in stage one. For most people, this would include nuts, carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, etc. While in this phase you want to make sure that you are introducing things one at a time. If you have a negative reaction you want to know what caused it. If you do have a reaction cutting that food back out of your diet is a good idea. You can always try again later. This stage can take anywhere from 1-4 months.
• Stage three. This is when you slowly try to reintroduce things such as fruit, whole grains, and other ‘forbidden’ items. Again, it is important that you do this slowly and pay attention to your body.

Whoo. That was a lot. At this point it is probobly tempting to say that dieing is a much simpler option and wonder “HOW THE HE** YOU CAN MAKE ANYTHING WITH THESE FOODS?!?!?” but I will soon be posting recipies and inspiration so you no longer have to whither up and die. We like you better alive.

Courage and thanks,

-Sarah