A candida infection is an overgrowth of candida albicans, a yeast that lives naturally in the gut.
Bacteria in the gut controls the candida. When the bacteria is killed, then the candida gets out of control.
In an healthy gut there should be a little candida, a lot of good bacteria and a little bad bacteria plus omega oils, zinc, vitamin C and vitamin B.
Bacteria is killed by antibiotics, stress, anaesthetics and a very poor diet which includes too many sugary foods.
What keeps a gut healthy are vegetables and fruits and oily fish. Bacteria is produced by eating these foods and bacteria makes some B vitamins.
If your gut is healthy then your body will be, because the healthy gut will break down the food so that the blood stream can receive it and deliver it to the various parts.
In an unhealthy gut, poor absorption of nutrients takes place which puts the immune system on high alert as it tries to control what it percieves as toxins. The unhealthy gut doesn’t break down the food adequately and delivers particles into the blood stream that the immune system doesn’t recognise.
The body doesn’t get the nutrients it requires and the immune system causes allergic reactions to take place, both aspects causing illness in the body from ecezma to diabetes to heart disease.
We cannot avoid the antibiotics, anaesthetics or stress most of the time but we can avoid a poor diet. It could also be argued that with a healthy gut there would be no need for antibiotics or anaesthetics and the stress would be coped with better.
A poor diet would include foods that contain few nutrients or those foods that can actually cause health problems.
The bad foods are:
- Refined vegetable oils
- Breads made from ordinary wheat
- Margarines and all health spreads
- Mayonnaises
- Cakes, biscuits and pastries
- Pies, pasties and pizza
- All bought cereal products
- White pasta from what I am calling ordinary wheat including durum wheat
- Fizzy drinks
- Fruit squash
- Concentrates
- Non organic milk
- Non organic yoghurt
- Non organic cheeses
- Non organic eggs
- Non organic meat
- Fish from polluted seas
I think this list just about covers most foods! Makes life pretty miserable really doesn’t it? Don’t be downhearted there is good news, read on.
The good foods to eat:
- Bread, cakes, pastries, biscuits, pasta, pizza and pies made from Organic Wholemeal Spelt flour
- Whole grains ie rice, oats etc
- Beans and pulses
- Butter from New Zealand or organic
- Organic milk
- Organic yoghurt
- Organic cheese
- Olive Oil only the extra virgin
- Unrefined vegetable oils only extra virgin
- Freshly squeezed fruit juices
- Water
- Unrefined brown sugar
- Sea Salt
- And all the organic fruit and veg you want.
Let me now explain why you shouldn’t eat the foods from the first list.
Basically many of the foods in the first list have been altered in some way.
Refined vegetable oils
The following quote is from Dr Sears
Most of the oils you’ll find in the supermarket have not only been extracted with heat or solvents, but have also been refined with potentially toxic substances. These processes improve shelf life and make oil cheap to produce, but they take the product further away from its natural state and leave chemical residues behind. If the label does not boast that the oil is “unrefined,” you can assume that it has been through some kind of chemical process that makes it worse for your health.
The Dr Sears website is useful but I totally disagree with what he says about coconut oil so check The Coconut Research Center
Most vegetable oils contain Omega 6 and although the body needs Omega 6 the food industry is flooding the market with it and we are getting more than we need. Omega 6 when not in balance with Omega 3 can cause inflammatory conditions.
The ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 should be 4:1 but in America the ratio is now 20:1 and it is thought that this is causing much of the obesity.
There is also some thought that refined oils interfere with female hormones causing all manner of hormonal problems. Soya is a prime example. Please click on this link Soya for an interesting and disturbing article about soya.
Breads made from ordinary wheat
Most of the bread in the UK is made from Canadian wheat which has been treated to contain more gluten. Gluten is a gut irritant anyway but in larger amounts causes the disease caeliac to sensitive individuals. It is important that the whole wheat grain is consumed as this is where most of the nutrients are. With the kernal removed to make white bread flour you are then exposed to poor and inadequate nutrition and possibly providing substances that the body doesn’t recognise because it arrives without all its constituent parts. People eating rice without the kernal got a disease called Beriberi. This is why I wonder what eating wheat without the kernal is doing to individuals.
Margarines and all health spreads
These are made from vegetable oils. Highly likely to be made from the refined vegetable oils. All oils are runny. So despite what it says on the lid, something abnormal has been done to that runny oil to make it more solid.
There is another margarine/health spread on the market which actively stops cholesterol from entering the blood stream so the advertising says. I can only see this as highly dangerous to health. The body needs cholesterol but it makes its own so it doesn’t need any more as such, but what will this spread do to the cholesterol already required by the body? The brain needs cholesterol to function.
There is so much bad press about cholesterol and it is misunderstood. Wherever cholesterol is found in nature there is another fat called lecithin. Lecithin acts as a washing-liquid (emulsifier) to cholesterol and flushes it out of the body. Lecithin is easily destroyed by heat. So eat butter cold, and eggs with the yolks soft.
A scientist called Linus Pauling became a Nobel Prize winner with his discovery that Vitamin C and an amino acid called Lycine also helped the body get rid of cholesterol.
However sugar and finely graded ‘white’ flours can cause fatty deposits because sugar and finely graded ‘white’ flours are broken down in the body to further sugars and stored in the liver for energy. If that energy is not used then it is stored in the body as fat. It is the sugars and finely graded ‘white’ flours that need to be reduced to keep fat deposits and ‘cholesterol’ worries at bay.
Mayonnaises
These are made from refined oils which are a no no see the section above on refined oils. (Make your own from Olive Oil)
Cakes, biscuits and pastries
Pies, pasties and pizza
All bought cereal products
White pasta from what I am calling ordinary wheat including durum
All these products are made from finely graded grains without their kernals. They will also contain refined oils and sugars and other additives. Best to make your own from the good food list.
Fizzy drinks
Full of sugar or sugar substitutes and additives – a total waste of time as there is nothing nutritious about these products
Fruit squash
Full of sugar or sugar substitutes and additives – a total waste of time as there is nothing nutritious about these products
Concentrates
Stale product having been stored for some time so lacking in nutrients.
Non organic milk
Non organic yoghurt
Non organic cheeses
Non organic eggs
Non organic meat
Best to avoid because of the processes and husbandry methods involved. Go for Organic especially where milk is concerned and where you know where the cows have been farmed.
Fish from polluted seas
Because these fish will be full of pollutants. Check with your fishmonger or eat North Atlantic fish (seas less polluted).
Oily fish is especially important to eat because it contains fatty acids called EPA and DHA. The brain is mainly DHA. The body needs these Omega fish oils as well as Omega 6 seed oils in a ratio of 4:1. 4 parts of Omega 6 to 1 part Omega 3. With the influx of all the vegetable oils in our foods from the processed, pre-packaged to ready meals, take-aways, chinese and curries it is thought we need to increase the Omega 3 fish oils to compensate for the discrepency.
However as far as candida is concerned Omega 3 fish oils is thought to inhibit candida.
Aloe Vera too may help support the good bacteria, drink a capful each day.
So here is the diet for candida to keep it at bay and to increase good bacteria.
Breakfast
Oats or homemade muesli and a banana
Lunch
Lettuce, tomatoes, tuna fish (fresh tuna contains more omega oils than tinned and don’t eat the tinned tuna in oil!)
Supper
Whatever you fancy from the good food list providing a third of your plate as green and orange veg, another third as protein and the last third as carbohydrates from whole grains. The whole plate to provide about 1000 calories. We only need approximately 5 ounces of meat/protein a day. But we do need it so don’t have any less than that!
No sweets, no sugar or chocolates. None. Not one.
You could make your own chocolate from organic cocoa powder, unrefined seed oil such as sunflower or blackcurrent, unrefined sugar or honey, and a little hot water. It is messy and gooey but not a bad chocolate fix for the odd (and I mean odd) occasion!
You may need a digestive enzyme to aid your digestion. If you get a lot of heartburn then bizarely enough you probably don’t have enough stomach acid. Taking betaine hydroxide just before a meal will really help that! (It is what I take and it is fantastic, I haven’t had heartburn for months!)
Cyder vinegar, honey and hot water also helps with digestion and upset stomachs. It tastes a little like hot cider.
Smoking depletes the body of vital Vit C another gut nutrient so if you can, give up smoking.
Just a word about probiotic products and supplements:
There are reports that say that the bacteria in yoghurt and supplements don’t actually get to the gut.
Other reports that profess that the bacteria in supplements is dead by the time you get it.
Other reports that say that the bacteria is stomach acid resistant. (what have ‘they’ done to it?) (does that make it gut resistant too therefore what is the point of taking it?)
Other reports that say that fruit and flavourings found with yoghurt and yoghurt drinks KILL the bacteria.
And then there was another company advertising a probiotic supplement that contains beneficial bacteria (apparently) AND a dead nasty bacteria (why?) lemon juice (fruit acid kills the good bacteria). Which all conspired to make me finally throw my hands up in complete and utter confusion!!!!
So I feel that I am throwing my money away by buying probiotics.
So try the food friendly diet first and see if your candida concerns are lifted after a month or three.
Two Topical lotions
External sore or itchy areas
If you have severe itchy and uncomfortable skin you could try this method:
Very gently slough off the dead skin in the itchy area with a rough sponge and unperfumed soap for sensitive skins.
Apply neat tea-tree if you can tolerate it or 2 drops of tea-tree to 5 mls of Olive oil to the sore area.
If you cannot tolerate tea-tree, then spray colloidal silver on the area and allow to dry and then apply aloe vera gel to soothe or aloe vera gel mixed with a little olive oil. I find this very soothing.
Internal sore or itchy areas
If the candida infection is internal then dilute 4 drops of tea-tree to 10 mls of extra virgin olive oil and 10 mls of Aloe Vera.(only use tea-tree if you know you are not allergic to it)
Put into a spray bottle and spray up into the internal area and wipe the lotion around the outside. Repeat 3 times a day.
Apply neat tea-tree directly onto the abdomen and massage all around the area.
If you are allergic to tea-tree then try Colloidal silver is anti-fungal, anti-viral and antibacterial and can be used undiluted.
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