Busted Candida Myths (and how to properly address candida!) What is wrong with The Candida Diet? What is wrong with the popular Candida Diet? And what is a safer, healthier solution to eliminate candida overgrowth? You are in the right place and asking the right questions, because I have some answers for you! Those were the common questions I received on my popular post How to Eat Sugar. These anti- candida protocols all eliminate natural sugars like honey and fruit as well as starchy vegetables like winter squash and carrots. It sounds like a scary concept. Believe me, I was also hesitant to start incorporating healthy sugars back into my diet after my short and extraordinarily unpleasant stint on The Candida Diet. I am grateful that I escaped harmful candida myths, because now I’m healing my body and addressing the root cause of my candida overgrowth. So, without further ado, here are the three problems I have with The Candida Diet: 1. The Candida Diet doesn’t address the root cause. First, candida overgrowth results from poor digestion and a leaky gut. Why? Undigested food particles cause injury to the small intestine. This damages the villi and microvilli. Microvilli contain cells that produce the enzyme disaccharidase which breaks down disaccharides. But when the microvilli are damaged, disaccharidase production slows or halts. This leads to impaired digestion of disaccharides, bacterial overgrowth (and candida overgrowth), and an increase in gut- damaging bacterial by- products. It also allows undigested food particles to escape from the intestines into the bloodstream, causing food allergies or sensitivities. The cycle worsens over time (Source and source). Removing disaccharides (which are found in things like grains, potatoes and table sugar) from the diet and supporting digestion with probiotics allows the microvilli to heal and the gut lining to seal. To heal the root cause of candida, leaky gut must be addressed. Please read my post The Leaky Gut Guide, which includes everything I wished I knew when I first began to improve my gut health. Sugar- free may equal systemic candida overgrowth. Second, eliminating natural sugars (like fruit and honey) from the diet when one has candida overgrowth can actually exacerbate the candida issue and cause systemic candida overgrowth: Starved candida needs sugar and so will travel upwards through the intestines in search of it. If no sugar is found, candida will project invasive filaments into the intestinal wall, pass into the bloodstream, and – if not quickly destroyed by white blood cells – become systemic. The Candida Diet impairs metabolism and hormone function. A sugar free diet will elevate stress hormones, which exhausts the adrenals, reduces thyroid hormones, and taxes the body. The first few months of a sugar free or intensely low carb diet will bring weight loss and a burst of energy due to the surging stress hormones. After the “honeymoon period” however, the toll of the stress hormones will impair the thyroid. The suppressed thyroid function will, in turn, slow the metabolism and cause the weight gain and fatigue. I believe the GAPS diet is an extraordinary healing tool, but I have found that I reap even greater healing benefits by utilizing metabolic principles with the GAPS diet. This means favoring “warming” foods: foods that boost metabolism and support healthy hormones. Candida abhors a fast metabolism – the better your metabolism, the more effectively your cells will be able to use fuel for your own health. Yes, I know the idea that fat, sugar and salt speeds the metabolism is unorthodox and strange. But it’s true! Caloric and sugar reduction only slows metabolism – a fact recognized by doctors and health practitioners. For details on using salt and sugar to speed up your metabolism, read my post about Metabolic Hydration here. What do I do now? We are all bioindividuals, so there is no one- size- fits- all solution when it comes to a healing diet. I can, however, give you a few places to start. I believe a grain free diet such as the Autoimmune Paleo diet or the GAPS diet is very effective in sealing a leaky gut and addressing the root issue of candida. Also importantly, this is not an excuse to go overboard on natural carbs like fruits, honey, sweet potatoes, etc. Although healthy when balanced with fats and protein, too much can wreak havoc on your blood sugar and perpetuate inflammation and candida. Gaps Diet Fat Digestion ExperimentFor tips about eating carbs for health, read my post 1. Ways to Balance Blood Sugar Naturally. A third resource I use to kick candida overgrowth is my raw goat milk yogurt. Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAP Syndrome or GAPS) is a condition which establishes a connection between the functions of the digestive system and the brain. RHR: The Ketogenic Diet and Cancer; Two Reasons Conventional Medicine Will Never Solve Chronic Disease; All About Wine, Part 2: The Health Benefits and Risks. Bile or gall is a dark green to yellowish brown fluid, produced by the liver of most vertebrates, that aids the digestion of lipids in the small intestine. Photo credit: Beth Phillips. Click on the following links to read the other posts in this series: Healing Digestion: Part 2 – Digestive Tonics. The Perfect Health Diet. Here’s our Perfect Health Diet food plate: NOTE: This is our new food plate, updated 2015. Foreign translations of the original food plate. In this Blog I examine Paul Jaminet's Safe Starch Controversy related to the GAPS Protocol Diet. The GAPS Diet meant to heal psychiatric, digestive and auto. Fat malabsoprtion, also called steatorrhea or fat maldigestion, is the inability to properly digest fats. Many people experience fat malabsorption without knowing it. WebMD offers a pictorial overview of the symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of type 2 diabetes. Interestingly, raw goat milk yogurt has anti- candida properties (source) and the probiotics help bring gut flora into a healthy balance. I also drink 1/2 to 1 tsp. Stevia is often used in copious amounts to fulfill sugar cravings, when sugar is reduced from the diet. Unfortunately, as I explain here, it can have a negative effect on blood sugar and thereby increase hunger and cravings. Are you struggling with candida? Do you follow The Candida Diet? Gaps Diet and Safe Starches Controversy, Dr. Natasha Campbell- Mc. Bride, Judy Tsafrir M. D., Gaps Practitioner MAI love rice. All varieties, white and brown, short and long grain, nutty basmati and fragrant jasmine. I love spicy Thai and Indian curries over mounds of rice, and even eating rice with just butter and salt. It’s the ultimate comfort food for me. Others have similar feelings about potatoes. Paul Jaminet’s categorization of rice as a “safe starch”, was immediately a very seductive and appealing notion to my ears. I have been following the “safe starch” controversy (see link for a wonderful summary of the debate at Jimmy Moore’s LLVLC ) with interest, and have felt both surprised and not surprised, by the sustained and heated controversy it has generated. Gaps Diet Fat Digestion OccursI have received several e- mails from readers asking me about my take on this subject. My surprise about the duration and passion of the controversy has to do with how clear it is to me, that for individuals with insulin resistance, carbohydrate intolerance and metabolic syndrome, it does not make sense. My lack of surprise about it, is related to the power of wishes. At least for some of us. Freud was very interested in wishes. They feature prominently in dreams, where the dreamer dreams something that she/he unconsciously wishes or fears is true. It also happens in waking life, when through an exercise of the imagination, we believe what serves or comforts us, or resolves a conflict. For me, the wish that rice would be a safe starch is not unconscious. But unfortunately for me, and for other GAPS patients, categorizing rice as a safe starch, would fulfill a lovely desire, but would ignore reality. Ignoring reality generally has a painful cost. One peculiar and puzzling aspect of this controversy, is that Paul Jaminet asserts that these safe starches are protective against the ravages of dysbiosis. He contends that safe starches facilitate mucous production in the bowel, thereby protecting the wall of the intestine. Without consuming safe starches, the gut wall is vulnerable to damage by pathogenic microflora. This specifically contradicts the theory of dysbiosis according to Dr. Natasha Campbell- Mc. Bride of the GAPS healing protocol. Campbell- Mc. Bride, whose recommendations are in the tradition of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, teaches that starches which are metabolized to disaccharides, such as all grains, sugar, and starchy vegetables, specifically feed the pathogenic microflora. These pathogens overwhelm the beneficial protective microflora, and thereby compromise the integrity of the bowel wall. This is the root cause of many disease states, as microflora, toxins, and food particles, which should remain within the bowel, diffuse out into the body causing inflammation and infection in the body and the brain. Both Jaminet and Campbell- Mc. Bride are addressing precisely the same issue, but are asserting the opposite. Hmmmm. Though I did not attend the Weston Price Wise Traditions conference in Dallas several weeks ago, I heard that in his lecture, Paul Jaminet referred to GAPS as a ketogenic diet. This is by no means accurate. GAPS is not even really particularly low carb. For those individuals who are not insulin resistant, and who can tolerate it, fruit and honey are a regular part of the diet, though should not exceed 1. Hence “specific carbohydrate” diet). In her clinic in England, Dr. Campbell- Mc. Bride has seen thousands of patients with psychiatric, auto- immune and digestive issues, who she has successfully treated with the GAPS healing protocol, which specifically excludes all grains, sugar and starchy vegetables. In a communication to me regarding the “safe starch” issue, she wrote that she has not seen one GAPS patient who needed starch in any form, if the program is conducted properly. There is an interesting blog post about the GAPS healing protocol last month from the Nourishing Gourmet, which is followed by a series of comments that are even more interesting. Some individuals reported feeling a lack of energy after having initially felt well on GAPS. My guess is that this is likely due to blood sugar issues, as well as die- off from the pathogenic microflora, as they are starved of their usual nutrients, i. In those cases, Dr. Campbell- Mc. Bride recommends creating a mixture of equal parts butter or coconut oil and honey, and consuming a spoonful every 3. For those who have been on the diet for an extended period of time, and equate their fatigue with a need for more carbohydrate in their diet, there are GAPS legal foods which are high in carbohydrate, such as winter squash and carrots. I do not personally understand why grains or other non- permitted starchy vegetables such as potatoes or yams are necessary for energy, or for mucous production, for that matter. There are multiple sources of permitted carbohydrates on the the GAPS diet. For those individuals who are not suffering from insulin resistance or a metabolic disorder, who do not have digestive, psychiatric or auto- immune issues, there seems to be no reason to leave these starches out of the diet. They are delicious, add variety and do not have the damaging effect that gluten has on so many individuals. The GAPS protocol is not intended as a life long dietary prescription. It is meant to heal psychiatric, digestive and auto- immune conditions. After healing has occurred, an individual may return to eating properly prepared grains and starchy tubers. We all know that one size does not fit all, and that each individual needs to take any health protocol, and adjust it to her/his needs and monitor the effect. It would be wonderful if some omniscient doctor could tell us exactly what we need to do, but we all need to take responsibility for tailoring any dietary recommendations and adapting them to our own unique physiology. One woman wrote to me that she followed the GAPS diet with much improvement, but her vision deteriorated. When she began to eat rice, her vision improved. Who knows what this is about? If I were her, I would definitely eat rice. As Dr Natasha writes, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” Despite the advice of experts, we all need to ultimately find our own way. I always liked this saying, “Go, pilgrim, there is no path, the path is made by walking.” This is true for much about living, but I think particularly so when it comes to diet. Linked to Monday Mania. Real Food Wednesday.
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