Anti Candida Diet - DOs & DONTs

I realized I've been posting recipes and all kinds of info but here is the nitty gritty of the diet.

FOODS YOU CAN EAT

Starches and Whole Grains:

• Brown Rice
• Quinoa
• Millet
• Amaranth

Fruit:

• Papaya (one a day)
• Avocados

Vegetables:

1. (No tomato, potato, eggplant, bell peppers, corn, mushrooms, and soybeans)

• Artichoke
• Argula
• Asparagus
• Beans (except SOY)
• Beet Greens
• Beets
• Bok Choy
• Broccoli
• Brussel Sproats
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Chestnuts
• Collard Greens
• Cucumber
• Dandelion Greens
• Endive
• Fennel
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Kale
• Leeks
• Legumes
• Lettuce (all varieties)
• Mustard Cabbage
• Okra
• Ong Choy
• Onions
• Parsley
• Parsnip
• Peas
• Radish
• Rhubard
• Seaweed
• Spinach
• Sproats
• Squash (All Varities)
• Swiss Chard
• Taro/Poi
• Turnip Greens
• Watercress
• Zucchini
• Pumpkin
• Breadfruit
• Bamboo Shoots
• Burdock (aka Gobo)
• Kabocha
• Nori (dried seaweed flake, no soy sauce)

High Proteins:

1. (No pork, eggs, commercially grown chicken and beef)

• Beans
• Legumes
• Turkey
• Turkey Sausage
• Turkey Bacon
• Turkey Hot Dogs
• Turkey Deli Slices
• Fish
• Shellfish (if not allergic)
• Cornish Game Hen
• Roast Duck (no skin)
• Chicken (free range or hormone free ONLY)
• Lamb
• Buffalo
• Beef (free range only)
• Whole Grains (listed above)

Oils:

1. (No canola, corn, soy, or safflower oils)

• Olive Oil
• Sesame Oil
• Flaxseed Oil

Spices:

• Almond Extract
• Vanilla Extract
• Fresh Herbs/Spices
• Arrowroot Powder (gravy and thickner)
• Braggs Liquid Aminos

Nuts and Seeds:

1. (No peanuts, cashews, pistachio, walnut, and macadamia)

• Almond
• Filbert
• Pecan
• Pumpkin
• Brazil
• Flax
• Pinenut
• Sesame
• Sunflower

Snacks:

• Almond Butter
• Dried Shrimp
• Hummus
• Taro Chips (1/2 bag per day)
• Brown Rice Cakes
• Lemon (1 per day)
• Hazelnut Butter
• Tahini (Sesame Seed Butter)

Drinks:

1. (No milk, soda, diet soda, and juice of all types)

• Almond Milk (1/2 cup per day)
• Rice Milk (1/2 cup per day)
• Club Soda
• Perrier Water
• Tea (green and black only)

Vitamins and Herbs:

• Must be hypoallergenic
• No Yeast
• No Wheat
• No Dairy
• No Eggs
• No Corn
• No Soy
• No Sugar

FOODS YOU CAN'T EAT

Gluten and Casein (dairy products) Foods:
Wheat, barley, rye, oats, milk, butter, ice cream, yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, eggs, sour cream

All Types of Sugar and Sugar Containing Foods:
All artificial sweetners, corn sweetner, fruit drinks, ice cream, pies, cakes, boxed cereals, corn syrup, fruit juices, jellies, jams, preservatives, sugar (beet, corn, brown, cane, fruit, white, turbinado), dates, galatose, koolaid, raisins, canned fruit, dried fruits, glucose, lactose, soda, cookies, fructose, honey, maple syrup, maltose, sucrose, maltodextrin, maltitol, sorbitol, xylitol, twinkies, nutrasweet, sucralose, fruit concentrate, ace k, chocolate, candy, hard candy, white rice, alcohol, stevia (*note to readers: I USE STEVIA because it's a non fermenting plant that is known not to feed yeast)

All Breads, Noodles, Pasta, Crackers and Pastry (All Flours)

Fermented, Moldy, and Malted Products:
Baker's Yeast, cornstarch, maled milk, soy sauce, tamari, truffles, brewer's yeast, all flours, mushrooms, kim chee, takuwan, yeast, shoyu, miso, natto, beer, wine, vinegar

Nuts and Seeds:
Peanut, Peanut Butter, Cashew, Pistachio, Macadamia Nuts, Walnut

Drinks:
Alcohol (beer, wine, liquor), coffee, fruit juice/drinks (can/bottle,frozen), soda

Vinegar Containing Foods, Condiments, and Sauces:
Catsup (Ketchup), mayonnaise, cocktail olives, sauces, chili, mince pie, pickles, sauerkraut, mustard, salad dressing, sushi, namasu

Food Preservative, Colorings, and Enhancers:
MSG, red dyes, yellow dyes, blue dyes, green dyes, aspartame, nutrasweet, saccharin, sucralose, BHT

Other Common Foods to Avoid:
Bell peppers (all colors), tomato, potato (sweet and white), corn, wheat, eggplant, soybean, mushroom, tofu, egg, pork, noodles (all types), crackers (all types), bread (all types), coffee, white rice, beer, wine, juice

All Antibiotic, Corticosteroid, and Estrogen Medications:
These medications can be used when necessary. Many infections are caused by virus and do not respond to antibiotic medications. If you have a cold or flu, call the doctor for alternative treatment first.

My Quasi Hawaiian Plate Lunch

Pork is restricted on this diet so those yummy plate lunches of kalua pig and mac salad and even the lomi lomi salmon is gone! (no tomatoes on this diet as they are a common allergen).

Our plate will have brown rice or poi, kalua turkey, poke, & green salad. We can try something different for the lomi lomi salmon but half of the point is the wonderful liquer that develops when white and green onions, salted salmon, and tomatoes get "lomi'd" into one another.

Brown Rice, Poi, and Green Salad are the basics that need no recipes. Cook your brown rice, buy your poi at the store, and make a simple green salad (dress with little lemon, oil, and Braggs)

Kalua Turkey
Ingredients:
1/2 head of cabbage
1 container of Kalua Turkey
The ingredients list turkey and salt and in local grocery stores, it's found in the same area as the prepackage lau laus and kalua pig.

This is so simple it can only be called a meal idea. Cut up your caggage, dump your kalua turkey into a pan to heat (a tablespoon or two of olive oil helps but isn't necessary). Once your turkey is heated throw in your cabbage and let it slightly wilt. That's it, I told you it was simple.

Poke
Ingredients:
1/2 pound of firm ahi
White and green onion
Sesame oil
Braggs

This recipe is only for those times when Shoyu Poke is the only thing available. Basically, cut up the ingredients, mix them in a bowl and use just a bit of oil and a splash of Braggs. If you've got limu (seaweed) on hand, you can use that. Of you can omit the Braggs and oil and use inamona (Kukui Nut) for a Hawaiian style poke.

That's all for the plate.

Diet Safe Munchies!

Here's an update on store bought items safe for the diet.

Raquel's All Natural Hummus

• It's basically all the ingredients in my homemade hummas but it's done for you. Sometimes you don't have a blender or a vitamix so this stuff is the next best thing. I found mine at Down To Earth for just under 4 dollars. For those on a budget, the store bought brand is exactly the same as the homemade stuff only it's 2 to 3 times the cost.

Edward & Sons Brown Rice Snaps - Unsalted Sesame (this flavor only!)

• The ingredients list brown rice and sesame seeds, that's it. According to the labels, this Japan based company takes their brown rice flour, slightly steams it then bakes it (with the sesame seeds of course). What comes out a a thin, round rice cracker, similiar in flavor to those rice crackers you get as Omiyage when someone comes back from Japan, sized like a small Ritz cracker but alot thinner. There's under 70 crackers in the pack and it cost about 4 dollars a package. Pretty pricey for crackers so I'm dying to find a recipe that will allow me to make it for less!

Tinkyada Brown Rice Pasta or Eden Brown Rice Swirls

• Both list the same ingredients, brown rice, water, and in some cases brown rice bran. The Tinkyada line isn't really "new" to me as I've been using their products (fettucine, spaghetto, penne, and spirals) since the beginning of my start on the diet. The Eden bran is a new find so I have yet to know if it stands up to the Tinkyada line but I'll be sure to post about it once used

Perrier, Vanilla or Almond Extract, and some Stevia

• This is Kala's (semi) diet safe soda recipe. He uses about 5 drops of vanilla and 8 to 10 drops of stevia (we're using liquid for cold drinks, powder for hot drinks). I say semi because stevia isn't on our list but again, we're using it because we fine that this pure plant, non fermenting sweet leaf works for us.

I'll add more as I find them or remember them!

Homemade Hummus

I can't remember where I got my first recipe but I chucked it and went based on flavor and the convience of my Vitamix.

Ingredients:
1 can of garbanzo beans
1/3 of the bean liquer in the can
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsps olive oil
3 tbsps tahini (sesame seed grounded into paste)
1 small lemon (juiced)

I take everything on the ingredients list and throw it in a vitamix or a blender. Once it's mixed together, into a tupperware and into the fridge for chilling. If desired, top with a whirl of olive oil and pinenuts.

Hummus comes in handy for rice cakes, any fresh crudites, and especially in lettuce wraps which will be a recipe I'll post later.

Rice Cake Toppings

Brown Rice Cakes are listed as one of the few snack items allowed in my diet. So it's a task to find ways to make them interesting. On any other day I'd rather suck on my own thumb than chew thru a brown rice cake but I've got no choice, so creativity must serve me well in this situation.

Here's a few ideas:

Homemade Hummus with 1 or some

1. pieces of roasted chicken
2. flaked salmon
3. clover sproats
4. shredded carrots
5. pinenuts

Avocados with 1 or some

1. black pepper
2. shredded turkey breast (try the kalua turkey!!!!)
3. carmelized onions (it's a hassle to cook them but oh so yummy!)
4. hamburger (must be organic but you can get it easy at Costco or A'ala Meats)
5. sproats/onions/carrots/lettuce
   

Hazelnut or Almond Butter

• Both butters are sugarfree so they are very concentrated flavors. A couple drops of stevia makes it a yummy treat.

That's simple enough. Brown rice cakes basically become your bread substitute. It helps to toast them (Thanks Kala!) and remember that the salt-free and lighty salted Lundberg's Brown Rice Cakes are the only flavors in that line that are diet safe. No Tamari or sugar flavors allowed.

Beef Soup with Okra

This was an on the fly recipe based off the fact that you can start many filipino soups by boiling meat and onions, ginger and garlic and then adding in different veggies and accoutremant to change the flavor profile. I got a few pounds of meat from my local free range meat seller (A'ala Meats on Kalihi St in Oahu, their free range meat comes from Maui and is fed pineapple during the last couple weeks of life to sweeten the meat, they have great stew meat and most other cuts, depending on time and day), a couple different veggies, and my normal seasoning arsenal.

Ingredients:
3 to 4 pounds of stew meat
2 large onions
1 thumb sized amount of ginger
3 cloves of garlic
Braggs or salt & pepper to season
1 bag of okra
*I used Pictsweet Frozen. If you're got fresh okra, better but be forewarned that okra will make the soup thick by making it slightly slimy. I love okra and it's texture but some people hate it. Find a main veggie to substitute okra if you can't take it.
1 cup carrots
I cup summer squash (although I should have used zucchini, it tastes better....)
4 cups cooked brown rice
*I used brown rice that had a mix of short and long grain brown rice, red lentils, and pinto beans all cooked in a rice cooker the normal way you'd cook rice if it were sans lentils and beans.
Olive oil (if needed, in this soup I used barely any because the stew meat was semi fatty)

First I prepped all my veggies; sliced my onions, peeled and cut my ginger into discs (I remove them later), get my garlic cloves whole and cut the okra, carrots, and zucchini into 1/2 thick pieces. I cut my stew meat into bite size pieces so it's easier to eat.

Heat a soup pot then begin to dry sear the beef. It'll render it's own fat so oil will eventually come. I salt and pepper a little at this stage. After this it's so easy it's almost stupid. Once the beef is nice and browned, I throw in (maybe?) 12 cups of water, the 2 cut up raw onions, a couple tablespoons off Braggs, the 3 cloves of garlic, a little more pepper, and a pinch of salt for good measure.

After an hour or more of boiling (remember, save energy by bringing your pot to a boil then turning it down to a low temp, the liquid in your pot keeps boiling and maintains itself with the low heat) check on the meat to see if it's gone tender. If not, boil longer, if so, throw in your veggies and cooked rice and allow it to simmer together for another 20 minutes or half hour (or however long you can wait before diving into the pot and eating it all up). Also, throughout the boiling stage, make sure to keep the water level even, if your liquid has boiled down, add more water to the boil so you keep the same volume you started with. Season with Braggs, salt, pepper, whatever that's allowed or needed to get it where you think it should be. Let it cool then eat it up!

P.S. Remember that okra was used so expect a soup that's thick and slimy. If you're like me, you'll lap it up like a hungry little puppy. The soup isn't so think so you can serve the soup over more brown rice, you just end up eating a lot of brown rice....

Olive & Spinach Pasta

This recipe is for the pasta but I usually serve it up with a nice fatty salmon steak, simply pan-fried or grilled with salt/pepper with a splash of lemon and/or Braggs.

Ingredients:
Brown Rice Pasta Spirals
Spinach
Canned Black Olives
Garlic
Olive Oil
Black Pepper

The brown rice pasta was the most exciting thing, when I found it at DownToEarth. It's just brown rice and water, milled a certain way mixed with water and dried into nice spirals or noodles. I like the spirals. I set a pot of water boiling, then fill the pot with enough pasta for 2. I cover the pot and let it boil for 2 minutes then turn it off completely (still covered) and let stand for 10 minutes. By then, the pasta comes out cooked, you saved energy, and you're almost done with your dish.

I slice the black olives into rounds and wash the spinach. A couple cloves of chopped garlic get sauteed in olive oil. Add the olives with some salt and pepper, then some spinach. Once it's wilted, I add the cooked pasta. A couple of stirs till it's all heated together and onto a plate with that sauteed salmon.

The Basic Stir-Fry

Stir-frys are your best friend on the yeast free diet. This is a basic recipe. Mix up the veggies and protein and you've got another meal.

Ingredients: (measure yourself! what you throw in is what you get)
*the batch pictures below contains:
Shrimp
Chicken
Garlic
Cabbage
Carrots
Zucchini
Mung Bean Sproats
Water
Braggs
Arrowroot powder
Salt/Pepper

All that got wok fried in some olive oil. Garlic first, chicken next, carrots then zucchini, mung beans sproats and cabbage then shrimp. Make a slurry made from a tablespoon of braggs, a tablespoon of arrowroot powder, and 1/2 cup water. Pour the slurry over your stir-fry and stir so the arrowroot doesn't overcook and become gummy. Arrowroot replaces corn starch as a thickener here and creates a mildly thick sauce for your stir fry.

2 Green Sauces

These are 2 sauces I'll make in batches and use on different things.

The first is pistou, it's like the french version of pesto as it contains no parmesian cheese.

The second is a my best attempt at a cold ginger sauce.

I say attempt because I'm almost certain the cold ginger sauce you can find slathered on chilled chicken at a chinese restaurant is made with canola oil. It's thinner than olive oil (the only real "cooking" oil we're allowed and even then, it's common knowledge that heating your olive oil for heavy cooking isn't good for you).

Pistou Sauce:
2 large bunches of basil
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup pinenuts
1/2 (or more) of olive oil

I stick it all into the vitamix till it's well mixed together. I'd pulse the vitamix or you'll end up with really green and oily stuff. It keeps really well for quite a while in the fridge. I keep mine in an old cleaned our jelly jar or mayo jar, whatever you got on hand.

I've used pistou sauce for my (brown rice) pasta spirals, on top of chicken, really good with shrimp, mixed with a little lemon and Braggs as a salad dressing. It goes as far as you want it to.

Cold Ginger Sauce:
1 thumb size pieces of ginger
2 bunches of green onion
Olive oil too cover

Pretty simple, like the first. Cut off the green onion into small pieces, peel and cut up the ginger into discs or strips. Throw the green onion, ginger, and some olive into the vitamix and let it whirl. Same storage method as the pistou and ditto on the shelf life. I love this sauce on (tada!!!) cold chicken, freshly pan fried ahi steaks, with lemon and Braggs for use as a salad dressing, and so on and so forth.

The Soup Base

I call this the Soup Base because I start a lot of soups off this way, varying them by adding a spice here and there or an equation of varying veggies. One pot may get kabocha, zucchini, and carrots, another spinach & parnips. Also, I rarely ever measure things, I eye-ball a lot so this recipe is loose and even better, yummy!

Basic Ingredients:
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to season (couple TBSPs or more)
1 large onion
2 medium carrots
4 medium celery stalks
4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1 & 1/2 cup brown rice or Lundberg's Brown Rice Mix
1 cup yellow split peas
1 cup green split peas

Start by cutting up your onion, carrots, and celery. The french call it mirepoix, I call it the secret to great soup. I use a ceramic slicer (by Kyocera, it's yellow and I got it from Williams Sonoma) to make paper thin slices of all 3 veggies and it goes by faster than hand cutting it all. I've also used my mini food processor to get everything diced up but I find that using the thin slicer makes it break down better. I dunno, could be me but it works every time. You can slice all veggies into a big bowl and put aside.

With your chicken, just rinse and keep the skin on. Allow the water to drain off the chicken, you'll want the skin dry so you get a nice sear on the skin which in turn will add flavor to your soup.

In another bowl combine your split peas and rice and rise well. Set aside

To the stove! With your nice large soup pot on the hot stove, get your oil heated and cook down the mirepoix just enough to soften it. It's a lot of mirepoix but that's the point, all those veggies flavors melt nicely into the soup. After softened, push the mirepoix to the sides of the pot and make a space for the chicken thighs. Before you put the thighs in, reduce heat to 75%, then place them into the pot, skin down.

I usually take the mirepoix from the sides and pile it ontop of the thighs. I'll cover the pot, and let the heat sizzle the chicken skin till brown.

The split peas and rice get dumped in next and just tossed around for a bit (a minute or two). Then the whole mixture gets covered with enough water (12 cups more or less) to allow it all to cook . Allow the pot to come to a rolling bowl then turn the heat down and let it boil and boil. As the soup cooks, the split peas break down, the rice cooks, then starts to stew, and the chicken becomes soft. As the soup thickens, turn the heat down more and stir as needed. Take the thighs out and shred the meat off the bone, discard bone and skin (if you can find it). Return chicken to pot, check seasoning, and you're good to go! I'd say the whole thing takes 1 to 2 hrs depending on your speed, the stove top, and how hungry you are...

As far as seasoning goes, I usually salt and pepper everything after the split peas have broken down and the soup begins to thicken.

A few simple soup variations:

1. Use red lentils instead of split peas
2. Use ground chicken or turkey instead of chicken thighs
3. Add cut up fresh jalepeno to add kick to the soup
4. Add 2 or 3 different kinds of veggies to add texture

Always remember that cooking is about fine the flavors that you like. So don't be afraid to experiment and think about what you love to eat. I'm sure there's SOME way to make something like it that isn't full of preservatives and ingredients that take away from your health instead of adding to it.

Welcome Welcome!

Thanks to my best friend's persistant suggesting and the duration of time I've been on this Candida Combat diet as prescribed by my Naturopathic Doctor, it only made sense to collect all the recipes I've followed, made up, dreamed of, and collected (This is month four in the diet for my hubby and I).

As for the diet, it's a yeast-free, gluten-free, wheat-free, sugar-free, no carb, no preservative, organic meats, lots of fresh veggies, brown rice/quinoa/millet/amaranth for grains (only those....), no soy products, no nightshades, kind if diet. As described by the Doc, the diet will help (me) kill off a yeast overgrowth (pretty common in a lot of people....) and well as help my husband ween off his epileptic pharmaceutical meds (sugar is a trigger in most epilepsy cases, according to the Doc). So four months ago, we got the 2 page lists of DOs and DONTs and started on what felt like a deadening and un-holy restrictive diet.

What you will have to prepare yourself for is all the cooking you'll end of doing. I love to cook so it's not a big deal for me but the dishes and all that action in the kitchen sure will take up your time. Think of it this way, YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR ULTIMATE WEALTH. You get what you give, look at me getting all "wise".

Be prepped to hate the rest of the world for a little upfront. Soon it should get easier to pass by 7-11 without getting caught up in the ice cream and chips. You'll find that everything you'll be cooking is fresh, you'll be using fresh ingredients and you'll come to realize just how much of your old diet was filled with things most people can't pronounce.

I vote for fresh food. Check back for more recipes. And to the right is a great food list to get started, keep you going, and get you full. Happy Cooking!