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Review of the Candida Diet also known as the Anti-Candida Diet and why it typically does not produce desired results long-term with only short-term alleviation of symptoms.
Thinking of going on the Candida Diet to heal your gut and stop sugar and carb cravings?
While this may seem like a logical idea at first, be warned that it likely won’t heal you over the long term.
The article below explains why as well as my personal experience with it.
What is Candida Anyway?
Candida is a term that refers to a large family of yeasts, or one-celled fungi. Under normal circumstances, these organisms harmlessly inhabit the tissues of humans. This is because a balanced intestinal tract from mouth to colon contains a preponderance of beneficial bacteria that keep Candida in check.
When not enough beneficial bacteria are present in given body tissue to keep pathogenic yeasts under control, it transforms from a harmless state into an invasive species. In this rapidly growing state, Candida puts out long stringy hyphae or “roots”.
They have the ability to embed and penetrate through the gut wall and eventually cause leaky gut.
Candida overgrowth can occur in many tissues of the body. Well-known examples are oral candidiasis known as thrush, the scalp as dandruff, and vaginal yeast infections.
What Causes Fungal Overgrowth?
Candida is an opportunistic pathogen that can rapidly take over when a person is under a course of antibiotics. Antibiotics decimate beneficial gut flora but have little effect on Candida. This gives this normally harmless yeast the chance to take over dominance of the gut environment very quickly.
Many women don’t realize it, but oral contraceptives imbalance the gut in the same way as antibiotics. Again, this gives pathogenic strains of yeast an open door to take control.
A diet of processed foods high in sugars and simple carbohydrates also encourages Candida overgrowth as yeasts thrive on sugars.
Babies born via C-Section or to mothers who were treated with IV antibiotics during labor are especially vulnerable.
The reason is that they are not exposed to Mom’s healthy flora in the birth canal prior to birth.
Symptoms
Symptoms of Candida overgrowth are many the most common being fogginess in the morning upon waking (brain fog), digestive complaints of all kinds and a myriad of skin issues.
Many women plagued by yeast infections don’t realize that the source of the problem is actually their diet.
Over time, this leads to a pathogenic state in the gut environment. Using drugs and creams to resolve the problem is only a temporary solution when the source of the problem – gut imbalance – is not addressed head-on.
The Candida Diet
My husband and I tried the Candida Diet to resolve gut imbalance many years ago that had been exacerbated by our stressful and overworked lifestyle at the time.
It failed miserably!
Why?
The Candida Diet only goes part of the way in doing what is necessary to resolve gut imbalance.
It also did not include foods and supplements that help repair the intestinal damage caused by the overgrowth of pathogenic yeast.
For example, the Candida Diet removes sugar from the diet in all forms…even maple syrup and honey. Fresh fruit, however, is commonly allowed.
Candida overgrowth can frequently trigger an allergy to molds and other types of fungi. Hence, beneficial fermented foods including cheese are also eliminated along with any bread and other foods containing yeast.
Other foods excluded from the Candida Diet include vinegar, mushrooms, tea, coffee, dried fruit, and any form of fruit juices.
Temporary Improvement But No Healing
The typical scenario for a person who goes on the Candida Diet goes something like this:
- They feel better almost immediately primarily because all the sugar has been removed from their diet.
- They continue on the diet for some time perhaps many months or even a year. Pleased to see that symptoms diminish considerably during that time, they are convinced that the diet has “worked”.
- After a period of time, they try to reintroduce some of the foods that were removed. Sadly, they usually discover that their symptoms come raging back with full force.
- They realize that it is going to be next to impossible to continue the Candida Diet indefinitely. It is simply too hard to give up cheese and any and all sweets forever.
- They get discouraged, give up and stop the Candida Diet for good.
3 Reasons Why the Candida Diet Fails
The paradox of the Candida Diet is that symptoms greatly diminish. However, the patient doesn’t actually heal from the root cause of the problem which is a breach in the integrity of the gut lining.
Long-term healing is prevented on the Anti-Candida Diet for the following key reasons:
Reason #1
The Candida Diet allows starchy vegetables and tubers like sweet potato, cassava, yams, and arrowroot.
Note that some anti-candida diet practitioners recommend caution with these foods, but others do not.
Reason #2
The Candida Diet doesn’t include a small cup of traditional bone broth with every single meal. This is an incredibly necessary food for proper healing/sealing of the gut wall caused by candida overgrowth.
For more severe cases, short-cooked meat stock needs to be used and NOT bone broth. Some people cannot tolerate the glutamate in long-cooked broths.
Long-term gut healing is quite simply NOT going to occur without using the correct form of stock or broth.
Thus, any candida diet benefits will usually be temporary.
Reason #3
More important than the allowance of starch in the Candida Diet is the inclusion of grain-based foods. Some practitioners recommending the Candida Diet misguidedly include gluten-free grains.
Others recommend none at all (in an apparent scramble to mimic diets that actually work to fix the gut like GAPS and to a lesser extent the bone broth diet).
The bottom line is that there is no uniformity to what is recommended, hence, the protocol’s unreliability in providing relief over the long-term.
Anti-Candida Diet Shortfall
Even if the Candida Diet is used in conjunction with a gluten-free, casein-free diet, it fails in the majority of instances.
The reason is that disaccharides, or double sugars, are present in many carbohydrates including ALL grains – not just gluten-containing ones.
An inflamed, imbalanced gut overridden with Candida is unable to digest double sugar molecules completely. This occurs because the lack of beneficial gut flora has compromised the function of the enterocytes.
According to Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD, author of Gut and Psychology Syndrome and one of the key scientists at the forefront of gut restoration research today, the enterocytes are the cells that reside on the villi of the gut wall and produce the enzyme disaccharidase.
This enzyme breaks down the disaccharide molecule into easily absorbed monosaccharide molecules.
When the enterocytes are not nourished and strengthened properly by adequate beneficial flora, they become weak and diseased and may even turn cancerous. They do not perform their duties of digesting and absorbing food properly.
Undigested Food Nourishes Pathogenic Yeast
Weak and diseased enterocytes also have trouble digesting starch molecules. They are very large with hundreds of mono sugars connected in long branchlike strands.
People with weak digestion due to Candida overgrowth and messed up enterocytes have a terrible time digesting these complex molecules.
The result is a large amount of undigested starch in the gut. The putrefying matter is the perfect food for pathogenic yeasts, bacteria, and fungi like Candida to thrive upon.
Even the starch that manages to get digested results in molecules of maltose, which is — you guessed it — a disaccharide! This maltose also goes undigested due to a lack of the enzyme disaccharidase and becomes additional food for Candida.
Biggest Candida Diet Benefit
We’ve established that the Candida Diet usually fails miserably in resolving gut imbalance problems over the long haul.
However, it does include and recommend one fantastic herb that is very helpful for keeping Candida under control if only temporarily…Pau d’Arco tea.
I’ve found this herb is especially helpful during traveling (when the diet is less than optimal) or for a few days after you get home to get back on the wagon.
What is the Best Diet for Candida?
In conclusion, it is best not to waste your time with the Candida Diet. It doesn’t work in the majority of cases and you will ultimately feel frustrated in your efforts to heal over the long term.
The best diets for healing and sealing the gut wall and permanently rebalancing the gut environment are the GAPS Diet or the very similar SCD (Specific Carbohydrate) Diet.
To read more about the GAPS Diet and what the food list includes, check out this introductory post on using GAPS to heal autoimmune disease.
Also, this post The Five Most Common GAPS Diet Mistakes is a review of the most common pitfalls of this approach to gut healing.
Reference
Gut and Psychology Syndrome, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD
More Information
Macrobiotic Diet and Extreme Vitamin D Deficiency
Biofilms: Overlooked Step in Treating Candida
Can Candida Sufferers Drink Kombucha?
How to Take Probiotics
I wonder if the author of this article has ever really researched the Candida diet? Read Lisa Richards’ site, and you’ll see that glutinous grains are banned, and fruit is kept to a minimum.
This article doesn’t make any sense, because the author hasn’t gone to the trouble of doing some basic research.
This is one of the major problems with the Candida Diet .. it’s different depending on what “expert” you consult with. The nutritionist who guided my experience with it allowed rice and other grains. Exclusion of only gluten containing grains is still going to cause major issues. ALL grains AND starches must be excluded to heal … I would suggest the GAPS diet instead. The Candida Diet is a band-aid approach to gut healing.
I am preparing myself for a candida diet. My candida levels came back a “little” high. Can you have just a mild case?
I suffered from Candida yeast overgrowth, which I believe was the cause of my newly developed gluten intolerance and immune system. I followed the Candida Diet plan, tried the anti-fungals. The best one that worked for me is the Lady Soma Candida Cleanse because it is also far easier to ingest than to take drops of pungent oregano oil diluted in olive oil. It keeps my candida under control – if I feel the candida about to begin, I take a double dose, and it never kicks in.
Thank you for your success story. When you did struggle with Candida, what type of symptoms were you having?? Is there a specific test to know if you have Candida or is it just physican exam?
Its a good article in how the practitioner failed with an anti-candida diet, not a good diet itself. Doug Kaufmann more or less originated the anti-fungal diet decades ago and has worked with thousands upon thousands. What is tragically missing all to often in the fungal/yeast conversation is the fact you simply cannot balance yeast and call it a day because when you kill candida and the many forms of it including so many other fungi, yeasts and molds, they release their mycotoxins which create everything from uric acid, to calcium oxalates to bio-warfare grade poisons to name a few. They are geno, hepo, dna, cardio, toxic and cause every cancer known just to start. So if you kill the fungus and don’t eliminate what bring them back (like antibiotics which are fungal metabolites), the battle never ends. Kaufmanns (free) diet kills the fungus/yeast and has for 40 years by diet and often very safe Diflucan and other natural yeast killers while guiding the expulsion of the mycotoxins with diet and supplementation as well. Go to knowthecause.com or start reading world renowned former W.H.O. mycology head AV Costantinis incredible works in Funglabionics. He has no peers. So..the right anti-fungal/anti-mycotoxic diets save lives. I have seen it time and time again and if you are just looking at the tongue and vagina when it comes to yeast issues, you have another thing coming. Don’t forget what Mayo Clinic proved a decade+ ago. 96%+/- of all chronic sinus issues are fungal. Ohhhh…and of 27 lung cancer patients diagnosed, all 27 were given an anti-fungal only. All 27 were “cancer” free in weeks. But thats another sotry. Start at PubMed and start reading. Its a new fungal world…but not for some of us. Blessings.
Generally anti-candida diets are a helpful tool in the arsenal towards eradicating candida overgrowth, but if a diet was recommended that allowed grains and starchy vegetables it was not actually “anti-candida” despite the practitioners best intentions. These foods feed yeast. It should have also included avoiding these foods for a minimum of 3 months while taking antifungal herbs or prescriptions and supplementing high strength probiotics. (by the way you wean up slowly on these or it will be very miserable) The gut needs a healthy supply of good flora to be able to control yeast at normal levels because everyone has candida but they do not have an overgrowth of it. So many things set up our guts improperly like C-section births, antibiotics at birth or during labor/deliver, antibiotics at all at any time in your life, and/or mercury dental amalgam fillings which kill off the good flora in the gut and allow the bad to take over. But essentially it’s a very restrictive diet so many do not follow it as recommended or some practitioners feel it’s too restrictive so they modify it, however then it doesn’t work. I think we all learn from each other and this is how we figure out what works, what doesn’t. I think a post like this helps by sharing what your experience was and it also helps in pointing out that not all “anti-candida” diet are the same, even when recommended by a doctor. Thanks for sharing!
I followed “The Candida Diet” perfectly for three weeks in 2004. As others have said, there are LOTS of diets called “The Candida Diet” out there, and the one I followed did not allow grains or any other starches.
I was eating breakfast when I looked at your page on candida cleansing. I saw that photo of the tongue and spat out my food… why did you have to do this? Maybe put a warning in there first?? I feel sick.
How very demanding of you. You are responsible for your own actions, dont blame the author. A sensible person would choose an appropiate time to research topics about gut cleansing/ bacteria/ skin problems etc. How could you possible expect a no picture experience in this day and age?
I am 23 years old. I’ve struggled with Candida for two years, ever since a whole year of maximum antibiotics and steroids for a peritonsilar abscess. I was taking no probiotics, as I had no idea I needed to. Needless to say, Candida got me. I’ve done cleanses and gone on the Candida diet many times, but I always start introducing foods too early it seems. Being a College kid, carbs were cheap and fast food was my go to.
I just graduated and started to take control of my health. I’m currently back on the diet, very strictly. No grains. No starches. I do green apples and I do no fat plain yogurt. I also do some cheese as well. I do blueberries. Then lean protein, leafy greens and tons of water. I take 200 billion probiotic, garlic, olive leaf, vitamin c, omega 3, liver pill, and turmeric for anti inflammation. I also do skin brushing. I do take yeast away, which, helps tame the die off. I have never felt better. I read an article by a lady who cured her Candida, and did so with essential oils. I do those as well, lemon, tea tree and oregano. I also take oregano supplements. She said to stay on the diet as long as you’ve had it, so I will stay on it for 24 months. I know this is a lot of information, but I do hope this helps those struggling with this awful, debilitating condition. I finally have hope of living a healthy life. I truly believe by staying on this diet for as long as you’ve struggled, then introducing stuff like quinoa and buckwheat and very natural type grains and sugars, you will have success. Don’t go back to your old eating habits. Stay diligent and have a happy, healthy life. Much love, and God bless you all.
Im sorry but you obviously had no luck with the candida diet because you went about it all wrong… the one I did (which worked marvelously by the way and I now eat EVERYTHING as long as its in moderation and not overly successively, as we should all be eating anyway) had a 3 days cleanse to start, but most importantly did not allow ANY grains, OR fruit, OR starchy foods, and probiotics every day were non negotiable. Dont just say something is a waste of time after it doesnt work for you because you did do it right…
As I mentioned in the article, we did the Candida Diet exactly as instructed and it failed miserably. Sounds like you did SCD or Bee’s diet not Candida.
Sorry, other Sarah, Tabby is right. I don’t know who introduced you to ‘The Candida Diet’ 20 years ago, but if they hadn’t removed grains and starches, they didn’t know what they were doing (there are many ‘Candida Diets’ floating around, none are quite the same.) If anything, after removing grains you should have seen the effects are very sustainable long term as you will no longer crave any flamboyant foods and stick to a much more raw diet with healthy fats. It is very effective in combating Candida, and the goal is to change your lifestyle, not get rid of this inevitable fungus so you can binge on cheesecake.
In fact, seeing Cheetos or cookies in the supermarket becomes almost gag-worthy within a few months. For anyone considering doing this, start by introducing plenty of healthy fat (guacamole was my savior when I started this — four years ago!!). It’ll cut your cravings and help you manage overall hunger, making it easier to focus on your transition.
My note to you, Sarah, is simply — if you don’t think it’s effective, don’t discourage it entirely because of a couple flaws. If people take interest in their health, there are a million ways to achieve their goals. Sometimes it’s a matter of finding the right tweaks 😉
A practitioner is the one who got us on the Candida Diet and coached us throughout the failing process.
Tabby, it’s so refreshing to hear this from someone. I’m 24 years old and I just started my diet 2 or 3 days ago. I’ve tried it in the past and have failed because of how miserable it made me. Thanks for positing a positive experience.
You mentioned that you didn’t have any grains, starches, or fruits. I have eliminated these as well, however, my particular diet sheet mentions the ability to add grains such as rice, quinoa, and oats back in after 3 weeks, as well as less sugary fruits such as berries. Do you have an opinion on this? I’m on Diflucan currently, and I take multiple probiotics every day as well.
How long did you do your diet for? I’m supposed to be on mine for 3 months.
Thanks so much for any insight you can provide!