Support
Candida Diet
What is the Candida Diet?
The Candida Diet is a highly restrictive diet aiming to starve the yeast in your system by reducing your sugar intake. It also aims to reduce the consumption of any extra yeast.
​
Dr William Crook made the concept famous in the 1980s in his book 'The Yeast Connection', describing a link between an increase in candida problems with a refined diet. It has been popular with naturopathic practitioners ever since.
​
The diet is very severe – even sugary fruits are eliminated early on. The idea is to go hard for 2 months and then slowly bring back some of the sugary foods in moderation. To this extent, it's not a sustainable diet and can leave those on it feeling low energy and depleted. ​
​
Green Foods
– Low sugar fruit: berries, green apples, pears, lemons and limes
– Coconut water
– Garlic
– Apple cider vinegar
– Pau D'Arco tea
– Lean protein: chicken, fish, pork, beef
– Vegan kefir, vegan yoghurt
– Kimchi
–Sauerkraut
– All vegetables
– Olive oil/ coconut oil
​
Amber Foods (sometimes banned by hardliner dieters)
– Brown rice
– Brown gluten-free sourdough bread
​
Red Foods:
– Sweets, cakes, anything high sugar
– Sugary fruits (banana, mango, grapes_
– Anything caffeinated
– Dairy
– Alcohol
– Grains
– Anything with gluten
– High mould nuts like peanuts
​
Does it actually work?
​
There is not a whole lot of scientific evidence to back the Candida Diet up. But eating unprocessed whole foods is certainly a great idea.
​
This site's opinion is not to focus so heavily on cutting out so much sugar and just eat treats in moderation.
​
Avoid bringe drinking entirely - see section on alcohol.
​
Where can I get recipes?
​
Mindful Chef shares a lot of complex carb recipes that take 30-45minutes to prepare.
​
They are all gluten-free, nutritionally balanced and contain no refined carbs.
​
Deliciously Ella also has a range of healthy recipes with more of a vegan focus.
Watchouts
​
The Candida Diet is an extreme diet and your health has likely been very challenging if you've decided you want to commit to it.
​
Be careful around disordered eating and fear of sugar. Carbohydrates are absolutely necessary for life so look at ways you can eat complex carbs like brown rice rather than eliminating it completely.
​
“I fainted on the street thanks to the Candida Diet. Having nerve damage from thrush, I'm in agony if I get a yeast infection, so I stuck to the diet rigidly. I went for a run without eating sugar in three weeks and I fainted. If you cut out all sugar your body will break down so keep that in mind. I developed a weird eating disorder where I equated sugar with so much pain. I would never recommend a zero carb diet now. ”
– Philly, Founder of Thrush Support