candida???

[KPetro]

We are a little more than half raw. My question is, will eating fruit feed candida? If anyone has dealt with this, I would like to hear from you. We only do raw desserts and use dates or honey (maple syrup on occassion) to sweeten things. I haven't dealt with yeast in a while, but I got a virus for the first time in like 5 years about a month ago, and it seemed to lower my immune system enough that 2 days after the virus, I got a yeast infection. I don't have one now, but I'm thinking there is some in my gut. The cooked foods we eat are meat, brown rice, & beans (soaked 24 hrs). Really, I know that eating just greens and veggies would starve out the yeast, but I have a really, really hard time doing that. I like bitter-sweet flavors, so my green smoothies are sweetened with banana, orange, grapefruit, and berries (half greens, half fruit).
I'm just wondering besides sugar and fried food, what feeds candida???
Thanks.

[Psychalone]

http://rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=64313

[KPetro]

Thanks.
I do take a probiotic, though I'm interested in these experiments.
As for the candida, I have read on it and have learned that when candida becomes "overgrown" in the body, that it can actually have little roots plant into the gut for instance, which lends to the problem with leaky gut. Upon autopsy, it has been found that patients with kidney failure, had failure due to so much candida in the system that the kidneys became clogged and couldn't do their job.
As far as he's saying that too much fat in the blood stream causes problems, I agree with this, but the fat that I get on a daily basis is about... 2-2 1/2 handfuls of walnuts (soaked and dehydrated, usually just snacking through out the day, and it might not be this much, just guessing) and if I have meat, it's once a day, and not usually everyday. I do eat avocados and coconut oil or olive oil regularly.
I will actually crave meat when I haven't had enough fat, but if I make something with oils, have an avocado, or a dessert made with nuts... I'm good:)
Thoughts???

[Psychalone]

Thanks.
I do take a probiotic, though I'm interested in these experiments.
As for the candida, I have read on it and have learned that when candida becomes "overgrown" in the body, that it can actually have little roots plant into the gut for instance, which lends to the problem with leaky gut. Upon autopsy, it has been found that patients with kidney failure, had failure due to so much candida in the system that the kidneys became clogged and couldn't do their job.
As far as he's saying that too much fat in the blood stream causes problems, I agree with this, but the fat that I get on a daily basis is about... 2-2 1/2 handfuls of walnuts (soaked and dehydrated, usually just snacking through out the day, and it might not be this much, just guessing) and if I have meat, it's once a day, and not usually everyday. I do eat avocados and coconut oil or olive oil regularly.
I will actually crave meat when I haven't had enough fat, but if I make something with oils, have an avocado, or a dessert made with nuts... I'm good:)
Thoughts???

My personal thoughts is what I usually recommend which is a diet based on sprouts or local fruits.

If you're going to listen to Dr. Graham then you fall right into his catagory of the "high fat" raw vegans. High fat foods are simply unnecessary. Our body runs on carbs, it uses fat when we don't have enough carbs, it craves fat when we don't have enough carbs. The idea of candida diets to me are silly. Regardless of whether you eat complex carbs or whatever it's all broken down into glucose, you body runs on glucose, trying to deprive it of such can only be done with fasting. If you want to try his system pick up a copy of the 80/10/10 diet (if you can't afford it, let me know and I can link you to a free download pdf file) where he explains how taking concentrated fats like oils puts the % of calories from fat WAY up. THink about it, a banana is roughly 100 calories. so lets say you eat 8 bananas and just 2 tbsp of olive oil and you're already at 20% fat, add in meat to the equation and nuts as well...fats are very concentrated sources of energy, so in terms of calories you get alot for alittle. In the 80/10/10 diet however, your looking to stay UNDER 10% fat from calories. He explains that the 10% of protein and fats is a "limit", anything under that works fine too. IN fact some people follow his system closer to 90/5/5 and thrive on it.

Personally I think regardless of diet, meat is just wrong. It's unnecessary and SO many studies show that it's unhea;thy for you. To me sticking to meat is just a desire to stimulate the palate, not a desire for health. Thats me. Since this is a raw VEGAN forum I can't recommend anything outside of the raw vegan label or else to moderators will edit my post so the best I can suggest to you is a diet consisting of mainly sprouts with an active probiotic and maybe enzyme supp. You should definately check to make sure your probiotic and enzymes are ACTIVE. For example unpasteurized (raw) milk contains a plethora of active bacterial cultures but since I can't recommend that as it's not raw vegan I'd say test you cultures and test your enzymes. I believe I've linked you to tests for both in that thread, if not then lemme know and i'll post on how to check. I remember taking probiotics for the longest time because I was worried about gut health and I didn't notice anything till I started drinking a certain non-vegan drink with active bacterial cultures ;) which made a HUGE difference, and showed me the value of ACTIVE cultures. Again, if you buy them in pill form, make sure they're active or else they wont do you any good.

If you want to try fasting or calorie restriction then there are places to learn more about that. I don't know how long it takes to kill candida through fasting, probably only about a week or two is my guess, but I could be completely wrong. But again, the issue is that the body runs on glucose, so if the candida feed on glucose... well have fun with that. My guess is that without enough consistant sugar in the bloodstream, candida cannot thrive, therefore eating little to no fat would cause sugar to go in and out of the bloodstream quickly, leaving the candida not enough time to get enough nourishment. Therefore I agree with Dr. Graham. But again, thats me, you may want to wait fot more responses. They say Wisdom comes not from one man, but from a council of wise men and women.

Regardless, best of luck in your health endeavors

[RawMark]

The idea of candida diets to me are silly. Regardless of whether you eat complex carbs or whatever it's all broken down into glucose, you body runs on glucose, trying to deprive it of such can only be done with fasting.

I agree with a lot of what you say. And it certainly sounds logical. But my experience, and the experiences of others I've known, has shown that a candida diet does, in fact, make a lot of difference. Perhaps it depends on how severely a person has the candida problem. That said, I've never personally supervised anyone who had candida and was simultaneously on a raw food diet. Where I live you're lucky to find a vegetarian, let alone vegans. And I've never met a raw foodist here.

[Arky]

The bigger factor is how well your immune system is functioning, not just in terms of it's strength but also in terms of whether you are experiencing some auto-immune issues for some reason. It's a vast topic, but a small fraction of it is partly discussed in another recent post:

http://tinyurl.com/5taog44 (scroll down to point #5)


Also, as Psychalone pointed out, there's another thread at the moment, which parallels yours:

http://tinyurl.com/5taog44

[jojo_lee]

This may not be relevant to you post but msm crystals taken daily in the morning cured my yeast infection in a matter of days. I could eat as much fruit as I wanted and no difference.

Might be worth a try if you haven't tried it yet.

[KPetro]

This may not be relevant to you post but msm crystals taken daily in the morning cured my yeast infection in a matter of days. I could eat as much fruit as I wanted and no difference.

Might be worth a try if you haven't tried it yet.

Thanks. I haven't tried this.

[sport]

This may not be relevant to you post but msm crystals taken daily in the morning cured my yeast infection in a matter of days.

There are other threads here about the effects of MSM so be careful and remain aware of how you feel if you try it. It can have a serious effect on your metabolism and sleep patterns.
Then there are others who have been using it long term without any harmful effect.