Hi, it's Eric Bakker, the naturopath from New Zealand.
Let's talk about different carbohydrate choices on the candida diet.
I just had a look on several candida diet websites.
There are many of them online now.
They've all got all sorts of advice.
A lot of them have got, yes, you can eat these foods, no, you can't eat those foods.
Now this is so typical with many people who just throw websites and information together.
Often people with no clinical skills whatsoever.
People just selling pills or selling knowledge, but they're not really understanding the condition.
They haven't worked with many people at all, if at all.
Probably worked with nobody.
They've only had the issue themselves.
So they feel that what suits their gut will suit the gut of millions of people out there.
That's wrong.
Doesn't work like that.
If you think about it, I've got a green shirt on.
Have you got a green shirt on?
Probably not at the moment.
You might have a white shirt on.
Every person is unique, is individual.
You can't give lists of food to people and say, "This is forbidden.
And this is like, you should be doing this."
I've always maintained that every microbiome is different.
What suits one person will be really alien, foreign, and awful, and hideous, and disgusting
to somebody else.
However, there are a few caveats, or a few sort of maybe you should do this kind of stuff,
and maybe you shouldn't do that kind of stuff, really, when it comes to things like candida.
And the obvious one is that clinicians like me always discourage people from eating crappy
food.
And we know what the crappy foods are.
We know that crappy foods are basically refined carbohydrates, takeaway foods.
Deep-fried potato chips.
Deep-fried pieces of fish with lots of batter on them.
Usually shitty crappy batter with white flour.
Lots of refined foods.
Cookies, and muffins, and donuts, and cola drinks, and cans of beer, and all these sorts
of things, candy.
We know that those foods, I mean, that's a given.
You'd have to be a bit of a dinosaur to think these foods are okay for the gut.
Either that, or you'd have to be working in a hospital before you agree that those things
were actually good for health.
Because when you look at some of the food people get in hospitals, man, it makes me
wonder where that food came from, or who was the person who designed the kind of diet,
some of it.
Anyway.
Carbs.
Let's have a look what I wrote in Candida Crusher.
In the book, Candida Crusher, I basically said you need to be very cautious of the starchy
carbs if you've got bad candida problem, if you've got a lot of bloating, a lot of gas.
So if you know you've got issues, especially GI issues, gastrointestinal issues, and you've
had them for some time, you need to be careful.
However, usually that cautious sort of stage doesn't last too long.
When you actively clean the diet up and you start putting really good quality foods in
slowly but surely, the microbiome, the bacteria, will respond.
And they'll start becoming more balanced.
Usually at that balanced stage, when it's getting more balanced, you will know that
because you'll feel a little bit better in yourself.
The symptoms aren't quite flaring so much.
Meaning the tummy will be settling down.
The sleep may be a little bit better.
When you get to that transition phase, for many people, that could be two weeks.
For others, it could be like two months.
But when you're starting to move in the transition phase, you still need to be cautious, but
a little bit less cautious.
Meaning you probably can eat sweet potatoes, meaning you probably can eat baked potatoes.
But again, you're not going to have, what happened to me in Los Angeles when I went
there for, I think, dinner one day, like a half a plate of potatoes.
You're not going to do that.
The servings, I've found, in the States are crazy.
They'll serve enough on one plate that will feed a whole family of like four people.
So remember to keep your portion sizes reasonably small, especially when you're putting carbs
in there.
But I can't see anything wrong with the majority of people experimenting with baked sweet potato,
with baked potato, particularly when they're out of their danger phase.
However, I didn't say ice cream on the plate with jelly alongside.
Didn't say that, did I?
So those foods need to go on the back foot for a long, long time, if at all, if you ever
want to go back to them.
So what carbs can you have?
The starchy carbs you still need caution with.
But when we look at the nutrient-dense carbohydrates, especially things like broccoli, cauliflower,
we look at kale, we look at things like that.
Green beans, peas.
Peas still make people nervous.
And some people react to carrots.
I've had people with minimal candida, I've seen as a patient, minor candida issue, but
having a big imbalance with the bacteria, for example.
Like Citrobacter.
Person like that having a major flare-up when they're eating carrots raw or cooked.
So look, there's no rules.
You could have a serious flare on any kind of vegetable.
So the main thing is, if you're not eating that vegetable currently and you want to introduce
it, start very slowly and small, in little amounts.
And if it still flares, that particular carbohydrate, then change the way that you cook it.
You may want to boil it.
You may want to steam it.
You may want to microwave it.
You might want to do different things to it, to see how that affects your gut.
Because modifying a carbohydrate with heat modifies how it digests in the gut.
I wrote about that many years ago, and I'm starting to notice now it's popping up on
different websites.
People are now recommending maybe you should look at, for example, boiling sweet potato,
or maybe you should look at baking it.
Because you can't tell me that, for example, a sweet potato in any shape or form, processed
in any way, is going to be bad for the gut.
I just won't buy that.
So you need to modify that food to see how it sits with your gut.
And also start small portions.
Don't start with a large amount.
Start with a small amount.
Then you'll find if you have those two criteria, modifying it differently through different
methods of cooking, and smaller portion size, and the third thing, placing that in the diet
at roughly the correct time, you'll have no problem at all.
But if you just believe straight off, for example, that sweet potato, or baked potato,
or pumpkin, or squash, from this date right up until six months or a year later, you can't
touch it, well, you're in la-la land because it doesn't have to be that way.
Don't believe every single thing you read.
Your tummy, like my green shirt, is individual.
It's not that everyone's got the same gut.
So what may suit you may be perfect for you, but really bad, as I said, for someone else
who's got a problem more or less than you.
Some of the foods I really like to introduce to people also are things like a brown rice,
a whole grain brown rice, like a basmati brown, for example.
Quinoa is also a good starchy food to put into the diet.
Quinoa's quite nice.
Buckwheat.
They're very safe ones to put in there.
But don't knock the old spud because many people still enjoy potatoes with some gravy
and a piece of meat, especially in winter time that we got here in New Zealand.
Casseroles with those foods in them.
I've found casseroles and hot pot or slow-cooked meals generally far, far easier on the gut
than if you just got a potato, peeled it, and then boiled it and ate that, for example.
So slow cooking also infuses the food with more flavors, breaks the food down more, makes
it easy to digest and less problematic in the gut.
That particularly, as opposed to getting a carbohydrate that's only partially cooked
or steamed.
So remember, the processing makes all the difference.
So give that a try.
Thanks for tuning in.
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Thank you.