Eric Bakker: This is Eric Bakker, The Naturopath,
thanks for coming back. Question is, can I eat lentils and beans every day on a candida diet?
Well, I think it's better than Kentucky Fried Chicken. I think it's better than
McDonald's. It's debatable whether it's good, better, or worse, or whatever than meat.
I mean, we're not going to start arguments here about the meat eaters on this camp and
the green eaters on this camp. I think it should be a bit of a mishmash, personally anyway. But,
of course, you can eat beans and lentils every day. And if you think, historically,
people have eaten beans and lentils for thousands of years every day. I spent time in India
back in the early '90s when I was doing some post-graduate study over there.
And the amount of people I saw that were thriving on rice and lentils and salads
and just cow's milk, this basic kind of fare was incredible. And I can tell you, their health was
in good condition on a basic diet, healthy diet with legumes like that. It's not a problem.
Preparation is a key thing for beans and lentils. Soaking,
soaking, soaking, soaking, and also cooking, to remove any harmful compounds from this food.
Oxalates can be there. There can be lectins there. There can be different type of natural
compounds in there you want removed, and soaking usually overnight or for several hours, throwing
that water out, and then cooking that lentil and bean until it's nice and soft generally makes it
much, much better to eat. And in fact, that's a big, big part of my diet. Lentil dishes.
We make a lot of lentil dishes up. We had one only a few nights ago, called makhani,
which got urad dal, the small black dal, and also red kidney beans, which I love. Now, red kidney
beans are really high lectin food, but again, when you soak them overnight, throw that water out,
cook them, the lectin, poof. You're reducing those proteins, seriously reducing those proteins.
Fantastic food are beans. Very, very good. Eating beans and lentils every day means
you don't need to eat any meat, to be honest, especially if you're going to add a few nuts and
seeds in there and some oils and vegetables and fruits and really round the diet out a bit more.
It's a fantastic way of eating. There are so many types of lentils we've got in our
pantry. We've got the red ones, we've got the moong dal, the chana dal, all sorts. We've got
Puy lentils, P-U-Y, Puy lentils from France. They're very delicious little lentils to eat.
Just trying to think of the other ones that we've got. There are so many types. And when you marry
those up, of course, with onions, tomatoes, and spices like garam masala, cumin, coriander, clove,
star anise seeds, cinnamon, you put all these sort of flavors in there, bit of garlic and ginger,
pepper and salt, you got an insanely tasty meal that you would pay a lot for at a restaurant.
So yes, eat these kind of foods. I highly encourage people to eat lots of spices,
herbs and spices, and legumes, seed and nuts. These are the types of foods I think
that really benefit our health and perfectly fine on the candida diet. But, you must start slowly
if you've not used to eating these foods. I wouldn't recommend you go from a steak
every day and all of a sudden the following day into eating lentils every day. It doesn't work
like that. You're going to very slowly, slowly build up the bacteria in the gut that can help you
to break these fiber foods down more efficiently. Otherwise, you can get bloating and farting and
pain and all kinds of issues. And start with a small portion size to begin with, and gradually
build it up until you're more comfortable. Generally, when I make the dals with the lentils,
I usually have salads with it, some type of salad or some cooked vegetables with it as
a side. And also, I'll have brown rice with it or basmati rice, or a pulao rice, which is basically
a rice cooked in a bit of ghee. But before you cook it in the ghee, you cooked in your pan some
onions and spices, and maybe some vegetables. Just lightly put your rice in there, cook it further,
add your water in there, and steam all that. It's a beautiful way to eat rice. There are so many
different ways you can eat, but I highly encourage people to eat more beans and
lentils in their diet. And I'm quite happy with that and it's not a candida issue,
especially if you're going to add garlic in it, ginger in it, and all these spices,
which I'm always advocating. It's going to be an anti-candida thing. Thanks for the question.