The foods most notorious for encouraging Candida growth contain high amounts of sugar, especially refined sugars. These sugars, when digested in high quantities, provide Candida with the resources to multiply and cause painful, irritable yeast infections. There is no exhaustive list of foods to avoid on a Candida free diet; you will need to understand food and be selective.
If a product is sugary, or contains a great deal of processed starches, it is likely a poor choice for eating while on a Candida free diet. Some examples of foods to avoid while on a Candida free diet include, but are not limited to:
White granulated sugar, brown granulated sugar, powdered sugar, corn syrup, molasses, rice syrup, date sugar, amasake, honey, sorghum, and turbinado.
These food products all have a common denominator; they contain very high amounts of glucose. Simple sugars make up nearly 100% of the composition of every one of these food items. For this reason, foods similar to these should be avoided at all costs while on a Candida free diet. There is simply too much pure Candida food available; giving Candida an excellent opportunity to grow.
Foods that contain a great deal of syrups and various forms of sugar are also unacceptable while on a Candida free diet. They may not be raw sugar as the aforementioned products, but they still can radically jolt the body’s blood sugar; providing ample nutrition for rouge colonies of Candida. Check the nutrition facts on various foods and make sure they contain low amounts of sugars. High fiber foods are often the best choice, as they are usually extremely low in sugar.
High fructose corn syrup, dextrose, malstose, glycogen, sucrose, galactose, sorbitol, mannitol, and other cousins of glucose should also be avoided. These various forms of sugar will quickly raise the body’s blood sugar; providing food for Candida albicans. Candida free diets which exclude these foods are often the most effective.
Foods that are mostly comprised of starches, such as flour and other whole grains, are excellent food for Candida. For this reason, eating high amounts of starch will load the body full of carbohydrates which ultimately raise blood sugar. Carbohydrates, as you may know, are nothing but strings of glucose molecules joined together. The body, in the course of digestion, unhooks these long strings and absorbs the single glucose molecules into the blood stream.
Because starches raise blood sugar, they are not recommended on a Candida free diet for the exact reasons the aforementioned raw sugar products were excluded.
By nature fruits are very sweet foods that contain high amounts of natural sugars. Because fruits contain sugar, they should be excluded from Candida free diets. No matter what way fruits are served, as long as the sugar remains in the fruit, they are unacceptable for any effective Candida free diet.
Some Candida free diets suggest eliminating gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley. Gluten has been cited as a natural antigen that can cause various digestive problems in certain individuals. Some of the activity gluten is blamed for stops healthy digestion and can inhibit the growth of probiotic cultures.
Whether gluten has a significant affect or not, it is up to you to make the final decision. You may consider eliminating all foods containing gluten from a Candida free diet to ensure success. If you exclude foods with gluten, you may find yourself unable to stop Candida by diet alone. Conversely, if you keep these foods in, your diet will be much more tolerable; filled with a wider variety of palatable food items.