7 Fruits You Can Eat On An Anti-Candida Diet

 

I am a real believer in letting my food be my medicine, but the foods allowed on a good anti-candida diet make for slim pickins, and it is one of the toughest to stick to.  No carbs, starches, sugars, fruits, or sweets of any kind until you can get the imbalance of your internal flora righted and reintroduce sweetness into your diet again.

I have cobbled together a pretty comprehensive list of the foods allowed by various anti-candida plans. I use it with a lot of my clients who are facing recurrent yeast infections that can manifest not only internally but also on the scalp, feet, elbow and knees, underarms, genitals, basically anyplace that is dark and moist and doesn’t get exposed to the sun much.  The list of fruits is very short, but there are a few that you can eat when struggling to get back your internal flora balance.  In the first few weeks of an anti-candida cleanse you should avoid fruits all together.  As you start to reintroduce foods, start with:

1. Avocados
2. Berries
3. Cranberries
4. Grapefruit
5. Green Apples
6. Lemons
7. Limes

You’ll notice there isn’t a sweet one among the bunch.  Green apples that normally seem so tart are a godsend, when you are craving sweetness a crisp sour green apple tastes pretty wonderful.  As for the berries, we aren’t talking super sweet strawberries here, but the very tart blackberries and other low-sugar seasonal local berries.  Stevia is allowed, so a bowl of tart berries could be enjoyed with a few drops of a stevia tincture to satisfy a sweet craving.

Slices of lemon and lime in water are fantastic during this cleansing phase. It is amazing how sweet a lemon can taste when you have eliminated all other sources of sugar and carbohydrate from your diet.

Fresh cranberries are very tart, and don’t make the mistake of buying sweetened dried cranberries, there is far too much sugar on them.  After you have been on the diet for a while and are reintroducing some foods, dried cranberries sweetened with apple juice is a better choice.

 

 

One of my favorite ways to eat fresh cranberries is to cook them into a wild rice dish.  The sour flavor of the berries compliments the savory flavor of the wild and brown rice blend.  Here is my recipe:

 

 

 

Wild Rice Blend with Cranberries and Blueberries 

1 cup wild and whole grain brown rice blend

2 cups bone broth (not stock, made with vegetables)

½ cup whole fresh cranberries

¼ cup whole fresh or dried berries (Optional – should be included only after you’ve started to reintroduce fruits into your diet)

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 pat butter or 1 tsp olive oil

Heat the butter or oil in a medium saucepan.  Add the rice blend and toss in the heated oil until coated.  Add the broth (ideally this is your own homemade bone broth from chicken, turkey, or beef bones, made without vegetables) and allow to come to a boil.

Reduce heat, cover and let cook over low heat for 30 minutes.  Remove the cover and stir, adding the berries, salt and pepper.  Stir and recover, allow to cook an additional 10 – 15 minutes or until the wild rice is tender.

Adjust seasoning and serve with your choice of protein or veggies.

 

If you have questions about working with an anti-candida diet or other dietary challenges, contact me for a personal consultation and work-up.

chefchristy@kingstaste.com