I frequently get questions from people with Candida that are vegetarians like this one…
I am a vegetarian who was just told by my kinesiologist that I am allergic to yeast, fungus, and mold and that I need to follow the candida diet but I can’t get myself to eat meat. ( i don’t eat it because its texture, and the fact that it is flesh bothers me). What I do eat is beans, grains, and veggies, and fruits. How can I follow a diet and get healthy without starving to death? This seems almost impossible for me yet I have no choice but to do this. My health is failing quite rapidly. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
This issue has been addressed before on this blog a couple of times, so here’s some of the posts that I suggest you read if you’re a vegetarian with a yeast problem to address some of the diet specific issues.
Why The Kind Diet is not Healthy
However, something I haven’t talked about in regard to this topic is what to do if you don’t like the texture of meat and how to get over the issue of eating flesh. Unfortunately there isn’t an easy solution.
What I suggest to clients who struggle with the meat issue is that you must fill your head with the facts and then accept that change must take place. Use the facts about grains and beans to break the conditioning and beliefs that you hold that are harming your health.
If you’re health is failing rapidly, then you really have no choice but to make some changes quickly. So here are a few of the most important facts that you should be aware of:
The bottom line is that if you have a Candida problem you can not eat beans and grains on regular basis and fruit must be limited to small servings on an occasional basis as well, because they feed the yeast. These types of foods break down into sugar in the body and sugar is Candida’s primary food source. There is no way this fact can be changed.
Beans and grains are destructive to the gastrointestinal tract and the immune system. They were not intended to be part of the human beings diet and therefore we don’t process them very well.
We are meat eaters by nature. It is not immoral to eat meat. Nature designed us this way.
The human body is genetically programmed to eat meat.
The ingestion of beans and grains on a daily basis leads to nutritional deficiencies.
Yes, I know you are bombarded with messages everywhere in society that grains are healthy, but that simply isn’t true. To learn the truth about grains and beans I encourage you to read *The Vegetarian Myth and *The Paleo Diet.
The links I provided above contain a lot more facts about the diet we should be eating and why. Be sure to visit those as well as these pages on designing a healthy diet
On the other hand, if you haven’t been eating meat for a long time, then part of this issue will be about breaking habits. The old saying “just do it” applies here. Habits are broken by recognizing the need for change and replacing them with new behaviors.
Additionally, beans and grains are addictive because they so are high in sugar, therefore your body only wants the foods it is addicted to. Meat and vegetables will seem unappealing at first, but this will change in time as you overcome your addictions. Once you get beans and grains out of the diet, you’ll stop craving them.
However, the most important point to focus on is that you simply can’t improve your health if you continue with the diet you are following; it basically boils down to caring enough about yourself to do what you need to do. Recognizing that the diet you are eating is destructive to your health and taking action.
Change a process; it is never easy and it is usually best accomplished by taking baby steps. Start out by bringing some fish and eggs into the diet, but be sure to look for mercury free fish. Replace some of the grains and fruit with non-starchy vegetables. Then move on to other types of meat. You could also try cutting the meat up into very little pieces and sprinkle it with some olive oil or walnut oil, so the texture will be different. Replace more of the fruit and grains with non-starchy vegetables and so on and so on, until eventually you have removed them all together, or at least reduced them to only very small servings.
Reserve grains and beans for special occasions and keep the fruit to a minimum. When you do eat fruit, try to stick with fruit that is lower in sugar content like, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries and reserve high sugar fruits like bananas and dates for special occasions or intense cravings. Dried fruit is extremely high in sugar.
Educate yourself thoroughly on the topic of Candida and its impact one’s mental and physical health. Understand that a diet high in beans and grains not only contributes to Candida, but many other chronic degenerative health conditions like type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, unwanted weight gain and obesity, heart disease, anxiety, depression, endocrine disorders and many more. So not only will making changes in your diet be beneficial for yeast overgrowth, but it will help protect you from developing more conditions in the future. It’s a long-term investment.
