calcium, and other important stuff

... went to a bonfire party the other day. My friend has a lively and enquiring mind, and had cooked pumpkin soup for everyone - but a bowl of celery soup for me. She had made a chili curry - but along came a bowl of prawn salad for me. By the time platters of cake were being handed round, which I politely refused, J asks me if I'm on a diet. No sugar, anti-Candida, I mutter. At which point J and I begin the interesting task of discussing her own anti-Candida diet, which has succeeded. She is (mostly) free of Candida symptoms, eats a well balanced healthy diet which includes bread, sugar and alcohol. She says she listens to her body more, nowadays, and when things 'don't feel quite right' she just cuts down on the bread, sugar and alcohol for a few days til she feels better.

We had a similar history - loads of random, apparently disconnected symptoms of things that were slightly wrong, but nothing worth bothering the doctor with, followed by finding out about Candida, and coming to the inevitable conclusion that this is what we're suffering from. Then some research, and the devising of a suitable diet.

J drank rice milk, and a product called Oatley - I neglected to ask why! but presume she had a cereal she liked eating it with. She cut out caffeine, alcohol, bread, sugar, sweets cake & biscuits, fruit and fruit juices. She pretty much carried on eating most veg, apart from roots, I think. And she took a tablet of some kind. There are two reasons I'm blogging this - apart from the THRILL of meeing someone who's going through the same experience, and has a POSITIVE RESULT - one of which is the great CALCIUM debate, and the other is to reveal her 'party trick'

J's strategy for eating out at friend's houses

She told them she was on a diet. She said she was happy to eat her diet food while everyone else all around her ate delicious party food. J's eating-out food was a jacket potato, with tomato & cucumber salad - easy and simple for the hosts to prepare alongside the dinner.

Now, I don't have either potatoes or tomatoes or cucumber (J's named foods) on my list. But, there again, J has got rid of her Candida symptoms, so this obviously worked for her...


CALCIUM

J managed the very restrictive diet for 7 months and lost a lot of weight, as well as improving her general health. Not having a plan for how to end the diet, she went to her practice nurse. Who buried her head in her hands, and said 'Calcium: everyone on this anti-Candida diet forgets they need calcium.'

Well, this was one of the factors I'd forgotten to think about. I'd forgotten that I'm a woman of a certain age, that I risk suffering from osteoporosis, brittle bones, if I don't keep up with the calcium intake. I'd forgotten that if I stopped drinking milk and eating cheese I'd be depriving myself of a major source of this metal... it's a metal! I'd always assumed it was a mineral, for some reason.

So I looked up calcium. It's also present in high to good quantities in...

Celery, Kale, Spinach, Sesame Seeds, Fennel, Almonds, Broccoli, Parsley, Romaine Lettuce (foods not listed in any particular order).

I worked out that the goat's yoghurt I'm eating would provide all my weekly needs of Calcium if I consumed FIVE tubs of it. I've increased my weekly supply to THREE tubs, and can now enjoy lashings of yoghurt with all meals, and even have a dish for supper, or as a dessert. I now make sure my weekly veggie shop includes ALL of the above (I have been alternating spinach with kale, but now I make sure I've both in the fridge; I also make sure I buy fennel whenever available), to make up for the other two tubsful of yoghurt.


AND THE FIREWORKS
fizzed and sparkled for nearly an hour, felt like...


FEATURE THIS

This week I has mostly been trying not to shop, (International No Shopping Week), but fresh veg and yoghurt had to reach the house somehow... and, also, feeling even better ever since NO SUGAR CONTENT DAY.


QUICK LUNCH

ADUKI BEAN CURRY

Oil, goosefat. Garam Masala (I put two knife-blades worth in, but it should have been two teaspoonfuls for my money), stir til smells right. Add chopped root ginger, leek (about an inch per person), fennel, a few bits, celery (one stick pp), fry for a bit, not too long. Add one tin aduki beans, but not all the liquid. Stir well. Add spinach, don't stir. Put the lid on, and leave for about 5-10 mins. It's nicer when the celery and fennel are still a bit crunchy. Serve with goat's yoghurt (of course). I forgot, but it would have been more interesting still with mint or parsley chopped onto the yoghurt. I ate all of this. Add more veg and eat with some rice if serving two people. I just love aduki beans, they always feel good.



Pie, anyone???

Foods with No Sugar At All Day

All this going away...

Away again for a week - more coping mechanisms, or not, to report on...

Met an EX CANDIDA SUFFERER at a bonfire party - she also did it her way. Talked too much and picked up important info about keeping calcium levels topped up. More later.

Have at last done something I've been promising myself I'll do for a long time - have a whole day where the foods I eat have no sugar in them at all. Briefly, meat, fish, kelp (a seaweed), quinoa (good stuff, but not so attractive solo), and spelt, an old fashioned grain which I've never cooked before. All of these foodstuffs are listed as containing no sugar. Whatsoever. It's so stringent, and not at all fun. I could never quite bring myself to do it.

The reason is because, to put it delicately, my tummy growls a lot. Like having a little dog sitting on my knee. Not. But as noisy as. This has been happening to me over the last five years or so, and I've been politely ignoring the racket, hoping it would go away, pretending it was normal... I don't care whether it's a sign of old age or not, I don't like it, it's noisy and obtrusive. When I checked out the candida symptoms, there it was, along with bloating, gripey pains, etc., etc., and I was also beginning to get the gripey little pains. No further details will be published. If it's happening to you, you know enough and you want to get rid. If it's not happening to you, you don't want to know.

Now, although many of my candida symptoms have disappeared since I started this treatment, many of them are still present, simply lessened; the growly tummy, for instance, has become a remote gurgle (I should get out more - or maybe not). I've been making allowances for this - this is a two year treatment, after all, but decided in August I would have a go at a complete starvation day - for the Candida, that is, not for me. I bought in stocks of Spelt, Quinoa and Kelp (unfortunately, I could only obtain powder), and planned to do this for one whole day. Starting with Spelt porage for breakfast. I even wrote up dates on the calender, when I'd be at home all day. Somehow, on those days, the prospect of cooking up a lumpy little grain for breakfast never appealed. Neither did fishy green kelp powder to sprinkle over it. So, I kept cancelling them.

In the end, it happened almost by accident. Week away (of which more later), followed by weekend with friend, when we ate roast dinner with five vegetables, lamb steaks, cooked breakfast (scrambled eggs for me), and I invented a new fried rice dish (probably been eaten in the Orient for thousands of years, but there you go). She packed me up with a picnic for the way back - hummous, rice, sesame seeds, yoghurt, with celery sticks to use as edible spoons. My journey got longer and longer, with many detours. I had to stop at a motorway service. To use the cafes would be a waste of money. I carried on driving til I reached the oasis known as M&S SIMPLY FOOD. It is indeed just that. I bought plain poached salmon, and a packet of prawns in oil and spices, no sugar or vinegar. I ate them in the car. There was a packet of prawns and a slice of salmon left over by the time I got home. And, at my friend's, I'd found instructions for cooking spelt grain - just boil in salted water for 20 minutes.

More importantly, when I arrived home, I realised the fish supper had been a no-sugar one - and I wasn't hungry. So I decided to start counting the hours from just after lunch time on Monday. When I got up on Tuesday, I was approx 19 hours away from having eaten food with sugar in it. Simple! all I had to do was another 5 hours. In the end, I ate Spelt Porage with yoghurt, followed by late lunch with more salmon and prawns, followed by a dish of yoghurt later on, and a hot sardine supper. The kelp got sprinkled onto the yoghurt. Very late Breakfast next day was porage, by which time I'd done nearly 48 hours of eating foods with absolutely no sugar in them. I could have eaten anything - steak, chicken, different fish, lamb, don't let my heavy diet of fish put you off!

My stomach has calmed down. A lot. I'm back on my normal diet now, because the above regime is lacking in vitamins, minerals and variety. It makes my normal diet feel luxurious, and a privilege to be eating. I'm seriously considering making the non-sugar event a regular feature in the calendar, though - as again, I feel better for it.


THIS WEEK, I HAS MOSTLY BEEN THINKING ABOUT... how unfair it was to spring my diet on the cook less than a fortnight away from the week away... with a bunch of other people who I knew would also be on strange diets...


RECIPE - FRIED RICE SUPPER

Heat Olive / sesame oil in frying pan: add left over cooked rice, make it crispy.
Add chopped celery, cloves garlic and ground cinnamon. Add egg, and a good shake of sesame seeds, salt & pepper. Stir in the egg as it cooks.

Before serving, add chopped parsley. And yoghurt, if you like. You can make this for two - all the anti-candida stuff, serve it up, leave some rice in for the next person and add all the sugary items...

We got back around ten, my friend ate oatcakes and cheese & tomato, I made egg fried rice, it was good! No pic... so here's someone else on a very weird kind of low-fat dairy-only diet...

Lunch, Tapas style

This diet! Some strange eating habits... Lunch today, tapas style, on one small plate after another... the left overs in the fridge before friends come over for supper, and one of them stays overnight...

Course 1
2 x oatcakes with organic butter. Yum. Eaten while preparing...

Course 2
Sardines, plain, mashed up with sesame seed oil and heated in the microwave for 6 minutes... with salt and pepper. They had gone crunchy on the top, don't know why - I did put a plate over them. Chopped parsley on top.

Course 3
Scrambled eggs, done ever so slowly while the sardines prepared and eaten. Add cold butter straight from fridge, and dusting of paprika.

Course 4
Spinach, cooked in the hastily cleaned egg pan, with water and salt. Strain, and add plain goat's yoghurt and cinnamon. Chop the spinach. Eat with a fork. Surprisingly, YUM. And I don't like spinach.


Cinnamon...
Is one of the top spices recommended for the campaign against Candida. I'm not surprised it's full of natural protection against yeasts and moulds - the cinnamon tree originates in Asia, an area of the world from which many of our major foods have come. High humidity levels mean that trees and plants have developed their own protection system agains air-borne yeasts. Cinnamon is the pounded from the bark of its tree, the 'skin' most exposed to infection.

Spinach...
apparently contains an ingredient which reduces and possibly reverses macular degeneration in the eye. So, although I hate, loathe and detest the taste of spinach, it's now a vile vegetable which I consume on a regular basis, for medicinal reasons.

No pic, I ate it all too quickly.

Top recommendation: the spinach, yoghurt and cinnamon. Imagine being able to eat that on buttered toast.... mmmm....

Away with the fairies

Just been away for ten days. Four days self-catering. Five days on a group-holiday with one person cooking evening meals for us. One day with my daughter. One night in a hotel.

Self-catering - well, a bit restricted, didn't have my usual range of spices and herbs to cook with. Found myself with a large quantity of foodstuffs to carry home - a new bottle of olive oil, a small packet of rice, a large packet of porage oats, a jar of salt. Next time, going to devise a travel pack - small bottle of oil, small pot of salt, a small jar of mixed spice. Evening meals were fried fish, rice, broccoli and leeks. Lunch was oatcakes, salad and hummous. Just can't manage without hummous! For the journey, hummous, celery sticks, dry oatcakes. Some avocados featured - breakfast on the last day, with scrambled eggs, an emergency during the week, and emergency snack in the hotel. Almonds also featured.

The group holiday: this involved lots of careful planning - on the part of the organisers. I phoned them up, sent a list of the foods I can eat, and a list of the NOs, and a MENU (the most useful thing to do, gives the cook a projected outcome for meals). The cook was wonderful; the venue has a policy of making everyone feel at home, and she really did make sure I had plenty to eat at the big, communal evening meal. Breakfast was porage as usual. Lunch was oatcakes, hummous, hardboiled eggs, salad. Whenever we went out for the day, the cook made sure there were eggs for me. For the evening meal, she cooked me a separate dish every night. I ate broccoli, leeks, tuna fish, chickpeas and mixed beans all week!!! and picked up some new ideas. On the last night, she did a fennel leek and celery bake, with steamed broccoli and runner beans, and additional pumpkin seeds. One night there was a bean, leek and tuna bake - with added goat's yoghurt and chopped parsley. I loved the new idea to me of saute'd leeks with ginger. And there was a delicious chickpea herb and lemon bake - the rest of the group had theirs with onions, the cook very kindly did me a separate one without. And there was always salad. The only items I did take were almonds (kept these in my handbag!) and two tubs of goat's yoghurt, which I put in the fridge. One tub does me for the whole week, but I knew people would help themselves, and I didn't want to make a fuss, so I provided two, and it worked! (Not many people are brave enough to try goat's yoghurt - or go back for a second time).

The Hotel Breakfast

This was odd. They didn't offer porage, so I felt a bit short-changed on my breakfast! I ordered two fried eggs, and ate them with some extra butter. Then I took three pats of butter up to my room, spread them onto oatcakes for a second breakfast. But they did supply a pot of hot water and two thick slices of lemon. I didn't feel too embarrassed about eating the two eggs by themselves - my fellow travellers comprised a group of cyclists talking about how much they'd been drinking on their holiday and ordering poached eggs, albeit on toast.

My Lovely Daughter

Cooked chick peas with garlic & leeks, served with watercress. I left the olive oil with her...

Lots of Walking

So, in spite of the fact that I was eating loads of food and never once went hungry, I lost 5lb in weight! A stone and a half since May, and friends are all beginning to notice properly - the ones who've known me since I was slim all recognise I'm back to me old self, which is a real pleasure to have relfected back to me. Please, try this at home!

The Difficult Bits

Watching all the other people in my group eating roasted vegetable rissotto. It was agony! I love rissotto!!! The very big dish of tiramisu being handed around was quite tantalising, though I could comfort myself with the knowledge that it could never be as good as my friend J's tiramisu. A big vegetarian curry on the last night, with glistening naan breads, was likewise hard not to dip into - I was especially grateful for the treat of fennel and celery bake with pumpkin seeds that night, and I'm going to try that one myself.

No food pictures (have you ever tried whipping out your camera and flashing away at a plate of food in front of other people? Yes? I'd rather eat goat's yoghurt!!!) so here is sunrise over a sea...

Feature This

... this morning, I am mostly thinking about... sausages and homemade damson sauce with mashed potatoes and baked beans... awwwh!!!

And then there's all that weight to be lost...

May '9 - started gradually giving up on all things sugary. Progress was slow. I also began taking supplements, something I normally avoid, to make sure I was topped up with everything I needed. How did I decide what I would take? I read Gillian McKeith's book, You Are What You Eat - especially the chapter which lists symptoms of deficiency, and what to take to cure them. Weighed myself once. This is the starting point for my diet.

June '9 - was meant to start the sugar-free diet but kept postponing it. You know the kind of thing. I'll wait til after this visitor, this party, this festival, this big day out...

July '9 - got bored of preparing for the diet, and realised I would have to do it, regardless of special events. Psyched up by eating 'farewell foods' - last vanilla custard, last tin of rice pudding, last chocolate, etc. Planned my meals, shopping lists. Put all the forbidden foods into a big box. A friend of mine calls it 'The Naughty Box' - I don't open it unless to get out the coffee and biscuits for visitors.

July 22 - started the anti-candida diet.

August '9 - Weighed myself. Reduction: 7kg or 1 stone one and a half pounds. Over three months, this is about a pound a week. My clothes fit me better, and I've probably dropped a size; I can wear the jeans I bought five years ago. And all this without exercising.

September '9 - by the end of September, I had lost a further 2lb. It's bound to level out. My aim is to lose another stone by next May; I'm sure if I stick to the restrictive diet and indulge in some exercise as well, I should be able to manage that. And keep the weight the same from then on.

The 'diet' I'm on restricts the foods I eat: I don't restrict how much I eat. Well, I do, in that I try to keep to 1600 calories a day, the right amount for my gender and age bracket. Which is a bummer. What I mean is, if I'm hungry, I eat more; if I'm not so hungry, I make sure I eat to match that feeling. The opportunity for snacking is reduced; the snacks I allow are celery, hummous, oatcakes, tahini paste, butter, almonds (not supposed to eat too many of these). At meals, however, I eat as much as I want. I measure out the meat or fish, and the rice, but when I'm hungry, I just cook more rice, or porage oats if it's breakfast time. Vegetables I let myself have unlimited access to. Eating more at meals helps me to cut down on snacks. When I have a day out, I eat a very big breakfast; this cuts down on wanting to buy chocolate, etc. Nowadays, I find myself really looking forward to the evening meal; my 'treat eating' is to make this meal as interesting and luxurious as possible, and I put a lot of time into preparing it with care. On days when I don't have time, I have to be very careful, as it means I'll start craving for the instant sugar-high fixes that modern life provides so easily. Fortunately, I don't live within walking distance of any shops, so taking the car out for a midnight sugar-fest just doesn't happen.

And that's it! That's how I lost over a stone in weight over four months, without any exercise, and without going hungry or depriving myself of good food.

Enjoy,

Derwen Hen


FEATURE THIS

This week I have mostly been thinking about eating ... Crispy Duck Rissotto.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Fish curry

(I invented this for that timeless reason: the fish I'd defrosted slightly too early didn't smell off, but didn't exactly smell good.)

Sunflower seed oil
White fish
Garam Masala
Garlic, 3 cloves
Celery - chopped fine

Saute all ingredients in the oil, ensuring spices evenly distributed among pieces of fish.
Add stock (fish stock is good - disgustingly, just boil up the head, tail and spine of the fish for a couple of hours, with a cinnamon stick. Or whatever flavour you want it to have. Allspice is good.) and simmer for twenty minutes.
When the curry is 'dry' - all liquid boiled away but before it starts sticking to the pan - add goat's yoghurt and warm through without boiling again.
Serve with turmeric rice,
chopped dill and vegetables to taste (I ate spinach).

Once again, it tasted a thousand times better than the photo looks...

My Lovely Daughter

... was helping me to download photos, and show me how to add links, gadgets, and generally faddle about with the blog... she chose the picture of the Japanese Flower Tea and the unusual new title and subtitle... she was very excited about it, she said it would encourage me to maintain a positive tone on this, my blog, and refrain from, well, from the other sort of tone... She is good!

THE OTHER LIST - CAN'T EAT THESE!

BRIEFLY

Anyone who's worked out that they possibly have an over-proliferation of Candida Albicans in their system has the life-form known as yeast growing inside them; and taking over their bodies, appetities, lifestyles, like a triffid on ... no. Too explicit, not enough Science...

Just like the yeasts in wine, beer and bread, Candida needs sugar and the exact temparature of the human body to grow. Eat sugar, yeast, fungi and fermented foods, and you are feeding the beast that lurks within.

Stop eating sugar, yeast, fungi and fermented foods, and you're half way towards starving out the beast. (The rest involves the dinky little herbal preparations, eating plenty of the foods which naturally combat Candida, and replacing the dead Candida with live good bacteria from yoghurt.)

The list of BANNED FOODS is...


SUGAR

SUGAR
HONEY

... OR ANYTHING DERIVED FROM SUGAR

MOST SWEETENERS (google them, it's terrifying!)

...OR ANYTHING MADE WITH SUGAR IN IT, including

CANDYFLOSS
SWEETS
CHOCOLATE
JAM
CAKE
BISCUIT
SCONE
SHORTBREAD
FLAPJACK
CEREALS WITH SUGAR COATS

... OR TRILLIONS OF THINGS YOU WOULDN'T EXPECT TO HAVE SUGAR IN THEM INCLUDING

TINNED SOUPS
PACKET SOUPS
CREAM CRACKERS & OTHER CHEESE BISCUITS
RYVITA
LOTS AND LOTS OF LOW-FAT FOODS; the sugar is there to supply the flavour that got thrown out with the fat
COCONUT MILK

MOST 'JUNK' FOODS HAVE EXTREMELY HIGH SUGAR CONTENTS.
I do spend most of my time shopping, reading the small print. In a couple of weeks' time I'll flag up some of the complex info about sweeteners: just for now, they're mostly derived from something known as sugar alcohol. Just those two words in one ingredient makes me want to avoid it.


YEAST, OR ANYTHING MADE WITH YEAST

BREAD
BUNS
PIZZA
MARMITE
ALL ALCOHOLIC DRINKS

...OR SQUILLIONS OF THINGS YOU WOULDN'T EXPECT TO HAVE YEAST IN THEM
HYDROGENATED OILS (apparently a preparation containing yeast, used in factories to flavour pastries)
ALL FOODS WITH ALCOHOL IN THEM - pate, for instance, a surprise ingredient is sherry!
FISH FINGERS - the breadcrumbs
FISH IN BEER BATTER
SAUSAGES - it's the breadcrumbs again


FERMENTED FOODS
ie: those made by process of fermentation

CHEESE (except, perhaps, Cottage Cheese: I haven't investigated this further, as I dislike eating said type of cheese, and don't see any scientific or medicinal reason why I have to!)
VINEGAR - made in casks, like wine, and fermented.
TEMPEH (tofu is made from soya and fermented to produce a tasty beige paste)
SOY SAUCE - made by fermenting soybeans with two kinds of mould - Aspergillus Oryzae & Aspergillus Soyeae on roasted grains. Water & salt added.

...AND ALL FOODS WITH ANY OF THE ABOVE INGREDIENTS

MUSTARD (sob! a favourite of mine)
PICKLED FRUITS & VEGETABLES
PICKLE SAUCES
SAUERKRAUT
SALAD DRESSINGS
MAYONNAISE
probably loads more, you just have to read the small print - or just don't eat anything out of jars except Tahini Paste!


SMOKED FOODS

- I don't know why; I've read that the smoking process leaves the food in a condition in which it feeds Candida. When I find the website, I'll put the link in here.


FUNGI

MUSHROOMS
ALL EDIBLE FUNGI
ALL FOODS WITH MOULD IN THEM - BLUE CHEESE, FOR INSTANCE
TRUFFLES
NUTS, apparently, have a propensity to grow moulds on them, most especially peanuts. Though I've never noticed this, nuts are on the forbidden list because of their relatively high sugar content, 5g per 100g plus.


NUTS - see above, sugar levels too high.


DRIED FRUIT


FRUIT

Most fruit has an extremely high sugar content.
The lowest of the fruits on the sugar-content scale are berries - strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and this is the only reason I can think of which makes some of the books/websites recommend them to Candida sufferers. Sometimes this is because they contain other nutrients which are so helpful in the fight against Candida that eating them cancels out the effect of feeding the Candida with their sugars. When I find that evidence, I'll start eating them again!


VEGETABLES

Firstly, I have to say this list would be too long - I'm not eating any vegetable which isn't on my CAN EAT LIST... but, this is why...

ROOT VEGETABLES - Carrots,Beetroot, Parsnip, Sweet Potatoes, Turnips, Swedes and many, many more. Roots store sugar, this is how the plant survives the winter. When it's frosty, the plant responds by converting its stored food into sugar, to help prevent it's water content from freezing and making it go all black and gungy; that's why parsnips taste more delicious after a cold snap. The sugar in the roots feeds the Candida. Potatoes appear on some lists as high in sugar, and on some as below 2g per 100g, but their sugar levels depend on how they've been cooked, and I'm avoiding them anyway - I just want to eat them mashed, with lots of milk, so, bother.

ONIONS - have the same self-protection system as root veg - loads of sugar to prevent them freezing up in the ground over winter.

GREEN VEGETABLES - Cabbage, Sprouts, Peas, Broad Beans, French Beans - all have a sugar content of over 3g per 100g. Not very high, but this is why they're not on my Level 1 list.

All plants contains sugar, in one part or other of their systems; the most edible sections of the plants seem to be the ones with the highest sugar content. Sugar cane is simply the plant with the sugar that's easiest to refine out of it. Sugar beet, maple sap, aren't too far behind. Seaweeds seem to have extremely minimal levels of sugar; this is why they're on my Level 0 list.



REFINED FLOUR

This is because it's been so refined it's mostly carbohydrate, which is extremely high in sugar levels. So, no...

white flour
cornflour
pasta
pancakes
drop scones

Oats are also forbidden by one website, because they're high in carbohydrate levels. I'm still eating them, because it's the only convenience breakfast I have left, and I eat the porage with live yoghurt. And on the packet, porage oats have very low sugar levels. And the only other carbohydrate-high food in my diet is rice. On Level 0 days, I don't eat porage.

Because I don't particularly like couscous or bulgarian wheat grain, I haven't included them on any of my lists, but they are low in sugar levels (Level 1), and I probably won't be making them or providing recipes. Would be interested to know if anyone does have a good experience of using them - the first couscous I ever made was too sloppy and tasteless; in fact, it tasted like a school dinner ingredient, and thus made me shudder, eat it all up, and then have to go and be sick outside on some tarmac. No, nearly, not really.


DAIRY

MILK
CREAM
YOGHURT (cow's)

Sugar & lactose levels are too high. If you've refrained from drinking milk for a couple of months, and then taste it again, it does taste startlingly sweet.


CAFFEINE

The vexed question of caffeine, which contains no sugar whatsoever, hasn't been fermented (though the cocoa pod is fermented to induce it to release its beans) and yet is still a banned substance. This is for two reasons...

Apparently, caffeine is a toxin, secreted by some plants in their seeds (coffee beans, cocoa beans) and some plants in their leaves (tea) to act as a poison against predators which would otherwise eat the nourishing seeds and delicious leaves. When you fight the good fight against Candida, the body begins to detoxify itself, and processes a massive back-log of all the toxins produced during the yeasty work inside your body, (I don't know why we don't all just get huge and explode like over-proved bread dough!) and you must refrain from contributing any more toxins from caffeine, as your liver already has more than enough to deal with.

Also, caffeine works to make the adrenalin glands over-produce adrenalin; the resultant rush of adrenalin coursing through your body also does things to your blood-sugar levels, and it's best to keep those as stable as possible.

N.B. see 'CHEATING ON THE DIET', a planned future posting, for what happens when you cheat by drinking real coffee, after two months of abstaining.


At this point, if you're a Scientist, you'll find this all rather amusing and unscientific; well, sigh, drat, and perhaps I should have read up the websites again, and be quoting from them and giving all you Scientific People some of those references to prove that what I'm quoting from really exists...

Well, I was trying to be brief...

And, those are many of the foods I'm not eating. It's a struggle. Some them I've been imbibing by force of habit for thirty years - coffee, tea, chocolate, milk - and some of them are only recently discovered favourites, of which I have not yet had enough - balsamic vinegar, tempeh - and some of them are just favourites - Stilton cheese, Danish Blue with a nice crispy apple, Plum Crumble, Vanilla Custard, my Great-Great Grandmother's Christmas Cake, with home made marzipan, Pork Pie, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate....

Enough.

I'm experimenting with new foods, now...

Enjoy!

Derwen Hen


FEATURE THIS

This week, I have mostly been thinking about....

Chocolate pie, Chocolate cake, Chocolate cookies, Chocolate & Chili sausages, Chocolate biscuits, Chocolate, Chocolate Latte, Chocolate on Millionaire's Shortbread, Chocolate Icecream, Chocolate Spread, Chocolate in Bread & Butter sandwiches, Chocolate Au Pain, Hot Chocolate Sauce with Baked Pears, Chocolate Fudge, Chocolate Cheesecake, Black Forest Gateau (home-made), Chocolate Milkshake, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chocolate Chips, Chocolate Drops, Baking Chocolate, Melting Chocolate, Drinking Chocolate, Eating Chocolate...


This week's recipe is

Crispy Duck Rissotto

Cook in a le Creuset, or other heavy casserole you can also fry in

Oil (I used Avocado Oil, expensive, sparingly, it added to the flavour, but it's not compulsory)
Ginger
Breast of Duck (one per person)

Fry slices of ginger in hot oil, fry the duck, make sure the duck is very crispy on the skin side.

Add Fennel - just the chopped off tips from the 'chimneys' of the fennel root will do
Add butternut squash - about an inch, peeled & cubed
Add 3 cloves garlic
Add salt & pepper
Add stock - hot, if adding to an enamel based dish, enough to cover the rice. You might want to invert this instruction with the one for the rice, but I don't bother.
Add rice - 70g per person. Wild rice is best. Brown rice needs longer to cook.

Bring to boil & simmer for 22 minutes (or 3 minutes less than the cooking time of the rice you've used) for Wild Rice.
Add spinach (one handful per person)
Simmer for a further 3 minutes, til the spinach begins to wilt.
Serve - if you go for a food photography effect, it will also LOOK appetising, instead of just tasting divine.

LIST ONE - FOODS I CAN EAT

FOOD LIST FOLLOWS BLURB BUT CUT STRAIGHT TO LISTS IF YOU PREFER

Once you have both lists to refer to, I'll be able to begin the blog proper, with more recipes, and stories of how I overcome challenges, or don't, and I'll find out whether or not this diet succeeds as I'm going along. So far, I feel so much better than I have done for ten years or more - I actually feel like I did in my early twenties, and I'm now more than twice that age - that, regardless of whether I'm killing off the Candida, I'm sticking to this diet. And when I have cheated (two pots of coffee in six weeks, really, does that count as cheating?) the side effects are swift to strike - proof conclusive, to me at any rate, that this diet is working... for me.


HOW I SELECTED THE FOODS

All of the advice in books and on the net became self-contradictory and confusing. I have used all the non-conflicting advice to start with, then all of the advice that made the best sense; then I went on an i-net trawl to find more information about exactly how much sugar there is in everything.


EXCLUDED FOODS

I also compiled a comprehensive list of excluded foods - foods which are excluded by all of the informants, but not all of these foods are excluded by every single informant - and I'll post this on my blog next week.


TO START WITH...

I googled the two simple words ... SUGAR CONTENT

I used two sites. The one I found first is...

http://www.dietaryfiberfood.com

You have to go to the sugar-free-products section...

This site shows the sugar content of individual foods, which are listed in order of sugar content, starting with sugar at 100%, and working down to meat at (0%).

However, this site appeared to be full of errors - I found this out from casual remarks dropped by Candida-suffering friends. "Oh, of course, cucumbers are full of sugar," and by checking the sugar content on the ingredients section of the food packaging. It's useful and I'm recommending you look at it because it gave me a clear picture of Sugar Levels in food in general. Honey is high on the list, for instance, and I've been reading blogs about candida in which the sufferers are recommending honey as an ingredient for recipes...

Basically, I copied out the list by hand, and it shaped my thinking about how to list my Candida diet foods - you'll see below they're in Levels. Level 0 is a list of foodstuffs which contain no sugar. Level 1 is a list of foodstuffs which contain a maximum of 1.9g sugar per 100g weight. Level 2 is full of foods which contain a max of 3g sugar per 100g weight - but I haven't published it as I'm not eating Level 2 foods yet. They contain too much sugar. The aim of this diet is to kill the Candida, not feed it.

This is the second website I found...

http://whfoods.org/

World Health, and it's an absolutely invaluable list of foods and their nutrition content. I used it to cross-check lots of the foods on the first website, and find out loads of information about what's in the food we eat. More of the info on this World Health site is borne out by the info on the back of food packaging (in the UK anyway. What happens in the rest of the world?) It can be a difficult to use for working out an extreme Candida diet, as they measure levels of sugar in cups (it's an American site) which hold differing weights of food, which they also supply. So, 1 cup of boiled Kale, weighing 130g, contains 1.56g sugar - clearly less than 1.9g per 100g. For all the tricky ones, I just had to get the calculator out.

Yes, it's been an obsessive little journey. This blog is an attempt to make this diet clear, and accessible to others, and especially accessible to people who've been suffering from symptoms which indicate high Candida Albicans levels in the body. It's made me feel better, so why not attempt to pass it on?

To use the whfoods.org site, enter the food you're looking for info on into the search box, and click on the search box (say, Kale). Scroll down the list of blue links til you reach: Kale: nutritional profile. Scroll down to the bottom of the nutritional profile and click on the blue link 'In-depth nutritional profile'. There you will find the sugar content listed, along with everything else that's inside Kale. Yum!

It's an American site, so sometimes they use different words for food items. Some foods don't show up on the searches, and you have to try a related food, and find the links. Chicken behaved like this!

THE LIST ITSELF

Level 0

ORGANIC MEATS, FRESH OR FROZEN
Chicken
Duck
Lamp
Pork
Beef

FRESH OR FROZEN FISH
Salmon
Trout
Tuna
Sardines
White fish
All shellfish, crab, lobster
Prawns
etc.

OILS & FATS
all oils, but especially Sunflower Seed Oil which contains lots of essential fatty acids
Organic Butter - good for you because it contains an ingredient which helps combat Candida. When I find the website again, I'll post the link.

DAIRY
Goat's yoghurt. It has live good bacteria, and no sugar; the bacteria are essential ingredients in the fight against Candida. Basically, as the Candida dies off, you have to stock up on good bacteria in the intestine; they help fight the Candida yeasts. Goat's yoghurt is delicious. Cow's yoghurt has too much sugar for me, but use it live for the bacteria if you've tried goat's yoghurt and it's too sharp. Also, see supplements. I don't normally use pro-biotic drinks because they're suspiciously sweet.

GRAINS & VEG
Quinoa - a seed which is also gluten-free
Linseeds - good source of Omega 3
Spelt - the grain
Kelp
Seaweeds
Creamed coconut - sold in packets, no sugar content unlike the milk or dessicated coconut. No, I don't know what they do to it.

SPICES - ALL SPICES, BUT ESPECIALLY...
Black Pepper
Cinnamon
Cloves
Cumin
Ginger - root ginger especially
Turmeric

HERBS - (but excluding chives, and check out basil) ESPECIALLY...
Basil
Dill
Oregano
Rosemary
Thyme

DRINKS
Herbal teas especially...
Pau D'Arco tea
Lemon & Ginger tea
Nettle tea
Red clover tea (Vitamin B source of)


LEVEL 1

Oats (see above)
Oatcakes - sugar free (see my first blog)

Brown Rice
Wild Rice

Aduki Beans
Chick Peas
Kidney Beans (there are lots of other beans with low levels of sugar, but I don't eat too many beans, as they're high in carbohydrate, and disrecommended by lots of the websites. Vegans & Vegetarians might want to experiment more with these)

Hummus

Eggs

Cauliflower
Collards
Lettuce - esp Hearts of Romaine, Rocket Salad
Kale
Mustard Leaves
Parsley
Spinach
Watercress

Asparagus
Celery
Fennel
Garlic
Leeks

Avocado

Sesame Seeds
Tahini Paste (Pasted sesame seeds).


Level 1+ (these foods are slightly high in sugar content, but have extremely high nutrition levels, and so I keep them on my list).

Broccoli
Squash - all varieties but especially pumpkin
Lime / Lemon juice (at three limes a week, this can't be excessive levels of sugar)
Runner beans (but not french beans)


Level - I refuse to stop eating these...

Almonds - they are high in sugar, but I like them, some sites recommend them for the Anti-Candida-diet, and they are an extremely convenient portable snack, which is also highly nutritious and delicious. I pour a 100g packet into one of those snap-tight boxes, and it travels with me in my handbag. Hardly any garages or other late-opening shops stock anything other than foods proscribed from the anti-Candida diet.


SUPPLEMENTS

If you are vegan, or just don't like yoghurt, then you need to take a supplement containing ACIDOPHILUS, which will give you the good bacteria you need (see above, Yoghurt). I found one in my local health food store; they're very friendly and helpful in there.

I'm taking some other supplements, but I won't go there this week. Too much information already.

And that's it! That's what I've been eating for the last six or seven weeks! That's what's put the spring back in my step, taken away the 'woolly cloud' from my head, the headaches, the lassitude, the feeling that my muscles have been sucked out and I've been packed with cottonwool instead, the cramps, the growling-tummy, the wobbliness, the earache, the sore throats, the inexplicably painful elbow, and a peck of other things. There are some symptoms that haven't gone away yet, but I'm prepared to be patient. I'll discuss this properly in another blog, but I'm in this for the long haul, and not all the symptoms will recede as fast as the ones listed above have done. What's instructive is, that when I have lapsed from the diet, some of them have almost immediately returned, just for a short period of time.


AND FINALLY...

Enjoy! Enjoy experimenting with the above foods. Enjoy contemplating going on this diet. As I said, it took me four years to brace myself to start it, and around two months of preparation - studying, working out the The List, stocking up on all the foods, eating all my favourite foods for the last time (that was important), finding out more and more about Candida and how invasive it is, and how it explained so many of the little symptoms I had, til I was so disgusted with it, I couldn't not go on the diet - and then putting up with a very painful Detox Month. And, after all that, I am totally thrilled that it's working so well!

Derwen Hen


FEATURE THIS

This week, I have mostly been eating...

CHICK PEA KORMA
Sunflowerseed Oil, garlic, lots. Saute garlic in oil, over low heat.
Leeks, the white half ONLY, chopped very finely, saute with garlic.
Butter, organic, add to leeks.
Cumin, coriander - ground - two teaspoons of each, or more. Add to mix, and stir well, til you can smell the spices heating up.
Black pepper, salt.
Chickpeas - two 400g cans. Or use dried, soaked Chickpeas (see packet)
Stock, enough to cover (see later blog on making stock from fresh - do NOT use cubes or bouillon - or, if tempted, read the labels, they are too high in sugar and other preservatives). Fresh stock can be made by boiling water with salt, garlic, herbs and spices for about half an hour; strain before pouring into the Korma.
Creamed coconut - no other sort will do. About a quarter of a pack will do, 50g max.
Serve with brown rice, flavoured with turmeric, cumin, and cooked in stock.
And yoghurt with mint/parsley/thyme chopped into it. Or you can add the yoghurt to the mixture and cook it in.

A two-can batch serves 4 people. You could easily add more leeks.

Also travels well, and I have used this cold, without the rice or the yoghurt, as my lunch when out for the day. Snap-tight box, plastic spoon, small cloth, box of chopped celery, tote bag to carry it all. Looks peculiar, tastes perfect.


NEXT WEEK

LIST TWO - forbidden foods, and why



Supper last night - butternut squash fried in goosefat with garlic and black pepper: scrambled eggs, done very slowly, just add a lump of cold butter at the end (thankyou, Gordon Ramsay) and chopped watercress. Would be better with lime juice on the cress, and salt in the eggs, and rosemary in the squash.

First Things First

This summer, having read loads and loads of websites, and one book, I have diagnosed myself as having Candida Albicans - or rather, too much Candida Albicans, with accompanying side effects. This decision hasn't been taken lightly, and in fact, I've have been putting it off for around four years now. The horror of not being able to eat exactly what I want, when I want it, has been too appalling to face up to - and of course, being able to eat exactly what I want, when I want it, has been contributing to the whole Candida problem.

I'm setting up this blog for a couple of reasons...

1. I want to share the new recipes I've been inventing. I really enjoy messing about with food and contriving to cook good food from limited ingredients.

2. I want to share the diet I've devised; there's a lot of conflicting advice sloshing around on the internet about how to eliminate/control Candida Albicans, and the foods that can/cannot be eaten by people trying to starve it out of existence in their guts. I've done some fact-finding, and come up with such an extremely restrictive diet, that basically I can't bear the fact that I'm the only person eating it!

3. I feel so good now I've started on the diet and anti-Candida tablets properly (Detox Month was horrible), I want to share that as well, with people who are curious and maybe getting their own anti-Candida plans underway... rather than overwhelm people at parties with my enthusiasm (yawn).

The plan is... to write on this site about once a week, address one issue every week, and start a list of foods, recipes, etc., under a heading at the bottom of the page, Feature This...
I won't be talking about Candida itself, there are far too many good websites doing that already. When I can work out how to put on the links, you'll be able to find them.

This is the disclaimer... I am not a Scientist, Nutritionist nor do I have any medical qualifications whatsoever, not even a First Aid Certificate. Please do not embark on an Extreme Candida Diet if you have any medical condition, and/or without seeking advice from a qualified practitioner.

What I am, is a 'Reader'. After reading all the advice on websites, I had a list of questions of my own. I continued to read, compile information on food, sugar and other toxins, and gradually came to my own conclusions about what I was going to eliminate from my diet. Finally, having selected an Anti-Candida preparation to take daily (from a local Heath Food shop), I sought advice from a therapist listed on the National Candida Society's website. We talked for about an hour, he asked pertinent questions and gave me some sound advice to follow, but indicated that I was on the right track as far as the restrictions I was imposing on my diet went.

If you're already on a course of treatment for Candida, this blog is intended to be a useful resource to supplement your current diet, share problems and recipes of your own, and possibly find new links.

If you are wondering whether or not you have an over-proliferation of the yeast known as Candida Albicans in your digestive system, please use this blog as a source of potential amusement and horror, and seek professional advice before taking embarking on any course of action.

In the meantime... the answer to a question not frequently asked... what on earth does someone on a diet with no cakes, no biscuits, no fruit, no puddings, no chips, what on earth do they eat when they're peckish? See below

... and enjoy!

Derwen Hen



FEATURE THIS...

This week, I has mostly been eating...

Oatcakes! (with organic butter, tahini paste or hummous)


Two sources of oatcakes with no added sugar...

Melmersby Oatcakes from www.villagebakery.co.uk ... Supplied have been discontinued at my local supermarket, and I'm about to check out their availability over the internet.

Morrisons' own brand oatcakes.

Any more out there, please list! I spend most of my time at the shops reading the small print.


NEXT WEEK...

The List

AND FINALLY...

Dinner tonight was...










RARE ORGANIC STEAK, steamed asparagus with organic butter..

Luxury! and, rare in both senses of the word.