Those suffering from a candida overgrowth are often told to consume more vegetables.  Health experts claim that vegetables provide the body with powerful phytochemicals and antioxidants which can help boost the overall health of the body and can help combat against candida.

However, many are unknowingly doing more harm than good by consuming high amounts of vegetables on their candida diet.  In fact, a high vegetable consumption can actually make a candida condition much worse!

But how can this be?  How can something so healthy such as vegetables possibly make a candida condition worse?

These are questions that we hope to answer in this post and by the end you may find yourself thinking twice about consuming all those vegetables on your candida diet!

Eat 7 Servings of Vegetables a Day?

We’ve all heard it before, health experts all around the world claim that we need to be consuming at least 7 servings of vegetables a day in order to maintain optimal health.  When someone is suffering from candida, this recommendation of 7 servings of vegetables a day often goes up.

However, very few are unaware where this recommendation even comes from.  In fact, it wasn’t until the induction of the food pyramid that health experts became adamant about the general public eating at least 5-7 servings of vegetables a day.

It should be mentioned that there are no long term studies showing that high vegetable consumption will help you live longer and is optimal for the body.  Interestingly, a high vegetable diet is a fairly new concept and would not have been able to be practiced by certain people centuries ago depending on location.

For example, people living further from the equator and in colder climates would have never been able to consume vegetables daily.  In reality, vegetable consumption for these types of individual would have been a rarity.  Even those living in sub-tropical climates often refrain from consuming vegetable matter.

This can be seen by the Huaorani People of the Amazon Rainforest who live off mostly animal foods, starchy tubers, and seasonal fruits.  These people avoid vegetables at all costs, yet, they exhibit robust health and amazing feats of strength well into old age.  It’s been observed by foreigners that these people will actually vomit if you try to feed them any form of vegetable food!

Perhaps our inner child was right about vegetable foods all along!

Meat Consumption Will Lead to Early Death

The best thing an individual can consume if he/she is suffering from candida overgrowth are high quality animal products.  Unfortunately, due to mis-information, you are told to shy away from animal products due to high cholesterol and saturated fat.

Yet, it’s been known that an all meat diet is not only sustainable, but can be very beneficial.  A great example of this is when Vilhjalmur Stefansson went to go live with Eskimos for several years and survived on an all meat diet.  Not only did he not suffer from negative consequences, but his health improved dramatically!  A great synopsis of the famous Arctic explorer and his time with the Eskimo can be found HERE.

Doctors could not believe that such a diet could have a positive effect.  As a result, they performed a controlled all meat diet experiment on Vihjalmiur Stefansson for a year.  To their surprise, not only did he not suffer from any nutritional deficiencies, but he thrived on this type of diet!

That all being said, meat is nothing to fear.  In fact, meat has been in our diet since the beginning of time.  Before the boom in agriculture and the hybridization of plant foods, consuming vegetables could have been a deadly experiment.  It should be mentioned that most plant foods that occur naturally in the wild are very toxic to the human body. 

Vegetables, Anti-Nutrients, and Candida

At this point, you may be wondering why a high vegetable diet is bad if you suffer from candida.  Luckily, the answer is simple; all vegetables contain toxins.  Yes, that’s right, those 5-7 servings of vegetables that you’re being told to consume actually contain toxic compounds.

In fact, an argument could be made that carefully prepared bread, such as sourdough, is actually a better option than most vegetables.

It’s important to understand that all vegetables contain anti-nutrients.  These anti-nutrients are present in all plant foods in order to protect the species from being consumed.  Although cooking can reduce the anti-nutrients (poison) present in plant foods, it’s typically not enough for someone consuming large amounts of these foods.

In particular, vegetables are extremely high in the anti-nutrients oxalates, goitrogens, and salicylates.  All these anti-nutrients have been shown to cause digestive disturbances and can have a negative effect on the thyroid in the body (1)(2). 

This can be disastrous for anyone suffering with candida overgrowth since intestinal inflammation will already be high in these individuals.  In fact, plant foods can make the gut more permeable and can make conditions such as “leaky gut” much worse.

Understanding Where Vegetables Come From

Many fail to ask the question where vegetables come from.  Yes they come from the farm, but, where did they originate from.  How come we don’t see broccoli or kale naturally growing in nature?

The answer is simple; such foods do not grow naturally in the wild.  For those unaware, all store bought vegetables have undergone an extensive hybridization process.  This hybridization process helps to remove the high amounts of toxins present in wild plants and makes them “more edible.”

For example, cruciferous vegetables originate from the brassica family.  Anyone who knows anything about wild plants knows that this family is very toxic to the human body.  That being said, many of these toxins still remain in the hybridized version of this plant such as broccoli, kale, and cauliflower.

In fact, it’s been well known that goitrogens, which are present in all cruciferous vegetables can cause thyroid disorders in the body.  Furthermore, oxalates, which are very high in green vegetables, can contribute to kidney stones in the body (3).

The point we are trying to get across is you would never consume large amounts of vegetables if you were surviving off the land like our ancestors did for thousands of years.  In our opinion, ripe fruit is the only time a human would naturally gravitate towards consuming a plant food raw.  However, this would only be a seasonal item and would not form the base of the diet.

Should you Eat Vegetables if You Have Candida?

In our opinion, if an individual is suffering from chronic candida overgrowth, vegetables should be the last thing they consume.  Instead, these individuals should be focusing on high quality animal foods.  As we’ve mentioned before on this website, animal foods do not contain anti-nutrients or sugar.

As a result, they will not irritate the gut lining like most plant foods.  Also, they contain zero sugar and will not feed candida in the body.  For those not informed, sugar is the main fuel source of candida.  Without sugar, this pathogenic fungus cannot thrive or multiply in the body.

It should be mentioned that high quality animal foods contain everything the body needs to repair and regenerate.  They contain all the vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that can help regenerate and repair the body to a more optimal state.  In particular, animal fats are very soothing to the intestines and can great for those dealing with intestinal inflammation due to candida.

It’s highly recommended that individuals focus their attention on high quality fatty cuts of meat.  Gelatinous cuts of meat such as lamb leg, oxtail, and shank are all great options for gut health due to their high amounts of collagen.  Research has shown that collagen can help improve the epithelial tight junctions in the gut which can improve conditions such as intestinal permeability (4).

Try Our Candida Diet Protocol

For those interested, we highly recommend you check out our Crush Candida Cookbook for healthy and gut friendly recipes.  These recipes were designed to be both candida friendly and delicious!

Also, please refer to our free Candida Diet Protocol Page which outlines the best diet to be following if you suffer from candida overgrowth.  Don’t waste your money on a expensive candida eating program when we’ve provided one for you for free!