Beat Candida Cookbook - Erica White

Before I can write the opinion about the book I feel I should give some background information about what lead me to the book in the first place, I hope it may help someone too, as they read my symptoms and think ‘hey that’s me!’ and then get themselves on the right track!

How I came to be looking for this book….
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Over the last year or so I had been to my GP with various things, ...
...put down to my age – I’m 37!), itchy shins – which OK isn’t life threatening but to be woken up because you have scratched your shins so much in the night they bleed ain’t normal! So off I went to my GP, who did very little once again. I had various sore throats, colds, constantly runny nose – none of which I brought to the GP’s attention as I felt they weren’t serious enough – well at this point I was thinking I am never going to see that awful ... more

Before I can write the opinion about the book I feel I should give some background information about what lead me to the book in the first place, I hope it may help someone too, as they read my symptoms and think ‘hey that’s me!’ and then get themselves on the right track!

How I came to be looking for this book….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the last year or so I had been to my GP with various things, such as being tired all the time (which he helpfully put down to my age – I’m 37!), itchy shins – which OK isn’t life threatening but to be woken up because you have scratched your shins so much in the night they bleed ain’t normal! So off I went to my GP, who did very little once again. I had various sore throats, colds, constantly runny nose – none of which I brought to the GP’s attention as I felt they weren’t serious enough – well at this point I was thinking I am never going to see that awful man again quite frankly!

I was becoming bloated after certain foods but could not pin point which ones, had bad wind, and many (loud!) stomach gurgles. My hair was lack lustre and so was my skin, I was tetchy and would snap at the slightest thing.

Anyway, all this culminated in some sort of infection which seemed like thrush but went nowhere when I did you usual over-the-counter pessaries, creams etc. So I reluctantly phoned the GP, luckily I was able to get in and see a lady doctor and not my usual awful dismissive man. I won’t go into great detail here, but suffice to say everything was red raw down there, but when she did tests nothing showed up (tests for thrush, cystitis etc apparently are notoriously unreliable I have been told since). Her advice was ‘we’ll leave it be and see what happens’. Now I don’t know about you but I reckon if your ‘cheeky bits’ are red raw and you’re in pain, ‘let’s just leave it’ is a daft suggestion.

So on emailing a friend on my return home feeling very sorry for myself, she said ‘ I have a book on Candida it may be useful’ So my journey began….

The Book Itself
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The book I got off my friend was not this book, and I may get the one listed and write an op on it soon. However, this spurred me on to try the Anti-Candida Diet and so I bought Erica’s book.

The symptoms above are very common in Candida and Erica herself suffered for many years, as people do, as GP’s only see the item you’re going to them about, they don’t have time to read about what you were in for last visit or even ask you about other things, and in an effort not to appear neurotic you don’t sit there and list all these ‘daft’ things wrong with you.

Also, it appears, GP’s don’t ‘believe’ all this exists!!

Erica’s book begins by her telling you about herself and her illness with Candida, Candida lives in all of us, it is a yeast that generally lives happily (symbiotically) in our intestines and any other nice warm place about our person.

The dis-ease happens when it gets out of control, it then becomes a parasite and you get the symptoms above as it inhabits your intestines, pushing out the good bacteria, and releasing its toxins so affecting you and more importantly your liver, which has to deal with all the toxins.

Erica outlines what she has put up with and her quest to get well again, this first bit is a good read, but I have to admit to skipping it initially and getting right down to the recipes.

Recipes – what can’t you eat?
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Well, in a person where the Candida is out of control and parasitic, it generally follows that the person had a poor diet. It’s not to say that I didn’t eat well, but I liked bread, mushrooms, cakes, white flour, white rice and most of all sweet things – I have (had?) an incredible sweet tooth – candy floss, rainbow crystals, chewy sweets, meringue nests oh you name it!!!!!!! Overall a poor diet in a nutritionists eyes.

Now imagine you are baking bread, you’ve added the yeast (remember Candida is a yeast) and now you add the sugar (its food) what happens? A huge explosion with the loaf as the bread doubles then triples in size….that’s in you if you’re susceptible

So Erica begins her explanation of what you need to cut out in order to get well. She cut’s out anything with yeast in for a start like bread, alcohol, mushrooms, Quorn, stock cubes, grapes (yes grapes have yeasts/moulds on their surface) etc.

She then cuts out all sugar, every scrap, even in your baked beans and tomato ketchup (it is everywhere!!) also all sugar substitutes like Aspartime – these just confuse the pancreas into making insulin when it needn’t.

Tea, coffee, anything with caffeine in it – caffeine in the body makes your body make its own sugar!

Refined stuff, like white flour, white rice, etc. You may think as I did – why? It’s only wholemeal with the bran bits taken out – oh no it’s HOW they take it out, using bleaches etc so you’re shoving chemicals into your body to an already overloaded liver.

Also for a few weeks you have to give up fruit too – as of course this contains sugar (fructose – anything with an ‘ose’ is a sugar) – on March 20th I can eat apples and pears again (not that I am missing fruit!! LOL!!) I will have to peel them or ensure they are fresh and organic as pesticides won’t help my system either.

So what can you eat??
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As you read through the 'don’ts' you may think – oh no!!! But rest assured Erica has put lots of time, thought and energy into collating recipes from friends and patients and concocting her own to tempt you.

Everything wholemeal – rice, flour (if you’re OK with gluten), pasta etc is OK – so she gives recipes for yeast free breads, toppings, savoury crumbles, and quiche bases.

She writes many main course recipes, soups, stews, pies, etc. Using fresh vegetables, nuts, seeds, pulses and grains.

I can honestly say the recipes are yum! I can’t think of a bad one that I have tried yet!

Plus…you turn to the back where there is always a desert section in a cookery book – and YES! It is there!!!

Now don’t get over excited, your sweet tooth is not going to be satisfied, but there is enough here to get you through a craving (and believe me when you start this diet and your yeasts realise they are dying, boy do they do all in their power to try and get you to eat sugary things!!)

The deserts I have tried so far have been Lemon and Sesame cakes, the first time you eat a sugarless cake it is weird, nice but weird!

Carrot and Lemon cakes – lemon does give a hint of sweetness. I also made lemon curd to go with these – that blows your head off – lemon curd with no sugar, tart is not the word! But refreshing and kinda nice.

We’ve also had oaty cookies with desiccated coconut and vanilla essence (in fact I have just eaten one now).

She also does ideas for drinks, as out goes lemonade, coffee etc - in comes Dandelion coffee (helps your liver) and Camomile tea - sparkling water with a lemon cut into it (lemons & limes are the only fruits you can eat)

All in all very delicious!

What I like particularly about the recipes is they use simple ingredients, OK there are new flours I had never tired before like rice flour etc but it is fun to try new things and nothing in the book has been hard to find.

She mentions Kombu at one point and I thought – now where the heck do I find that, well it’s in Sainsbury’s so it’s not that unusual!

All recipes are English, with no strange American things that you sometimes find – she lives in Essex.

She also grades the recipes with stars (for surviving, reviving and thriving!) , so depending on how well you feel you know which recipe you’ll be able to tackle – which is a great idea!!

Is that it?
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Not at all, Erica also outlines anti-fungals you can take, vitamin supplements (some contain yeast etc for Candida to thrive on so seek advice), and pro-biotics to re-populate your gut with the proper organisms.

I have to say she doesn’t go into much detail about this, but I see her point as it is a very individual thing and she advises you see a holistic practitioner for advice on this.

She tells you about die-off, when the yeast is giving up and moving on, what symptoms to expect. In fact if she hadn’t I may have thought I was having a relapse or maybe dying (it can be very bad, I felt awful but it’s only been one day like that so far).

The Prognosis?
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Well for Erica’s book – I’d say a best seller, or it should be!!

And for me, well probably a year on this diet, but taken a day at a time, I’ve not been this well in a while, most of the symptoms have settled down if not left altogether so that’s good. But as Erica says ‘The hardest time to stick to the diet is when you feel well’ and if you don’t and take sugar etc too soon – the Candida will throw a party in there!!!!

The thing that keeps you going is not wanting to undo all the hard work you’ve done so far and also the yummy recipes you still have yet to try out of course!!!!!!!

This recipe book would also be very good for people with M.E, M.S, and other related conditions as according to Erica (and many others on the subject) they could all relate back to Candida. The recipes would also be very good for diabetics too.

Further information about Erica White can be found at www.nutritionhelp.com – Erica’s website, she practices in Westcliffe on Sea in Essex. You can book an appointment via the web site if you want to too!

I bought my copy of the book from Amazon - it's normal RRP is £12.99 but Amazon do it at around £7.00.

 

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