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Should You Eat Grains on the Candida Yeast Diet?

Updated 2/15/2020

Medically reviewed by Dr. Vibhuti Rana, PhD - Written by Dan Jackowiak Nc, PhD

Dr. Vibhuti Rana, PhD says... The article below discussing the negative effects of grain consumption, especially during a yeast infection, is medically correct.


A lot of people ask me, "Why can't I eat grains, especially wheat?"  They generally fail to understand the connection between these so called “healthy" foods and Candida yeast infections. So, in this article I am going to address that issue and I hope it clears up the minds of all those who wish to live an infection free life!

10,000 years ago, we lived as hunter-gatherers, killing our food and gathering plant foods that we could eat. We definitely ate meat and most of our ancestors lived close to the oceans. So we definitely consumed a lot of fish.

Our plant foods were fresh and we ate roughly 150 different types of plants. I have a book called, "Wild Edible Plants of the Western United States". There are 302 plants listed in this book that are edible so that gives you an idea just what kind of variety we had available to eat. Fresh plant foods are loaded with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants so our bodies were well nourished in this regard.

These plants were high in fiber and we could eat them raw if we wanted. We picked them every few days as needed. Some of them we may have cooked and some of them I'm sure we didn't. For roughly 2 million years we did this, some cultures still do, and our digestive systems adapted to this meat and plant diet.

Grains-on-a-Plate

Then about 10,000 years ago a few civilizations appeared out of nowhere. The Egyptians, the Mayans, the Incas, Babylon, and civilizations in China.

With the advent of these cities came the practice of modern day agriculture or it could be the other way around. Which came first? I do not know but they do go hand in hand.

The wheat plant cross bread with three other grasses and was changed forever. Previously it had a hard shell and fell off the stalk on its own making it mostly a waste of time to try to eat or harvest. After the cross breading the shell became soft and the kernels stayed on the plant so they could harvest it.

The same thing occurred more or less with other grains around the world too, including rice in China. All of them went through this same process of cross and selective breeding.

About 6000 years ago, pottery was invented and we figured out we could store these grains until a later date so we could eat them. This is when civilization really took off and cities started popping up all over the world because of newer agricultural methods and practices. Agriculture literally allowed the birth of modern day civilization and things would be much different today if it had not been discovered.

However, we were never designed to eat this way. It is truly a very new development in our 2 million-year history. And in the last 100 years we have taken the consumption of grains to a whole new level of nutritional insanity accompanied by further cross breeding and genetic engineering.


What Happened to Grains?

In the 1940's the International Maize & Wheat Improvement Center, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican government, began a research program to help Mexico become agriculturally self sufficient. The program grew into a worldwide effort to increase the yield of wheat, soy, and corn. By 1980 the program had produced thousands of new strains of these grains. Today almost every country in the world has adopted the highest yielding strains of these three grains.

The result:

Where once wheat grew 4 feet tall and was harvested once a year, it now grows 18" high and is harvested twice a year. Its kernels are also larger to help boost yields. This wheat plant cannot grow in the wild by itself; it must have fertilizer applied to survive.

It now contains gluten proteins that were not found in the parent and these proteins have been associated with celiac disease. It’s protein content has decreased by 28% while its simple carbohydrate content has increased. As a result of this engineering, the fiber content has been greatly reduced in comparison to the pre-engineering content.

If you were to run a blood sugar experiment on yourself, you would find that your blood sugar shoots up the roof after eating the wheat before all this tinkering. The glycemic index lists whole wheat breads glycemic index as 72. White bread comes in at 69 while Shredded Wheat cereal is 67. Just for comparison, a Mars bar is 68 and a Snickers bar is 41. Sugar itself is listed as 59. Now you understand the connection folks?

Today over 95% of these grains are highly processed and bad fats and chemicals are added to almost all of them.

Agricultural man from 6000 years ago consumed whole organic grains and even this resulted in a reduced lifespan and stature. Did you know that presently the Chinese are beginning to eat more meat? At present, adults who grew up mostly on grains are now consuming more meat and these adults are encouraging their children to eat more meat. These Chinese children are on average 2 inches taller than their parents when they reach adulthood. Interesting fact, isn't it? A meat based diet would seem to provide more nutritional benefits allowing the body to grow taller and stronger.

The grain consuming ancient man also showed more infant mortalities, more deaths from infectious disease, nutritional deficiencies, and lowered immune function after adopting this diet. The sugar from these "whole" grains, which they are when digested, impairs your white blood cell function and white blood cells are a major part of your immune system. How do we know all this? Fossil records! This is not pure conjecture on my part, its scientific fact.

This is also the reason for the menace of obesity you see in the world today. These grains cause a spike in your blood sugar levels which in turn causes a spike in your insulin level. The insulin gathers up this blood glucose and stores it on the body as fat for use at a later date if needed.

Vegetables on the other hand are complex carbs that slowly release their sugars into the body without creating a spike in blood sugar levels. This in turn does not cause insulin levels to spike. Plus, they are loaded with antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins which the body needs to survive and flourish.

Ancient man needed this function before the advent of farming to help him survive the winter. This is what would happen:

In the fall, fruit sources would become ripe and ready to pick and eat and I assure you ancient man pigged out on these foods. They would also go to any length in the fall to gather honey as the ‘sweet tooth’ has been with us a long time. The consumption of these foods at this time of year probably lead to a little weight gain, just in time for winter, because excess blood sugar is stored as fat by insulin.

Today we consume this sugar year round to the tune of about 75 pounds per human and 95% of the grains we have been eating in the last 100 years are highly refined. I assure you we have not adapted to this garbage in the last 6000 years much less the last 100! The nutritional content of these grains don't even resemble what ancient man was eating when farming started along with the resulting health problems. So imagine the compounded health effects from our diets versus theirs. Is it any wonder that cancer, heart disease, and diabetes for starters are out of control?

This over consumption of sugar leads to chronic high insulin levels, which also lead to reduced growth hormone and glucagon levels. These hormones are responsible for burning fat and promoting muscle development. So in other words, the affects of the sugar from grains not only makes you fat but also prevents you from burning fat and developing muscle.

In addition, insulin usually knocks down the high sugar levels created by grains to levels that are too low in a couple hours. The result is you are now hungry again because of this low blood sugar, and what do you think you crave? That’s right, more simple carbs and sugar from the very source that is causing this problem to start with. It is a vicious circle that is repeated over and over again.

Consider this, without milling and cooking all grains are simply inedible. So they grind it and it simply becomes fiber and flour, just add water and you have paper mache; and when digested, can cause severe digestive problems in any primate. Any elementary school teacher should be able to tell you that.

Paper Mache...yummy...reminds me of the glue you get when you drink a glass of milk. No wonder I feel so bloated if I eat a bowl of whole grain wheat cereal with milk? I've just ingested a wad of paper and glued it into a big ball....yummy.

In addition to the above, grains, because they are simple carbs, have been found to:

Lower HDL cholesterol, the good cholesterol, and raise triglycerides.

They raise insulin levels, which makes you obese and leads to diabetes.

They have been associated with increased risk of breast cancer.

They turn LDL cholesterol into lipoprotein(a), the really really bad cholesterol.

They definitely contribute to yeast overgrowth, toxic bowel, and impair the liver's ability to detoxify the body.

Pregnant women on high carb diets form small placentas while pregnant. This limits the ability to transfer nutrients to the fetus.

Grains and legumes reduce the absorption of nutrients like calcium, iron and zinc.

They weaken the immune system and accelerate aging.

However... and this is going to sound like a complete contradiction to everything above, but I know how hard it is to not eat grains. So... after two weeks you can add:

Quinoa, Basmatti rice, Wild rices, Certified Gluten-free buckwheat groats. But... there is a limit on how much you can eat, see the Good Foods Page for further information.

What you should do is have a fresh salad or other raw greens first. Followed by a cooked vegetable with a serving of quality meat. Then you can have any of the grains or seeds from the above list as a desert. By doing so the fiber from the fresh vegetables and the protein and fat from the meat binds the carbs in the grains preventing a blood sugar spike that will feed yeast anywhere in the body.


Medical Review by Dr. Vibhuti Rana, PhD

The nutritional effects of grains are quite controversial, as can be seen in many research findings by browsing through the web. While some argue that women and men should be having 5-7 and 9-10 servings of whole grains per day, respectively, others believe that this is not a requirement. After much deliberation and research, I go with the article above. Today’s concept is the paleo diet, which eliminates the consumption of grain from everyday dietary habits. (1) Today’s grains are not at all what grains originally were, with the level of nutrition having sunk far below the levels in ancient times.

The most common grains are corn, wheat, and rice. Grains are used to prepare different foods like cookies, pastas, breads, oatmeal, etc. First of all, most of these cereals contain gluten- which causes serious health issues in many individuals like autoimmune inflammatory responses like celiac disease. Such side effects include indigestion, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, etc. (2) When we remove gluten from our diet, in addition to all its sources, it is important to maintain the vitamin and mineral levels by additional supplements or seed food sources like buckwheat, quinoa, amaranth, etc. Studies have also shown that the Fusarium mycotoxin is found in wheat and causes Fusarium Head Blight (FHB). (3)

Finally, elimination of grains or restricting their use helps solve problems like getting rid of persistent yeast infections, weight loss, undoing dysbiosis in your gut, and reduction in inflammatory reactions. (4)


Return to Candida Diet Page

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me through the contact page of this website or see your doctor.


Dr. Rana's References

1. Grains: Are They Good For You, or Bad? Healthline, June 4, 2017
2. Gluten: A Benefit or Harm to the Body? Harvard School of Public Health
3. Fusarium graminearumforms mycotoxin producing infection structures on wheat. Boenisch, M.J. & Schäfer, W. BMC Plant Biol (2011) 11: 110.
4. Grain-Free Diet: Benefits and Risks. Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DNM, CNS. September 13th, 2018




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