Treating your Candida means making some changes to your eating habits and lifestyle. The foods that Candida sufferers have the most trouble with are on the list of foods to avoid on the Candida diet. These include sugary snacks, glutenous grains, high-sugar fruits, condiments, and refined oils.
Below are lists of foods that you should eat, foods that you should avoid, and foods that you should not eat. This page contains a comprehensive list of foods to avoid.
Also, check out the foods to eat list. It has foods that are safe for you to eat while on the Candida diet. Finally, the “maybe” list has foods that probably won’t feed a Candida overgrowth or make your gut health worse, but you should still eat them in moderation.
Some of the foods on this list give energy directly to the Candida colonies in the form of sugars. Other foods weaken your immune system and reduce your body’s ability to fight off infection. Some foods can also change the way your digestive system works, for example by making it work more slowly or by irritating the lining of your intestines.
Stay away from all the foods on this list if you want to get rid of Candida for good, reduce inflammation in your gut, and improve your digestion.
You can find the foods to avoid table on this page. Below the table, we have included some more detailed advice on which foods to avoid, and why.
If you want to improve the health of your gut, you should know why some foods are allowed and others are not. This is how you can figure out if you can eat a food that isn’t on the list if you come across it while you are on the Candida diet.
Everything on this list has been excluded from the diet for one of the three reasons below.
Pork is one of the foods that is typically avoided on a candida diet. But why exactly is pork restricted when trying to heal from a candida overgrowth? In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the reasons behind cutting out pork if you are following an anti-candida diet protocol.
What is Candida?
Before diving into why pork should be avoided, let’s first make sure we understand what candida is. Candida albicans is a type of yeast that is present in small amounts in everyone’s bodies. It lives harmoniously with the other microbes in a healthy gut.
However, certain factors can cause candida to grow out of control. Things like a diet high in sugar and refined carbohydrates, chronic stress, antibiotic use, and impaired immunity allow candida to multiply rapidly. This overgrowth of candida can cause a wide array of symptoms, including:
- Fatigue and lack of energy
- Brain fog and difficulty concentrating
- Skin issues like acne, eczema, and rashes
- Digestive problems like bloating, constipation, diarrhea
- Recurring yeast infections and urinary tract infections
- Sinus congestion, post-nasal drip
- Joint pain and arthritis
- Autoimmune disease
- Sugar and carb cravings
The Candida Diet
To treat a candida overgrowth most naturopathic doctors and nutritionists recommend following a candida diet. This involves eliminating foods that may feed candida or weaken the immune system.
Foods that tend to promote candida overgrowth include
- Sugar and refined carbs
- Dairy
- Gluten grains
- Alcohol
- Processed foods
- Starchy vegetables
- Certain fruits
The candida diet typically focuses on non-starchy vegetables, protein foods like eggs, poultry, fish, nuts and seeds, healthy fats, and gluten-free grains. It also emphasizes including anti-microbial and anti-fungal foods that can help kill off excess candida.
Why No Pork on a Candida Diet?
So within these candida diet guidelines, pork is one of the protein foods that is typically avoided, especially in the initial cleansing stages. There are a few potential reasons for this:
1. High Fat Content
Pork tends to be high in fat compared to other meats. While healthy fats are encouraged on a candida diet, eating lower overall fat may be preferable when first trying to rebalance candida levels. Excess fat can put extra strain on the digestive system when it is already compromised by candida overgrowth.
2. Difficult to Digest
The high fat content of pork can also make it more difficult to digest for some people. Pork is also considered to be more dense and acidic than other types of meat. When the gut lining is inflamed from candida, pork may aggravate these conditions further.
3. Mold Contamination
There is some concern that pork can contain trace amounts of mold and fungi, which could exacerbate fungal candida infections for those who are sensitive. Pork quality can vary greatly, and mold growth can occur if pork is not handled properly during processing and storage.
4. Harbors Parasites
Undercooked or raw pork can potentially harbor harmful parasites like trichinella, taenia solium, and toxoplasma. Someone with a weakened immune system is more susceptible to these types of parasitic infections.
5. Contains Retroviruses
There is some evidence showing that pork cells contain types of retroviruses that can survive cooking temperatures. While more research is still needed, this may be a concern particularly for those with suppressed immunity due to candida overgrowth.
6. New Allergies May Develop
When the gut lining and immune system are impaired from candida overgrowth, new food intolerances or allergies may appear. Eliminating common allergens like pork can help determine if any new sensitivities have developed.
Healthier Meat Options on a Candida Diet
Instead of pork, healthier meat choices on a candida diet generally include:
- Chicken
- Turkey
- Grass-fed beef
- Wild-caught fish like salmon and tuna
- Organic eggs
- Lamb
- Bison
These types of meat tend to be lower in fat, easier to digest, and less likely to contain potential contaminants. It’s best to choose organic and pasture-raised varieties whenever possible.
Can You Ever Eat Pork on a Candida Diet?
After following a strict anti-candida diet for several months and experiencing significant improvement in your symptoms, some find that they can occasionally incorporate small amounts of pork. Things like prosciutto, bacon, or pork tenderloin may be fine in moderation for some people once candida levels are lowered.
However, everyone has a different reaction. Some find they feel better overall continuing to avoid pork. It’s best to listen to your own body, and be aware of any symptoms that flare up if you try reintroducing pork down the line.
Starting out though, it’s wise to eliminate all pork products for the first couple months on the candida diet. This gives your body the best chance to rebalance candida and strengthen your immune defenses.
The Bottom Line
Avoiding pork when healing a candida overgrowth is recommended because pork is high in fat, acidic, harder to digest, and may contain contaminants or retroviruses that can exacerbate fungal infections or weakened immunity.
Choosing leaner, easier to digest meats like chicken, fish, and grass-fed beef is preferable, especially in the initial stages of the candida diet. After several months, you may find you can tolerate pork again in moderation. But it’s important to pay attention to any reactions your body has and adjust your diet accordingly.
Following a pork-free candida diet along with antifungal foods, probiotics, and supplements provides the gut and immune system the best chance of overcoming candida overgrowth and restoring balance.
The List of Foods to Avoid
This is a comprehensive list of foods that should be avoided during your Candida diet. Please keep in mind that there may be foods not on this list that we have not thought of.
Use your common sense to decide if foods that aren’t on this list are high in sugar, cause inflammation, or are otherwise bad for you.
| CATEGORY | FOODS TO AVOID |
|---|---|
| SUGARS & SUGAR SUBSTITUTES | Agave Aspartame Cane sugar Corn syrup Honey Maple syrup Molasses Sugar |
| GLUTENOUS GRAINS | Barley Rye Spelt Wheat |
| HIGH-SUGAR FRUITS | Bananas Dates Fruit juices Grapes Mango Raisins |
| PROCESSED MEATS & TOXIC FISH | Processed meats Shellfish Swordfish Tuna |
| SOME DAIRY PRODUCTS | Cheese Milk Cream |
| MOLDY NUTS & SEEDS | Nut butters from moldy nuts |
| CONDIMENTS | Barbecue sauce Horseradish Ketchup Mayonnaise Soy sauce White vinegar |
| REFINED/PROCESSED FATS & OILS | Canola oil Fake ‘butter’ spreads Margarine Soybean oil Sunflower oil |
| ALCOHOLIC OR SUGARY DRINKS | Beer Cider Liquors Spirits Wine Diet & regular soda Fruit juices Energy drinks |
| CAFFEINATED DRINKS (OPTIONAL) | Black tea Coffee |
Still not sure about the foods on this list? Let’s look more closely at why each one was chosen.
Sugars and Sugar Substitutes
Do you buy packaged and processed food from your local supermarket? If so, you might not even be aware of how much added sugar you are really consuming.
There are at least 50 different names for sugar that can appear on your ingredients label. Often, several different types of sugar will be used in the same food.
The worst culprits tend to be foods like breakfast cereals, condiments, and soft drinks. Always read food labels to make sure your food doesn’t contain added sugars.
Candida albicans needs sugar both for cellular growth and to switch to its more aggressive, fungal form (4). Sugar is also the main constituent of the biofilms that it uses to protect itself from your immune system (5). Unfortunately, the average American eats something like 30-40 teaspoons of added sugar each day (6).
Don’t be tempted by ‘healthier’ sweeteners like agave and maple syrup. They are high in natural sugars and just as likely to feed a Candida overgrowth. What’s more, agave is highly processed and contains more fructose than High Fructose Corn Syrup.
Be careful with artificial sweeteners like aspartame too. Aspartame can weaken your immune system and raise inflammation (7).
Changes in the gut microbiome caused by aspartame have even been shown to cause long-term rises in blood sugar in animals (8). If you think that consuming aspartame-sweetened foods is good for your health, think again.
There are healthier sweetener choices that won’t raise your blood sugar or cause long-term health problems. Try plant-based sweeteners like stevia or monk fruit.
Xylitol and other sugar alcohols are also good choices, though they may sometimes make some people’s stomachs upset.
In the long run, try to wean yourself off sweeteners altogether.
It’s not just people with Celiac disease who struggle with glutenous grains. Many people with gut imbalances, including those with Candida overgrowth, also have a high sensitivity to gluten.
Going gluten-free used to be considered a ‘fad’ diet, but there is now an increased understanding of how Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity (NCGS) can affect our health (9).
The gliadins in gluten have been shown to interact with cells in the intestinal lining, causing them to release a compound named Zonulin (10). Zonulin then reacts with other cells in the intestinal lining, causing the junctions between those cells to widen (11).
This is how gluten contributes to intestinal permeability (leaky gut) and inflammation. It’s also why you should absolutely avoid gluten on your Candida diet.
Food sensitivities are often set off by gluten, which can cause symptoms like gas, bloating, cramping, brain fog, and tiredness. If you already have a Candida problem, eating gluten is likely to exacerbate your symptoms. It also likely to irritate and weaken your intestinal walls.
A lot of people don’t realize that the grains our ancestors ate are very different from the ones we eat today when they talk about gluten. Today’s varieties have increased yields, but they also contain far more gluten than was present before. Our digestive systems are simply not designed to cope with this.
Give your gut a break and stay off gluten during your anti-Candida diet. If you want to eat grains, consider including small amounts of non-glutenous pseudo-grains like millet and buckwheat instead.
The high sugar content in some fruit is a good food source for Candida albicans, even though the sugars in fruit are natural sugars. Most fruits should be avoided in the early stages of the diet.
There are some low-sugar exceptions, for example lemons, limes, and avocados. Berries also tend to be low in sugar and can be consumed in small amounts.
You can judge whether a fruit is acceptable on the Candida diet by looking at its net carbs. This is calculated by finding the total carbohydrates then subtracting the fiber and sugar alcohol.
For example, a cup of blackberries or raspberries contains approximately 6-7 grams of net carbohydrates. However, a cup of pineapple has 21 grams of net carbs and a cup of grapes has 25 grams.
It’s particularly important to avoid dried fruits like raisins or dried cranberries. Simply compare how much sweeter raisins are to grapes to see how much more sweet fruits become when they are dried. A cup of raisins contains 110 grams of net carbohydrates!.
Another key fruit product to avoid is fruit juice. You might think that fruit juices would raise your blood sugar right away since they don’t have any fiber, which helps your body absorb sugar more slowly.
This is not actually true – in fact, fruit juice has very little immediate impact on blood sugar (12). However, the reason for this is that fruit juices are very high in fructose, which doesn’t affect blood sugar in the short term but which can contribute to insulin resistance, fatty liver disease, and diabetes in the long term (13, 14).
In other words, fruit juices won’t immediately affect your blood sugar, but in the long-term they likely will.
Some fruits don’t have a lot of sugar, but they can be turned into things that are much worse for your blood sugar, like fruit juices and dried fruit.
There’s a theme running through this page: processed foods are usually worse for your health than raw or unprocessed foods….
Some types of meat are perfectly acceptable on a Candida diet, for example chicken and turkey. Red meats are still generally acceptable but in smaller amounts. Red meat can cause constipation and has been linked to various cancers of the gastrointestinal tract. However, there are some meats that you should definitely avoid.
Processed meats like lunch meat, salami, and spam are loaded with dextrose, nitrates, sulfates, and other sugars. These foods are particularly harmful because they contain sugars and are pro-inflammatory too.
They can worsen a gut imbalance like Candida, weaken your immune system, and promote inflammation in your gut (15, 16).
The World Health Organization has calculated that consuming 50g of processed meat each day increases the risk of getting bowel cancer in your lifetime by 18%. 50 grams is a very small amount of processed meat, approximately equal to four strips of bacon or a single hot dog (17).
The evidence is clear that processed meats can have a very negative effect on your health.
You should also be careful to cook your meats thoroughly. For example, pork tends to contain parasites like tapeworm and roundworm, as well as listeria, E. coli, and Salmonella. These organisms can sometimes survive cooking and are harmful for those with a weakened digestive system.
Beef burgers and other foods made from ground meat should always be cooked well.
The best meats to consume on the Candida diet are white meats like chicken or turkey. Try to buy local, organic, and hormone-free if you can. You can also get plenty of protein from eggs and fish.
A Dietitian Explains the Candida Diet | You Versus Food | Well+Good
FAQ
Is pork bad for candida?
Can I eat pork rinds on a candida diet?
What meats can you eat on the candida diet?
Why is processed meat bad for Candida?
Does diet affect candida growth?
One 3-month study in 120 people with intestinal candida overgrowth showed that dietary changes had significantly reduced the numbers of candida yeasts in stool, compared to those who didn’t change their diet ( 27 ). A study in mice with a weak immune system found that the consumption of sugar increased candida growth in the digestive tract ( 28 ).
Why is pork not recommended to eat?
This is not true, some cuts like sirloin and pork rump steak, for example, are very healthy, even healthier than beef and chicken. Only the fattest cuts like bacon and crackling should be avoided.
What foods should you avoid on a Candida diet?
Treating your Candida means making some changes to your eating habits and lifestyle. The list of foods to avoid on the Candida diet contains the foods that are most troublesome for Candida sufferers. These include sugary snacks, glutenous grains, high-sugar fruits, condiments, and refined oils.
Does a Candida diet prevent yeast overgrowth?
That said, hard research on this association is lacking. The candida diet, generally speaking, removes all sources of flour, sugar, and yeast from your diet and encourages lean proteins, nonstarchy vegetables, and healthy fats, as well as several supplements to encourage the process. Doing so staves off yeast overgrowth, says Miller.