Candida Diet Grocery List - Real Italian Kitchen

In this article I talk about what ingredients to buy to support a healthy transition from a normal diet to the candida diet, and the adjustments you should make in your life style to support such transition.

My nutritionist advised me to keep the sugar intake around 60gr per day, proteins between 80 and 100 gr (I was never able to eat that many proteins…), 60gr of fat per day (but only for the first couple of weeks, and only unsaturated fats. My saturated fats are below 10gr a day, which is the recommended amount of 10% over a 1000 calories diet.

For the first two weeks limit exercise or don't exercise at all.

Vegetables:
Buy fresh, local, seasonal, eat them raw, in salads, make smoothies, soups, steamed, sautéed, roasted, grilled, rotate all different colors in your diet!

Artichokes
Asparagus
Avocado
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Celery
Chard
Collard green
Cucumber
Fennel
Eggplant

Garlic (raw): One clove of raw garlic a day will work as well as any anti-fungal medication. It's a little hard to digest at first, but then your stomach starts accepting it and it's actually a great addition to a lot of soups and salads.

Kale

Olives

Onions

Rutabaga

Spinach

Tomatoes

Zucchini

Yogurt:
Most candida diet plans eliminate all dairies but leave plain yogurt with good bacteria in it like acidophilus and bifidus. Those should be listed in the ingredients of the yogurt. I chose goat milk yogurt, it's easier to digest then cow milk, Red Wood Hill Farm is a good brand, is sold by Whole Foods in the U.S..  If you don't have any problem with cow milk, a good yogurt to buy is FAGE.

Meat and Eggs:
Buy fresh meat, locally sourced, organic, grass fed, certified humane.

Beef

Chicken

Turkey

Eggs (Duck Eggs, Chicken Eggs, any kind of Eggs!)

Fish:

You can eat all the fish you want, but avoid shell fish. Buy it fresh or preserved under olive oil or water. 

Anchovies

Blue Fish

Branzino

Flounder

Herring

Red Snapper

Sardines

Tilapia 

Tuna

Wild salmon

… just to give you some ideas… 

Nuts and Seeds: 

I rotate nuts and seeds in my yogurt and in my salads, you can also get flours from most of these and use them for baking. 

Almonds

Chia Seeds: Rich in calcium and potassium, they make you feel full and bring a considerable amount of calories into your diet. You can make some great puddings with it, use it as a substitute for eggs, add it to your food any time you need a little extra nutrition.

Coconut meat

Flax Seed

Hazelnuts

Pecans

Pepitas

Sunflower Seeds

Walnuts

Herbs and Spices: 

Cook with lots of herbs and spices! First of all it's delicious, plus they are antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal!

Basil

Black Pepper

Cinnamon

Cloves

Dill

Garlic

Ginger

Hot peppers

Oregano

Paprika

Red Pepper

Rosemary

Thyme

Turmeric

Oils:

Virgin Coconut Oil: great with high heat

Extra Virgin Olive Oil: better raw and low heat

Flax Seed Oil: only raw

Drinks: 

You will never find me out of these kind of teas:

Chamomile

Earl Gray

Fennel Tea (great for detoxing, great blended with Dandelion and Lavander)

Green Tea

Ginger Tea (I make my own with fresh ginger)

Peppermint Tea

Coffee lowers your immune system, cut back or go without, NO creamers NO sugars

Lemon and lime juice: great for flavoring your water, also awesome if you make soups with coconut milk to cut through the sweetness.
Coconut Water:
I buy the one in the cans with the lowest sugar content. I use less then one serving to make amazingly sweet vegetable smoothies.

Milk: 

Almond Milk (un-sweetend) 

Coconut Milk (un-sweetend, I buy the one in the can and use it for vegetable curries and soups) 

Sweeteners: 

If you really must, but I think they both taste disgusting…! 

Stevia

Xylitol

Other items I use on a daily basis:

Spirulina Powder:
My to-go detox supplement, add it to smoothies and guacamole for all those wonderful amino acids.

Liver Detox: 
A blend of Dandelion root leaf and flower, Graper Root, Milk Thistle Seed, Artichoke leaf, Schisandra Berry, Fennel Seed, made by Herb Pharm, to help you cleanse and detox.

WHAT IF I GO OUT TO DINNER????
There is always at least one grilled piece of meat with a side of steamed or sautéed veggies in every restaurant, or order a salad "When Harry Met Sally" style, telling the waiter exactly what you want in it.  At ethnic restaurants be mindful of cream, cheese, breading, at a sushi place go for raw fish and that delicious seaweed salad!

WHAT IF I WANNA CHEAT????
Go ahead and cheat if you must, but at least the day after have a nice detox day with lots of raw vegetables and no meat!
I, for example, have to drink red wine. I choose dry red wine (like cabernet or chianti), have one or two glasses only once a week. I think I also had some cake for my husband's 40th birthday. I mean, what the heck, right?

I hope this was helpful!

Valentina
RealItalianKitchen

I'd like to give credit to http://www.thecandidadiet.com, although I don't agree with all that is said on that website, it does provide a good beginning structure. 

Never throw away your leftovers again!

After big eating holidays or just big meals I have to deal with leftovers. People die of hunger around the world and I really don't feel like throwing things away.

Here's a list of all the things you can do with your leftover meats and veggies!

Carcass of Turkey or Chicken:

Clean the meat off the bones with wet hands (I promise it will help). Put that aside.
Throw the bones in a large pot with 2 carrots, 2 celery sticks and 1 large onion and cover with cold water. Boil till the carrots are cooked. You'll have the most amazing broth to use for other recipes to come. If you jar it while it's warm and then put it in the fridge it will vacuum seal. For "How to Sterilize your jars" see the tutorial.

Meats and Fish:

The italian solution to getting rid of your leftover meats is Polpette, a delicious fried meatball filled with bechamel sauce, eggs and parmigiano. You can mix all sorts of different meat together (turkey, ham, steak, chicken, ground beef) and actually the more varied the better the taste. Don't mix meat with fish though, make the fish ones separately from the meat ones. Here's the video tutorial for Polpette. 

Vegetables:

If you had some simple vegetables on your table (and by simple I mean steamed, sautéed or baked without any sort of casserole topping) you can make a Frittata: cut all the veggies up into small pieces, beat some eggs in them, parmigiano, salt, fry in a little bit of olive oil and serve. 

The alternative is adding a couple of spoons of bechamel to that too, put it in an 8 inch pan (21cm of diameter) and bake it at 350 F (180 C) for 45 minutes. Delicious. We call that Torta Salata (salty cake... yeah.... not a good translation) and it looks like a quiche without the crust. 

Mash Potatoes:

Yet again, the italian answer is "Fry it!!". 

Add an egg to the mash, pan them in bread crumbs and fry them in vegetable oil. I think in the States those things are called Tater tots? In italian they're called Crocchette and they are amazing!! 

Enjoy your leftovers!!

Valentina

Real Italian Kitchen

Home Made Dog Food

My dog is a 13 year old shitzu (how do you spell that?!?). We adopted him a couple of months ago.
He's been eating Pedigree his entire life, his previous owners gave me some cans that they had left.

One evening I gave my dog some of our chicken leftovers and since then he doesn't even get close to his can of Pedigree...

So I researched what they put in it and I found out that it is awful and harmful, especially for an old dog like mine.

My solution? Home made dog food. As long as it's balanced, anyone can cook it. It doesn't have to be anything special, as long as it has meat, vegetables and rice in it.

A small dog will eat one cup of food per day. This recipe is for a week/10 days supply:


Budget: $7

1pound ground pork or ground chicken or ground turkey (beef alone is a little heavy on the digestive system for an old pup)

1 box of frozen chopped up vegetables without sauce (may I suggest no broccoli... they stink after a few days...)

3 cups of rice

Put the meat with a table spoon of vegetable oil in a big pot and break it with a spoon while it cooks on medium heat.
Add the rice, 3 cups of water, the veggies. Let everything cook for about 15/20 minutes.

I store half of it in the fridge and the other half in the freezer.

Let's love our animals the best we can.

Valentina
http://www.youtube.com/realitaliankitchen