Can You Eat Fermented Food With Candida?

Elimination of fermented foods in the diet is part of the yeast-free diet advocated by some physicians. These physicians believe infection with the human parasitic yeast candida genus is a source of many intractable illnesses such as chronic fatigue and even autism.

Grassroots Medicine

• Out-of-the-box practitioners advocate yeast-free diets for immune conditons.

  The yeast-free diet with the avoidance of fermented foods is being empirically tested, as it is advocated by out-of-the-box nutritionists and clinicians who recommend it in books, articles or directly to patients.

Yeast Free

• Some nutritionists, such as Bruce Semon, M.D., Ph.D., from the Wisconsin Institue of Nutrition, believe that fermented foods and sugar encourage candida overgrowth. Semon contends that the overgrowth of candida is the true cause of many incurable illnesses. Author of "Feast Without Yeast," Semon treated his autistic son and other patients with a gluten-free, cassein-free and yeast-free diet.

Theory

• Yeast overgrowh is believed to lower the immune system.

  Semon, a medical doctor, a nutritionist and a child psychiatrist, noted that some autoimmune illnesses and endemic autism emerged at the same time as antibiotics. Antibiotics save many lives, but they also attack the intestinal bacteria, depress immunity and encourage yeast overgrowth, Semon contends.