Positive Health Online

100 recipes and photographs by Rebecca Richardson, "an Experienced Candida sufferer", what better qualification? with Katherine Dempsey ITEC Dip D-T RGG AoR Nutritionist and Reflexologist.

If you have just been diagnosed with candida, this book is a must. It is also just what is needed by everybody with food intolerances, diabetes, coeliac, IBS, ME, fibromyalgia, arthritis, asthma or eczema and people who can't lose weight. I suggest all practitioners buy two copies of this book and lend them to their patients for a week - then they will be hooked and have to get their own copy!

Rebecca wrote this book because newly diagnosed sufferers need to know all the good and delicious things they can eat rather than the more usual series of hammer blows of what they must cut out and be deprived of. It does the leg work for them at the most challenging point of their journey. "After all," she says, "you will have plenty of time to do all the research yourself once you have a full, satisfied stomach and you know where your next meal is coming from." Her bright and mouth watering photographs and the laughs over her many embarrassing moments, are tonics in themselves. They will be the most inspiring and cheering things on a candida sufferer's healing adventure.

The recipes are free from wheat, dairy, gluten, sugar, fruit, alcohol, citric acid, yeast and fermented products. As a comment on her website says, as a recipe book, this is "the strictest yet". But I agree with her that in the initial stage, it is a lot less complicated to be uncompromising. And Rebecca pulls no punches when explaining the cravings and addictive cycle and having to deal with the "a little bit can't do you any harm" brigade. "It is going to be down to you and your willpower... your Candida is not going to disappear by itself. If you are feeling horrible now, imagine yourself in five years time. You are the only one who can change how you are feeling and every time you .'fall off the wagon' the only person who will suffer is you!" She is also completely honest about the inevitable lows with die off for example and the expense.

But forewarned is fore armed, especially when it comes from someone who speaks with the authority of years of experience and who is now better! She is also good at getting you to look on the bright side. "Instead of feeling negative about your new lifestyle, embrace it and enjoy the good things that come out of it.... You can't go out on the town on a Saturday night and spend £50 on booze and kebab like you used to. That's a massage right there!"

She is obviously very good at the essential business of getting moral support from her friends (see her long and amusing list in her Acknowledgments ... and Apologies) and at handling the eating out. "In the end, I used to make all my friends come to mine for dinner, so at least I knew that what I had cooked was safe. Funnily enough, everyone used to comment on how much they enjoyed my food and how they didn't feel bloated afterwards... until I told them there was no pudding!"

But it is also important that after the initial 4-8 weeks, as their gut heals, sufferers should start to test foods they can have, perhaps in rotation, and to learn to listen to their bodies. Every individual is different and will get better at different rates, but almost everyone will find that as their digestion picks up and their gut heals, they are fine with small amounts of butter, sheep's yoghurt, oats and oatcakes, naturally smoked fish, berries and less sweet fruit (as long as it is eaten on its own).

Rebecca gives some good practical advice, such as her list of brand names and making the most of your freezer, and she tells us some tricks such as to use sesame seeds in place of bread crumbs on the Salmon Fishcakes and quinoa in place of couscous (wheat) in the Tabbouleh and Bragg Liquid Aminos in place of soy sauce. And please notice that all these are really good for you, unlike the things they replace.

I loved her apology to "anyone standing next to me in a supermarket when I'm looking at product ingredients and slamming jars and cans back onto the shelves shouting: "Suuuuuuggggaaaaaarrr!!" That's me too! She also calls sugar "evil" which it is - whether you have candida or not. The sooner we wake up to the damage this stuff does to peoples' lives, whist being subjected to advertisements telling us it will make you happy, sexy, popular and full of energy!, the better.

I love the way she uses seaweed in several recipes. The Seaweed & Spicy Chickpea Soup and Vegetarian Paella are delicious and uber nutritious! Her balance of vegetarian recipes is great - if only everyone shifted to more vegetable protein, we and the planet would be in so much better shape. Try her Aubergine Roast with Quinoa and as she says, it is always a challenge to cook for a vegetarian without using cheese or mushrooms. I really like the way she mixes pulses with meat or fish such as the Cod and Courgette Bean Salad and the Lamb and Lentil. And she's great on garlic, herbs and spices - essential candida killers and anti-inflammatories and .food as medicine'. The Chicken Saag and Vegetable Pilaf are particularly good and the cinnamon in the Baked Beans is a great blood sugar balancer.

There are a few suggestions for her to consider including in the reprint, which I'm sure will come. Preparation times would be helpful and perhaps fewer words in some of the methods - we want quick and easy to read as well as to cook. So I would definitely encourage people to invest in a food processor. They save so much time and making hummus in a blender is dead tricky.

Breakfasts and puddings don't get a look in, but you can make delicious and Very good-for-you muesli with quinoa, rice or millet, ground nuts and seeds, rice or hemp milk, adding sheep's yoghurt and berries, grated apple or mango as you start reintroducing those foods. Sufferers in your initial stage don't read this next bit but, proper French chocolate mousse made with dark chocolate and eggs and nothing else, should be fine for special occasions.

I'd definitely add real chicken stock - always buy whole birds as it is far better value, freeze in small batches and you've got stock for three or four soups or gravies. Some recipes for offal (organ meats) would be good. Mainly because they are among the most nutritious foods going and getting better is all about building up our reserves again. Also because liver, kidney and heart are so cheap (as almost everyone under thirty pulls a face at them) - but they are still considered delicacies in France and in every primitive culture (who are the healthiest on Earth, see www.westonaprice.org) For the Watercress Soup, I'd add the watercress with the lid off for only the last minute and you'd get a beautiful bright green soup and most of the phytochemicals intact.

I spotted a few technical mistakes. Sunflower oil has a low burn point, so keep that for salad dressing and when frying or roasting, you're better off using olive or coconut oil or lard. You won't get your food intolerances from a Hair Mineral Analysis test, though it will give essential information about your constitution and any toxic metals.

Katherine's chapter on Supplement Advice and Holistic Therapies is helpful, though I'd have liked some other supplement companies mentioned such as BioNutri whose Ecobalance has revolutionised the treatment of Candida, and also some laboratory tests available in the UK such as BTS and Genova.

But over all this is a great book which I hope will reach far more widely than just people with candida. Well done Rebecca for making at least one thing about having Candida, Fun!

Further Information
The book can be purchased on Rebecca's site at www.candidacanbefun.co.uk