About the Author

Hello dear readers!

My name is Susan. This website is an ever-evolving project started out of a desire to share what I've learned (and am still learning) about food and wellness over the past 20 years of my life.

This site is designed with specific reference to candida, a yeast which is gaining a lot of notoriety as it becomes ever more prevalent in people's health ailments, but the nutritional information and food sources herein are important for anyone interested in truly natural foods and how they correlate to the human body.

My story:

It's kind of long - you might like to get a cup of tea before you start reading ;)

Childhood

I grew up in beautiful rural New York, eating a standard American diet (S.A.D.). What's a S.A.D. diet? You know, the regular stuff you can get at any ol' grocery store. My parents both like to cook, so I enjoyed homemade meals and developed a love of the kitchen early in life.

Though I wasn't considered a sickly child in any manner, I did have my share of childhood ailments: Allergies (animal allergies, seasonal allergies, and some mild food allergies), yearly bouts of strep throat which resulted in high fevers and rounds of antibiotics, a few coughs and colds each year, the occasional cavity, a diagnosis of mononucleosis during my junior year of high school.

I had a tonsilectomy at 18 after a rough first year at college, where I had started smoking and also spent a number of winter weeks sick with a nasal and throat infection (yup, more antibiotics).

And finally, asthma, which wasn't diagnosed until I was 19 years old and landed in the emergency room, for which I was given a prescription albuterol inhaler.

I quit smoking.

Although I had an intense aversion to it, I used the inhaler occasionally, scared to have another episode like the one that put me in the emergency room. But the taste of the 'whatever it was" that I had to suck into my lungs was so repulsive that I gradually weaned myself off it. I carried that same first one around with me for years, but never re-filled the prescription. The wheezing was uncomfortable, even scary at times, but that inhaler seemed so unnatural and wrong, I couldn't do it.

My twenties

In 1989 I moved to California and had a really great boss who was vegetarian. I became interested in the idea of vegetarianism and quickly converted to total veganism after reading a book detailing the horrendous conditions and unspeakable cruel treatment of animals raised in large "factory" farms.

In 1993 I returned to upstate New York and began my cooking career in a vegan cafe. I loved my job! We had a big kitchen stocked with natural ingredients, which, at the time, I thought were the healthiest foods in the world. We used canola oil in all of our baked goods, and daily staples on the menu were tofu dishes, sauces made with soymilk, whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables.

Some of the ingredients were really great; we used organic, local vegetables when available, sweetened our baked goods with maple syrup, brown rice syrup, molasses, sucanat (evaporated cane juice) and date sugar. We used extra virgin olive oil and sesame tahini in some of the salads. We soaked our dried beans overnight before cooking them.

We recycled everything possible. We even composted food scraps for a local farmer, who came to collect the buckets on Saturday mornings with his young daughter. I have vivid images in my mind of watching them drive away with all the buckets in the back of their truck, as I waved through the kitchen window. Is that not super cool??

Around the same time I met and befriended a woman who was deep into chemotherapy and radiation treatments for breast cancer. She and her husband were just beginning to try a macrobiotic diet in the hopes that it would help cure her. They needed help with the cooking, and I volunteered to pitch in. So I borrowed a number of books on the subject and became fascinated with the macrobiotic principles, as the foods were basically the same as a vegan whole foods diet, with the addition of non-fatty fish for certain individuals.

I ended up studying macrobiotics in depth, attending the premier east coast school on the subject, actually living there for one month, completely immersed in learning as much as I could.

I really did enjoy being vegan/macrobiotic. I loved the flavors and textures of the foods, and some of the macrobiotic teachings made sense to me - the principles of eating "in season", eating foods from the region where you live, choosing whole grains over refined, and using dried beans which soaked overnight instead of popping open a can.

I never had much of a sweet tooth, but during my vegan/macro days I was always hungry. I would eat a big plate of food 3 times a day, and always, always go back for second helpings. I'd snack between meals. And I was thin!

I remember often commenting out loud, that I couldn't help feeling, even after 2 plates of food, that something was still missing. I often craved toast with butter after dinner, which I never ate, of course, because vegans and macrobiotics don't include butter, so I would use a vegan spread, or almond butter instead.

I also experienced low blood sugar symptoms whenever I didn't eat snacks between meals. When I wasn't at work (in the cafe), I obsessed about food, always planning in advance to be sure I'd have something on hand wherever I went, in case there wasn't vegan food available.

Around this same time, my parents had retired down south, so we saw each other only once or twice a year. My mom would always be shocked when she'd see me get off the plane. For years she told me to give up the vegan diet, saying I looked unhealthy. One summer I sent her pictures from a wedding I'd attended and she called to tell me to please eat more - in the pictures she saw that there were dark circles under my eyes, my hair was getting thinner and I looked too skinny.

I guess I didn't notice it happening because I saw myself in the mirror every day. And I didn't think I was lacking in the nutrition department because I always ate so much, and it was all natural whole foods! My mom could really see the marked changes and was understandably concerned.

I held strong convictions (I still do) about cruelty to animals and the terrible conditions of large scale meat and dairy production facilities. I had been taught in my macrobiotic classes and in vegan texts that any kind of dairy foods were unhealthy for everyone. So we ate an abundance of cooked whole grains and cooked vegetable dishes augmented with beans, tofu, tempeh, miso, small servings of raw salads, garnishes of roasted nuts & seeds (and their oils), seaweeds, pickles, and cooked and raw fruits which could be found in New England. They served "non fatty fish" for Friday night dinners (which I politely declined). I used soymilk in sauces and soups and I ate rice milk on cold cereal. I snacked on rice cakes and soy-nuts. I believed I was eating the healthiest diet available.

I had begun experiencing painful, often debilitating monthly cycles, and the visits to the doctors began. My first doctor gave me a one-page pamphlet entitled "Pelvic Pain" and sent me home.

My second doctor told me it was probably endometriosis and counseled me (at 26 years old and not married) to consider getting pregnant and delivering a child (which, he said, had been demonstrated to reverse symptoms of endometriosis in some women) or look into having a hysterectomy. No joke. I left his office in disbelief. I knew something wasn't right with those ideas.

A third doctor prescribed low-dose birth control pills, which I reluctantly took for a few months. The hormones in the pills did reduce the severity of the pain, but I stopped taking them because, again, something didn't feel right about using them as a "cure".

I took evening primrose oil, which did help somewhat, but not enough.

I sought more spiritual answers, thinking perhaps that it was unexpressed emotional pain from previous events. So I worked on that, and while it was great to deal with unresolved emotional issues, my physical pain persisted.

One summer I volunteered as a cooking assistant for an international macrobiotic conference in Vermont. I had the opportunity to meet and spend time with a number of holistic macrobiotic practitioners. I was told, just from looking at my face, that I needed to eat fish (as you may remember, non-fatty fish was the only form of animal protein allowed on the macrobiotic diet). Time and time again I heard it - "You need to expand your diet, eat fish".

From that point, it took about a year to actually eat fish once again. I'd tried a number of times, with the determination to "just do it", but I could ever actually get the fork in my mouth :)

The following summer, my parents were visiting and we went out to dinner at a nice restaurant. Like usual, I ordered my vegan fare of a salad, a plain baked potato and sauteed vegetables. My mom ordered "Spinach Stuffed Fillet of Sole in a Lemon Butter Sauce". It smelled incredible!! She offered me a taste, and for the first time in many years I actually wanted to eat fish. It was amazing how good that first bite tasted to me. I ate half of her dinner before I knew what had happened.

Not long after that, I moved in with a friend who worked Saturday mornings at our local farmers market. Each week she brought home fresh chicken eggs and duck eggs from a friend's farm. I had been to that farm, those birds lived the good life! The ducks had a pond to swim in and didn't really even need pens to enclose them. But they liked it where they were so they hung around. The chickens did require a bit more care. Since they can't fly away from predators, they had large pens which were moved to varying areas of the land, so the chickens scratched in the dirt and pecked in the grass, and had cozy little hen houses in which to nest and roost.

Around that time, the "blood type diet" was gaining popularity. I took a blood test to find out what type of blood I had. I'm O+. Well, anyone who has read the authoritative book on blood types and food, called Eat Right for Your Type, by Peter D’Adamo, will remember that the most compelling information from the research presented there is that O+ people were shown to thrive on red meats, organ meats, and did better to avoid grains almost entirely, wheat and gluten in particular. Though I wasn't ready to begin eating meat, I did try following some of the Blood Type Diet recommendations.

I found that avoiding wheat was great for me. Up until that point I had eaten plenty of sourdough, semolina and whole wheat breads from a fantastic local artisan bakery on a daily basis. Once I began avoiding wheat my allergies diminished, and I noticed that whenever I would reintroduce wheat breads or pasta I'd get noticeable physical symptoms (including a sticky, gummy residue in my eyes, a feeling of having "puffy" eyes, patches of dry skin on my face, and even mild symptoms of depression)!

I ate Ezekiel sprouted bread instead of "regular" whole grain breads. Ezekiel is made from sprouted grains & legumes. The sprouting process deactivates the lectins in the wheat which are what cause allergic symptoms, and makes grains & legumes more digestible, and easier for our bodies to assimilate.

Some of the other recommendations for O+ blood (such as avoiding avocados, or cinnamon, or black pepper) never really did much for me one way or the other, but the wheat was a major breakthrough!

After 7+ years my vegan days had truly ended. Although I still avoided dairy products, I quickly developed a new-found love for soft poached eggs. And I found myself buying cans of line-caught tuna now and then. I had quit my job at the vegan restaurant, but continued doing vegan/macrobiotic cooking at the request of private clients, and teaching popular cooking class series which were all based on vegan ingredients.

I was at odds with my ethical beliefs, my work, and my intense physical cravings for animal proteins & fats. Life continued this way for a year.

I started smoking again. Rarely more than one or two in a day, but still...

My thirties

During one particularly snowy, cold winter I found myself being drawn back to California. I was still single and had the freedom of being able to pick up and move fairly easily, so in January of 1999 I spent most of my small savings to hire a moving company and headed west once more.

Not long after arriving in California I came down with the first case of strep throat I'd had since my late teens. Another round of antibiotics was prescribed. I was sick, but at least I was back in California and ready to discover why I'd experienced such a strong pull to return!

Once recovered, I enjoyed beach walks, frequent hikes in the foothills, swam some mornings at an oceanside outdoor pool, did yoga regularly, and rekindled my love of singing. I was really enjoying myself!

I still experienced painful monthly cycles, and went back to the doctors in search of an answer. I had an ultrasound done and was diagnosed with cyclical cysts in both ovaries. They occur in the ovary itself in the form of a sac swelling full of fluid during times of hormonal fluctuations. The fluid filled sac is what causes the debilitating pain. I was told that "this is perfectly normal and natural for women in your age group", and that the best treatment was to go on birth control pills to regulate hormone levels.

While I was relieved to finally have a proper diagnosis (I saw the ultrasound images for myself), I only took the pills for a couple of months, then stopped. Again, it didn't feel right to take birth control pills as a "cure" for hormonal imbalances.

The next month, while volunteering as a cooking assistant for a health symposium, I was thrilled to cross paths with my favorite macrobiotic teacher from back east. I'd been experiencing pretty severe ovarian pain during the weekend, and after our initial hellos she said "you have pain in your ovaries." I was so surprised, I could barely answer! When I asked how she knew she said she could see it in the way I was walking.

Then she said "hold out your arms." I did. She turned my palms upward and felt along the inner part of both my arms, from the wrists up to the elbows. "Ah," she said, "you've got cysts in both ovaries."

Flabbergasted is a good description of me at that moment. I told her that one month earlier I'd had the ultrasound which revealed the same thing. "How could you tell by my arms?" I asked.

And she guided my fingers across some lumps under the skin, some larger, some smaller. She explained. "Remember learning about the meridians (energy flow patterns) in the body? This part of your arm is along the same meridian as the ovaries. It's common to find the cystic growths here which correlate with the ovarian cysts."

Wow.

She sent me home with the macrobiotic recommendation to eat black soybeans. I admit, I did briefly resurrect my macrobiotic interests after her amazingly accurate diagnosis, and cooked up a couple pots of black soybeans, eating them with the belief that they could help, but it just didn't feel like they were doing much.

I continued my own research. I became interested in a raw foods diet, which was really gaining momentum in Southern California at that time. I read a number of books on the subject, and experimented with that for a while. At first I felt good, I could see evidence of detox occurring (most noticeably through my eyes, which turned glassy and red for a few days). But I lost too much weight, and once again, was always hungry. Too thin and too hungry. Looking back I can see that the advice I followed from some of the "experts" at that time didn't provide me with enough calories, I simply wasn't eating enough!

Back to the drawing board...

During this time I had two short-term jobs in natural foods restaurants, neither of which worked out for more than a couple of months. So I decided to make business cards for my personal cooking service, and networked myself within the holistic community. I began to get offers to do on-site catering for retreats and weekend workshops, which I enjoyed (and still enjoy!) immensely.

I began partnering with holistic nutritionists, acupuncturists, doctors of homeopathy and chiropractors, all of whom referred me clients, along with special sets of dietary recommendations for whatever health issues a person was dealing with. Soon I had a weekly schedule of clients who kept me plenty busy.

I cooked for all kinds of people in all stages of health: Numerous cancers, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, depression, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer's, diabetes, you name it. I prepared so many variations of different dietary recommendations, my head began to spin! Most of my clients' kitchen counters were crammed with all kinds of bottles & bags - pills, capsules, powders, liquids... it could be hard to find room for the groceries!

During this same time I cooked for a number of families who were not sick, just wanted some extra help in the food department. I was asked to grill steaks, roast chicken, make meatloaf, prepare boulliabase... I'd remind them that I had no experience in preparing these kinds of foods, whatsoever. The answer was always the same "Oh, we trust you, just use your best judgment."

I was enthusiastic about learning to prepare new foods, so I eagerly accepted these new challenges! My main requirement was that I would use only the highest quality, humanely produced animal products and organic dairy foods. Soon I became quite adept in the non-vegan kitchen, and my repertoire really expanded. I still ate primarily a vegetarian diet, but my taste for animal foods began to develop. I avoided dairy products since my understanding still was that they could cause reproductive issues, as well as ear/nose/throat issues, but enjoyed occasional fish, meat, poultry and eggs.

In early spring of 2003, overworked and under-rested, I got some sort of flu or nasty bug, accompanied by a nagging cough. I was physically exhausted and barely left the house for over a week, except to go out in the back yard and lie in the sun. I had little to no appetite, so I ate mostly organic iceberg lettuce & chopped vegetables dressed with fresh lemon, olive oil, flax oil and sea salt. I spent a lot of time researching on the internet, looking for information on herbal remedies, food remedies, fasts and natural cleanses I could do at home.

About a week into this illness, while the coughing was still pretty frequent, I began to taste the awful albuterol inhaler fumes when I coughed! This was 9 or 10 years after I had stopped using it. Amazing.

Could my body really have stored some of that inhaler essence for close to ten years? Apparently, my “fast” of nothing but those salads, combined with plenty of sun and sleep and a persistent cough, had induced some sort of cleansing process through my lungs.

I did get better over the course of a couple of weeks, and in the meanwhile, had found a whole new area of passionate interest – cleansing and detoxing . There was so much information available on the internet!

I learned about the Hering's Law of Cures (a very real phenomenon of the body re-tracing old injuries and illnesses in its healing processes). This is also when I first began learning about candida albicans, and something called the Herxheimer Reaction . I spent lots of my free time reading everything I could find.

The first thing I did was scrub my bathroom. Why? Because it was dark, had poor ventilation and was prone to various molds in the bath/shower, and even on the walls and ceiling (yuck!)

I used bleach, having read that it was effective at killing mold. I've since learned that although bleach is good for ridding surface areas of discoloration to due mold, it will not kill the whole organism. To actually kill household mold you need an antimicrobial substance capable of killing fungus. But, I digress...

I got books from the library, joined discussion groups, experimented with fasting, juicing and other forms of cleanse & detox including: dry skin brushing (helps lymph drainage), pelotherapy (internal and external use of clay for drawing out toxins, colonics (flushing the lowermost intestines with water in order to remove impacted waste products & toxins), hydrotherapy (alternating hot and cold water showers for stimulating and detoxing the internal organs and the skin), baths (in natural hot sulfur springs, as well as home baths with epsom salt or sea salt), and the age-old tradition of sweats (saunas & steam baths).

Each of these treatments helped in some way. And if nothing else, I sure learned a lot!

A couple of months later I fell in love with my future husband. After six months of being practically inseparable, we decided to make wedding plans. We got engaged and began the happy arrangements. Finally, I understood why I’d had such an intense longing to return to California two and a half years earlier, it must have been love calling :) - Actually, we first met not long after I returned to California, it just took us some time to “find” each other.

Life got pretty hectic. We did apartment hunting, began the process of packing boxes, cleaning, donating, and making all the other necessary arrangements not only for the move, but for the wedding (which was only 6 months away) coordinating everything as best we could with both of our families living far away -- all while both continuing to work full time - you know how that goes.

On the day of the move, once again exhausted and working too hard, I slipped a disk in my lower back. Two previous events in my earlier years, both involving torn ligaments, had left it in a compromised condition which was always exacerbated by stress or improper physical activities. So there I was.

Flat on my back.

The first 2 weeks in our new apartment I lived on the living room floor. It was no fun. This was in January, which brought with it the cold, foggy weather to add to my discomfort and gloom.

I tried a home visit from a chiropractor but the pain was so excruciating - there was no adjustment that could be done. So, each morning my fiancee would wrap me in extra blankets, bring me water, books, the portable phone, and some food. Then he'd go to work. He'd come home at lunch to check on me, and then once again, I was alone most days until he returned from work at 5pm.

Lucky to have this wonderful man taking such good care of me - yet I was devastated to be in such poor shape during the beginning of our life together.

Thankfully, I went back to work three weeks after the accident, still not totally better, but enough to be able to shop and cook. I’d had two adjustments to my spine which happened during the course of my own movements, each time I could feel the disc moving back toward where it belonged. It sure feels better when your disks are aligned!

I was glad to be back on my feet and active again. I learned a simple routine of pilates movements which I did daily to strengthen my back (and the rest of me too). Soon I was back out on my morning hikes in the foothills.

But, as the months went on and springtime arrived I was frequently tired, and "foggy". I had a hard time remembering the words to complete a sentence. I was really itchy in certain parts of my body, had dry skin on my face and shins, and was experiencing pretty severe IBS symptoms. Nothing life threatening, but not great either.

So I really began to look into this "candida" thing. I did the questionnaires, which came back as a resounding "yes indeed, it's highly likely that you have yeast overgrowth."

I talked to my holistic practitioner friends and colleagues. I looked at books about it. I found more discussion groups. At this point I really began to gather a group of smart people to whom I could pose questions and ask for guidance.

When I began to uncover all the ailments that can spring from an imbalanced immune system overridden by yeast (fungus), it was pretty impressive. Those fungal microorganisms are powerful!!

I got recommendations to read the book called Body Ecology Diet (B.E.D), by Donna Gates. So I did. I respect a lot of the information presented in the book, but some of it didn't work with my ideas of combating yeast overgrowth. What I really liked was the advice to eat raw, cultured (lacto-bacillus fermented) vegetables, which help keep intestinal flora in good shape.

The main aspect of the B.E.D. that didn’t work for me was the focus on grain-based meals. Most of the sample menus involved a grain dish and a couple forms of vegetables. During my macrobiotic/vegan years I discovered that eating so much grains, even whole grains, messed with my blood sugar levels. I would be hungry an hour or two after a meal, and if I didn’t have snacks frequently I would experience more severe drops in blood sugar, leaving me shaky and slightly disoriented.

So, I started making my own fermented vegetables. By the way, Wild Fermentations, by Sandor Katz, is a great book devoted to the subject.

And… I kept researching.

I learned about a low carbohydrate approach to starving the yeast. This made sense to me. But many of the popular books and “experts” advocated foods which didn't fit that criteria. So I turned my attention to the people who were talking sense, and continued my own research along those same lines.

Yeast eats sugar. Carbohydrates are sugars. Yeast is a type of fungus. Antifungal ingredients repel and even kill yeast. This is the basis of a solid program to rid the body of excess yeast.

I heard of people who were following a Paleo diet (also called The Caveman Diet, or The Hunter-Gatherer by some), not necessarily to combat yeast overgrowth, but in an attempt to eat the foods our bodies are "programmed" to eat. In other words, eating primarily the foods that human populations ate for thousands of years before the advent of modern agriculture and technologies (and the curiously similar timeline of modern diseases).

Something about that really 'clicked' with me. There is an elemental level of common sense in an idea like that.

Around this same time I was put in contact with the Weston A. Price Foundation, and that was another real turning point for me. At first I couldn't believe some of what I was reading in their materials. I had been taught such different ideologies about food and nutrition for so many years that this stuff was a mind-blower for me.

Saturated fat is not totally evil?

Soy milk can be an anti-health food?

Canola is a less-than-ideal oil?

Raw, unpasteurized milk products can be healthy foods for humans?

I had a hard time swallowing it at first. These folks were all about meat, eggs, and dairy products as a healthy part of a daily diet. I resisted. I said "I don't think I can start eating this way!" But I was asked to keep an open mind and continue my conversations. I was encouraged to ask questions, to which I always received straight answers, which made scientific sense, as well as spoke to my common sense.

This nutritional advice took some of the core beliefs I had about food - eating locally and organically, focusing on whole foods, promoting the end of cruel factory farming practices - and expanded on them in such an intelligent, ethical and passionate way, that I felt I had to give it a chance.

I began to incorporate some of the dietary guidelines posed by the experts at the foundation. And I began to notice little changes in how I felt. I incorporated more of the guidelines to my own eating, and yet again, more improvements.

I got the cookbook called Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon, and immersed myself in its teachings. There is a lot of great information in that book! I still find that it's too heavy on the animal foods for my preferences, but still, definitely worth a read.

The adventure continues...

In July of 2004 my husband and I were married under a big old oak tree, out in California's beautiful wine country. We catered the wedding ourselves, serving a beautiful al fresco buffet of locally produced foods. We actually went to the farmer's market early on the morning of our wedding day, to hand pick an assortment of fresh fruits for our guests to enjoy along with artisinal cheeses. What a great wedding day memory!

I was following a no grains, moderate protein, high fat, high raw vegetable foods (sort of "Paleo") diet at the time, and still I enjoyed a lovely variety of foods on our wedding menu, simply skipping the higher carbohydrate items.

Six months after the big day we moved from California to New York City so my husband could pursue a masters degree. What a shock to the system. Plucked from temperate southern CA in the middle of winter to be plopped down back in snowy New England. I had to find a job since I had no cooking reputation or clients waiting for me in NYC, and I was honestly pretty miserable during those first few months. I worked for a catering company and the guy that owned it was nuts, n-u-t-s nuts! But I hung in there as long as I could so my husband could attend his graduate classes.

A few months after we arrived in N.Y.C. he received a scholarship to attend a specialized program in Europe beginning in the fall, and I found a different job which paid far less money but at least I enjoyed going to work, doing daily lunch specials for a small pasta factory and storefront in a lively part of the city, for the remainder of that summer.

We spent the fall and winter of 2005 living in Venice, Italy. The school had made advance arrangements for a rental apartment for us. It was nice, but expensive! And unfortunately, the whole place was riddled with mold, a common problem there (called 'muffa' in Venetian). Imagine a city built on water - then add the cold, foggy winter season. Mold heaven! Everyone living in Venice has muffa stories to tell. It grew on the interior walls of our apartment. Clean it off with bleach or baking soda and it would come back within a week. We discovered mold in the mattress of our bed, so we spent the final 2 months sleeping on the living room pull-out couch (the least moldy room in the apt.)

With no work visa, no internet, a husband immersed in schoolwork, and only a handful of people with whom I could speak English, I spent a lot of time strolling the food markets, and then going back home to play the kitchen. Risottos, pastas, polentas, pizzas, breads - cheap eats when you're on a student budget, and tasty too. Not to mention all the delicious, inexpensive Veneto region wines!

In fact, I craved these foods, and the wine too. Not as in "I sure would enjoy a piece of bread right about now", more like "If I don't eat bread within the next few minutes I am going to freak out!!" Even when I resolved to steer clear, by the end of the day it was almost guaranteed that I'd have eaten something laden with carbohydrates, or drank a couple glasses of wine, or both.

A couple of times I managed to avoid the carbs for a few days, did some form of cleansing, and would feel a little better. Next thing you know, we're joining some of the other students for dinner, and I'd be back on the bread and wine.

My health suffered. I got most of my old symptoms back.

In February, my husband's masters program took us from Italy to Belgium. There, we moved into a bright and airy apartment, no mold in sight! I quit smoking once again. With my husband still neck deep in school work, I was overjoyed on the day we got our internet hooked up.

I regained contact with information sources like the Weston A. Price Foundation, and numerous health & diet groups I'd been involved with previously. I got back into my candida research, exploring all the different routes people were taking to deal with candida symptoms.

I took all those differing opinions and related them to my own experiences. There are so many varations of a candida "diet", and so many people making little progress while following some of those diets. So I paid attention to what seemed counter-intuitive, and what made solid scientific sense, and tested my theories on myself.

I stopped drinking wine and even gave up that good Belgian beer.

I practiced some treatments for detoxing and cleansing, which aided immensely in my progress.

Rent was cheaper in Belgium than in Venice. We had a little bit of extra money each month. So I began to gather my arsenal:

I found a source of pure stevia concentrate from the UK (not so much for sweetening purposes, this was more for blood sugar stabilization while I got off the carbs).

I got virgin palm & coconut oils, expeller pressed flax oil and extra virgin olive oil. In the regular grocery store I got tiny mackerel fillets canned in a natural tomato sauce, and sardines packed in olive oil.

I ordered raw, local, grass fed butter through a local health food store and began eating it in such large quantities that my skin smelled like butter for a spell!

There was a year-round typical European market (kind of like a farmers market) just up the street from our apartment once a week, and there I got plenty of fresh local seasonal vegetables and greens. Also available were eggs from locally raised, cage free chickens, whole chickens from that same farmer, pastured lamb, pork & naturally smoked bacon from a different farmer. Bonanza!!

I made homemade mayonnaise with raw egg yolks. I used the egg whites to experiment with making coconut macaroons sweetened only with dried ground stevia leaves. I began making my lacto-fermented veggies again.

As the hot summer months rolled around I began buying whole, fresh coconuts and mastered the art of extracting the coconut water before cracking them open to munch on the crunchy meat. I'd make a refreshing cool drink of diluted coconut water with a touch of stevia sweetener.

I went to 3 health food stores before I found truly raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar, which I began taking daily (see my recipe for Sweet Tart Cider Sipper). I also got some high quality oil of oregano and began using it after I had been back on the good foods and off the sugars for a while.

Ups and downs. Good days, bad days. Good weeks, and then feeling worse for a few days. Such is the way of natural healing. You sometimes feel worse before you feel better, but you do actually get better. You heal at your body's own pace, as opposed to taking medications to fix certain symptoms.

I got a lot better.

I decided to begin developing my own collection of recipes for candida.

That spring and summer flew by! My husband completed his masters degree, we did some traveling to celebrate, and in October of 2006 we moved back to New York City. Once back in the Big Apple, I did private cooking for a number of clients and continued my research and recipe development.

Once again I got really busy with work, trying to do too much for too many, and injured my back again.

So in November of 2007 we moved to upstate New York to "slow down". I worked much less, devoted a lot of time to developing this website, and my back got better.

In January 2008 I started a local chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation for New York's Capital Region and beyond.

In February 2008 I began reading up on Metabolic Typing, in a book called The Metabolic Typing Diet, by Bill Wolcott. I actually first learned about it a number of years ago, as metabolic typing is promoted by some popular alternative health personalities, but somehow I never studied the details. Wolcott's book is along similar lines as eating for a specific blood type, but instead, food choices are based on whether a person is a "carbohydrate" type (does well on higher carbohydrate foods, some leaner proteins, and vegetables), a "protein" type (does better with rich fatty proteins, very little grains or sweets, and lower carbohydrate vegetables), or a mix. The more I looked into it, the stronger the answer came back that, according to Wolcott's Metabolic Typing, I'm a protein type. Go figure ;)

But there's so much more to it. I still had a lot of questions after reading that book. There's a lot, in my opinion, that's left to speculation. There are so many factors that make up each individual's specific body type.

It's something I've noticed in all my years of nutritional research -- some recommendations are good for everybody (eat local, organic foods whenever possible, avoid trans fats and new-fangled fats, minimize refined sugars and flours), while the nitty-gritty diet details can be more challenging to pin down for each individual.

The macrobiotic diet seems to keep some people in excellent health, while a lower carb, high protein & fat diet (practically the opposite of macrobiotics) works so much better for others. Some people keep healthy and fit while eating oatmeal for breakfast, others feel better eating eggs and bacon, and still someone else feels best on a raw fruit smoothie.

In March 2008 I read another book called The Nutrition Solution, by Harold Kristal and James Haig. This book helped to explain more of the science behind how Metabolic Typing works. At the same time I found a certified Metabolic Typing Practitioner in my area and went in for a test. It was a 2.5 hour long process in which she literally watched my body digest a potassium/glucose drink, while monitoring all kinds of metabolic functions. It was fascinating!!

My reaction to the results, and the corresponding dietary recommendations, were a mix of "Yep, that's what I thought" with a few "No way! Are you serious??" thrown in.

I followed the recommendations provided to me at the end of the testing procedure for the next couple of months, modified to suit my lower-carb dietary style, and some of the nagging symptoms I could never "fix" lessened for a while.

Some simple changes, for instance: avoiding certain vegetables in favor of others, choosing certain types of fish over others, produced some good results for me, in the short term.

At that time I was thrilled with this approach to helping people learn about their own unique body, so I signed up to be trained and certified in the testing procedure. I enthusiastically completed the training, and, unfortunately still feel like there are a lot of unanswered questions.

I haven't gotten straight answers even from my own teacher, who simply defaults to recommending supplements created by Dr. Kristal before he passed away, without being able to really explain why they are recommended. Sorry folks, that doesn't fly with me.

Also, after a while, I found that the limited array of "allowed" vegetables recommended for my "type" felt too narrow, and so I began expanding my menus once again. I haven't noticed any detrimental effects from eating the "not allowed" vegetables, or other foods I was told to avoid (for instance, lemons and raw apple cider vinegar). I feel about the same as when I was following the plan flawlessly.

Spring 2008

At the same time that I was completing my MT training, I was offered a great opportunity to return to NYC to work with one of my favorite cooking clients, to help open a new cafe focused on local, organic foods and encouraging children to eat well from a very young age. Opening a natural foods cafe is something I've dreamed of doing since I very first started cooking in the early 90's.

So, in the beginning of July 2008 my husband and I moved back to the Big Apple! I'm now part of a team of inspiring, talented, warm and wonderful people to create this great new space, and I'm loving it! It's full time work and then some, but I'm enjoying every minute of it.

Regarding the MT, even after my training and certification, something about it just isn't working for me. Disappointing to say the least, but for now, since I'm busy with the creation of this new cafe, and not working with private clients, I've put MT on the back burner.

Okay, so maybe I haven't really slowed down… I'm positively brimming with ideas and possibilities for the future.

More than 5 years after I first began learning about candida, I am feeling good! I rarely have any ovarian pain, rarely get sick at all. Sometimes if I'm worn out, or stressed out, or eating poorly, I'll get an old symptom or two, but I know how to heal now. I sleep like an angel and have great energy.

It’s true that I’ve been spotted on more than one occasion crunching giddily on a bag of tortilla chips, or even a slice of pizza *gasp!*. But for my daily dietary choices I gladly stick to whole foods prepared in healthy ways.

I still have a few nagging symptoms, nothing really debilitating, more annoying than anything, and not candida-related as I had originally assumed. So I'm always researching more and more, looking for answers to the incredibly intricate puzzle of the human body and what makes it function at its best.

"What is Susan eating these days??"

Good question!

Summer 2008

It's a hot sticky summer season here, and nothing has been sounding as good to me as raw, living foods and my old favorite - vegetarian fare.

"What?? Vegetarian fare? After starting your own chapter of the Weston A. Price Fondation??" Hey, you gotta do what feels right, right?

The first food I have most days is a green smoothie. "What's a green smoothie??" Another good question. It's a nutrient packed powerhouse I make with fresh berries and/or other seasonal fruits along with some fresh coconut or banana, chopped raw kale leaves, a handful of sprouted sunflower seeds and/or flax seeds and enough water (and a bit of stevia when the fruits aren't quite sweet enough) to blend it all into a pureed smoothie consistency - you'd be surprised how delicious it is!! For a girl who has always had trouble eating fruit - I'm happy with this breakfast because the combination of kale (fiber) and seeds (fat & protein) buffers the fruit from affecting my blood sugar in any negative way so I feel satisfied and even-keeled while getting the cleansing and invigorating benefits of fresh fruit. In fact, I feel energized and vibrant when I have this as my first food of the day.

Then, later in the day I've been loving chopped salads full of all kinds of veggies, non-sweet fruits (peppers, cukes, avocados, tomatoes, olives etc.) and greens, sprouts, herbs, coconut oil, olive oil, raw vinegars, occasional sunflower/macadamia/sesame oils, flax seeds, other seeds & nuts and occasionally dulse or other seaweeds.

For some reason my vegetarian tendencies are coming back strongly these days. I think a large part of it is due to the fact that I'm not shopping and cooking for private clients anymore. So when my husband and I go to the farmer's market we're only buying foods that look good to us. He has always avoided red meats and as far as chicken, turkey, pork, etc - he can take it or leave it - he was also vegetarian for many years before we got together. I simply lost the taste for meats and poultry, at least for now (maybe after 10 years of cooking plenty of it for my clients I'm simply "over it").

So, along with the green smoothies and summer salads we're enjoying meals that include cooked beans, legumes, tempeh, whole grains and always - plenty of veggies and dark leafy greens. I love the variety of cheeses made from raw milk (many of which are locally produced) that are available these days, too. Also, blended raw soups have been hitting the spot on those particularly hot days. An occasional egg still sneaks it's way in to the meal as well.

My indulgences - We like to go out for sushi a couple times a month, as well as explore some of the other amazing cuisines available to us here in one of the premier dining destination cities of the world (I've been choosing the vegetarian dishes, or maybe a fish dish if no good veggie fare is available)...

We buy as much as we can locally, and make exceptions for a few special items that, to us, warrant the extra miles they traveled to get here.

I still support the overall views of organizations like the Weston A. Price Foundation, and agree that some people can be very healthy while enjoying a diet rich in animal meats.

For me, I'm going with what my own body is telling me, which is more plant foods, less animal foods...

Autumn 2008

Okay, I've gotten over the total aversion to meats which I was experiencing earlier this summer. I suppose I've had the opportunity to "de-program" from my years of personal cooking. Seasons change, weather shifts, and so does the natural tendency toward and away from certain foods.

Still, in a restaurant, I order vegetarian options, or a fish/seafood dish.

I'm currently enjoying my usual variety of plant-based foods, along with occasional eggs, fish, dairy products and poultry dishes. I'm off the daily green smoothie for breakfast - in lieu of a more varied assortment. Some days it's a smoothie, others it's hummus with raw veggies, and occasionally it might be poached or scrambled eggs over veggie chili, atop a bed of steamed greens. I still haven't found my way back to craving red meats, but again, it's a personal journey. ___________________________________________________________________

So that's my ever-evolving story...

I hope it will inspire you to do some research while listening to your own inner wisdom, and to find your personal path to health and happiness.

I also hope that all the information I've compiled here in this website will help you along the way...

Eat well, and enjoy life.

~ Susan