Hi Tom,

As for the brown basmati rice, I suppose it's better than the higher GI white basmati but ideally you would want to aim for wholegrains if you are going to include grains in your diet. I just buy organic wholegrain brown rice and work with that. You can also use cornflour or arrowroot flour in recipes as a substitute for wheat flour sometimes too, as long as you only add a little bit.

As for craving meats . . . well, this is not necessarily a problem on a candida diet. I mean, you can have meats but the only possible problem if you have a lot of meat would be if your digestion were not working very well, you got lots of constipation etc.

What I mean is, if meat stays in your gut too long, it can ferment and the fermentation can feed the candida. If you are very regular and eating TONS of veg, this is less of a problem. If you are one of those people who suffer from bad constipation, then you wouldn't want to begin antifungal treatments heavily nor eat tons of meat, grains etc until your system were working better and you were very regular and getting lots of good cruciferous veg to help clean out your gut.

Another good gut cleaner which is anti-candida and which might be soothing on your esophagal ulcers would be aloe vera. I usually put a few tsp mixed with psyllium husks and then add plenty of mineral water. This helps clear the gut too.

Meats shouldn't be a problem with candida unless you already have these other issues, but be careful about the additives (hormones, nitrites, nitrates, sulphites, sulphates etc which are added to sausages, bacon etc). THOSE can be VERY bad for candida, so try to buy fresh organic meat and cook it up yourself, rather than buying pre-made meatballs, supermarket-prepared steaks etc and be VERY careful about marinades unless you make them yourself---they tend to have a lot of preservatives too if you buy store-bought prepackaged stuff.

Natural tomato sauce . . . well . . . organic passata can be used, and you can make your own with chopped canned tomatoes (watch the additives but some brands are ok and fairly "pure). You can experiment and actually use substitute dairy (soya milk, rice milk, natural yogurt) to mix with the tomato sauce and add lots of your own herbs etc.

If you look in the recipes section here or even just on google and type in "low carb tomato sauce homemade" you will probably find lots of recipes for this. Just check the ingredients because some low carb recipes will not be ideal for candida if they add a lot of maple syrup, honey or full fat cream etc. Use the substitutes for these things where possible. A small amount of honey (like a tsp) spread over a large dish (like a homemade pot of soup) might not be the end of the world, but you wouldn't want a high amount of those things in your food if you are fighting candida.

It's a good time to try some new low-carb versions of recipes and combinations too. If you think of it as a good opportunity to learn some new recipes, it might make it easier to adjust to not having things taste exactly like they used to with your old recipes.