Antifungal Ketogenic Diet

MANY chronic illnesses are caused, at least in part, by fungal growth, usually in the gut and in the paranasal sinuses.  In my experience, it is impossible to get rid of the fungus in the body until you first get rid of all fungus & mold in the home, the workplace and all other places where you spend time each month. About 50% of all homes and other buildings in the US are water-damaged (roof leaks; air-conditioner drips; leaks from toilets, sinks, ice-makers, dish-washers, clothes-washers, showers, bathtubs; leaks around windows; moisture under carpets or carpet-padding laid on concrete (which is ALWAYS moist) or under carpets where drinks have spilled or animals have urinated, etc.). Wherever there is water plus any material that can be broken down by microbial enzymes, there will be fungal growth.  The mold/fungal spores and mycotoxins (which are immune-suppressive, cancer-causing & neuro-degenerative) get into the air of the room and get breathed-in by the people in those rooms. The fungi then start growing in the paranasal sinuses and drain down the back of the throat into the GI tract.

In order to get rid of fungi in the body, you must first make sure you are not spending any time in buildings that have a mold/fungus problem and that if there previously has been a problem in one of those buildings, that there is a hydroxyl generator running full-time in that building (see “Sinus Irrigation & Hydroxyl Generator” document). After the breathing environment has been thus addressed, then start a strict ketogenic diet for 10 weeks.  In my experience, if you have one splurge meal during that 10 weeks (especially sugars), you have to add one week of ketogenic diet onto the end of the program.  So, if you splurge one meal EACH week, you will NEVER finish the program.  During that 10 weeks, you must be on effective anti-fungal herbs or pharmaceuticals twice daily AND irrigate your paranasal sinuses with warm saline using a Sinugator or SinuPulse or a 3-ounce rubber bulb syringe, once daily for at least 10 consecutive weeks. It is NOT necessary to measure ketones in the urine or blood on the ketogenic diet, but the goal is to reduce ALL sugars, starches, vinegars & oral alcohols to an extremely low level so that they will not feed the fungi in the body.

Foods NOT allowed for 10 weeks while sinus-irrigating & taking antifungal herbs:  NO artificial sweeteners or sugar of any type (NO honey, maple syrup, agave, molasses, rice syrup, coconut sugar, fructose, corn-syrup, erythritol, xylitol, ribose, mannose, sucralose, aspartame, saccharin, etc.). This includes no sugar additives in processed foods or recipes and no sugars in nutritional supplements (so every label must be read & the restaurant cooks must be questioned). Six and ½ days per week, NO fruit products or fruits other than lemons, limes, tomatoes & avocadoes.  NO grain products (NO breading on fried foods and NO breads, cereals, pastries, pasta, pizza-crust, wheat, couscous, triticale, spelt, kamut, oats, barley, rye, rice, millet, amaranth, quinoa, or teff).  NO potatoes, beets, carrots or other root vegetables other than garlic, onions, leeks, shallots and tumeric.  NO starchy vegetables (NO butternut squash, pumpkin, acorn squash, etc.).  NO animal milk products (from cows, sheep, goats, buffalo, camel, etc.).  NO alcoholic beverages (NO beer, wine, hard liquor, mixed drinks, etc.).  NO vinegar products (NO commercial mustard, commercial ketchup, barbeque sauce, pickles, kombucha tea, sauerkraut, kimchi nor most commercially-prepared salad dressings).  NO meats with non-meat fillers (avoid most hot-dogs, most bologna, most meat-loafs, most hamburgers from fast-food restaurants, etc.).  NO pistachios, peanuts or peanut oil.  NO canola oil, cottonseed oil or hydrogenated oils. No coconut water but unsweetened coconut milk, coconut meat, coconut flour & coconut oil are OK.  Also preferable to NOT eat pork products.  Avoid peas, lentils, soy-bean products, dried beans, hummus, etc. unless they were cooked in water for at least 8 hours, or pressure-cooked for at least 1 hour (because if not cooked long enough, they contain high lectin content which causes clumping of red blood cells in the blood stream).

Permitted foods during those 10 weeks of antifungal treatment:  If not allergic to them, all seeds, nuts, seed-butters and nut-butters are OK (other than peanuts, cashews & pistachios) as long as no sugars or sweeteners are added to the “butters” or the nuts/seeds.  Unsweetened Almond Milk, Unsweetened Walnut Milk and Unsweetened Coconut Milk are all commercially-available.  Other nut milks can be made by placing unroasted, unsalted nuts in a blender, covering them over with purified water, and after blending thoroughly, pouring the nut milk thru a strainer and storing it in a labeled glass jar with lid in the refrigerator (with blending date & nut type on the label).  All cruciferous vegetables (as long as they are steamed for at least 5 minutes before eating them (cabbage, cauliflower, cress, collard, broccoli, broccolini, brussel-sprouts, kale, bok-choy, etc.).  All lettuces, salad greens plus green beans, okra, asparagus, spinach, zucchini, yellow crooked-neck squash, yellow straight-neck squash, patty-pan squash, artichoke, fennel, eggplant, peppers & similar non-starchy vegetables, as well as olives, avocados, tomatoes, lemons, limes (and lemonade or limeade made from fresh-squeezed lemons or limes plus Nutramedix Stevia or NOW Monk Fruit liquid).  For something crunchy, “flackers” (tomato & basil flavor) from www.DoctorInTheKitchen.com should be tolerated by most people.  The Rosemary-flavored flackers contain Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (from non-GMO soy) which would likely be tolerated by those who are not allergic to soy.  The tiny amount of vinegar in these should NOT be a problem.  Salad dressings can be made at home from a healthy oil (olive, avocado, walnut, pecan, macadamia) and some lemon juice or lime juice and some spice powders (garlic, onion, rosemary, thyme, oregano, turmeric, paprika, cayenne…).

Some people who are chronically-ill have lost much of their ability to produce stomach acid, pepsin and pancreatic enzymes, so they have extreme difficulty digesting proteins derived from animals.  If this is not the case, certain animal-derived protein can be included in this Keto diet.  The easiest animal-derived proteins to digest are usually all types of non-allergenic eggs (from chickens, guineas, ducks, turkeys, ostriches, etc.).  The next easiest animal-derived proteins to digest are poultry (chicken, turkey, dove, pheasant, quail, pigeon, partridge, Cornish game hens, etc).  Almost as easy to digest as poultry are small bony fish with scales, especially anchovies & sardines or wild-caught salmon (but many fish from the North Pacific Ocean are contaminated with radioactivity from Fukushima, Japan.  Also shell fish and large bony fish, like tuna, swordfish and shark, are heavy-metal contaminated).  The hardest-to-digest animal-derived proteins are beef products, pork products, bison & other game-animal meats (deer, elk, caribou, etc.) but these should probably be eaten only if taking bromelain or papain/papaya-leaf enzyme during and immediately after each meat ingestion.

Undigested animal-derived protein which is swallowed gets acted upon by pathologic bacteria in the intestine to form excess ammonia, nitrosamines and other toxic substances, which can cause damage to the liver, brain and the nervous system. Instead of trying to ingest and digest animal-derived protein, some chronically-ill patients take free-form amino acids (which are already fully digested and easily absorbed).  This approach also spares a LOT of energy necessary to digest foods.

NOTE WELL: Most patients with cancer usually do better if they also restrict animal source proteins from the above list (because tyrosine, leucine, glutamine & possibly other amino acids, which are found in higher concentration in animal protein, can also stimulate cancer growth, as can sugar).

ONE DAY PER WEEK EAT VEGGIES & SOME ADDITIONAL FRUIT:  During a prolonged ketogenic diet, glycogen stores in the human organs & tissues can become depleted and the cellular metabolism can become more incapable of metabolizing sugars & starches. In order to prevent these problems, it is usually helpful for ½ day each week (usually in the AM after awakening) to eat NO fat or oils, no avocado, no nuts or nut products, no seeds or seed products and no animal-source protein (no fish, shellfish, poultry, eggs, beef, bison, pork or other land animals). During that half-day, instead eat all non-starchy vegetables listed in the “permitted foods” list above plus you can also have as much as ONE cup of any ONE of the following fruits by itself with no other food at the same time (but you must wait 45 minutes after eating that fruit before eating other foods; also, fruits should only be eaten at least 4-6 HOURS after the previous food).  Permitted organic fruits on that ½ day per week include: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, firm cherries, firm apricots, firm nectarines, firm peaches, firm plums, grapefruit and firm Granny-Smith apples. After that half-day is over, one can resume eating the foods that are consumed the other 6 ½ days each week.