Author: Eric Bakker

Good day, Eric Bakker, naturopath, author of Candida Crusher.

I’m here to talk to you today about a second Candida crushing food called Oregano.

Oregano has been cultivated in the Mediterranean for thousands of years and particularly the areas of Greece and Crete where it’s been used for a long, long time to stop food from spoiling long before refrigeration was invented. Plants like Thyme, Marjoram, Rosemary, and particularly Oregano were cultivated and utilized in cooking for their anti-spoilage properties to stop microbes and bugs really perforating on lamb and meats like that.

When you think about it, people often say to me, “But, Eric, you’re wrong because these foods we use to flavor cooking.” That’s not true. They realize that when these plants are incorporated into cooking and, particularly, mixed with meats that the meats would not spoil as easily. And today we know through research, in particular, that Oregano is amazing. It has an essential oil called Carvacrol, which works in dilutions as low as 1 in 50,000. So you work that out, 1 in 50,000 dilutions and Oregano oil, a good potent one, will work very effectively.

So the best Oregano oil products come from the highest regions in the Mediterranean with the cleanest air, the least pollution, and these particular type of plants grow about 20 inches tall. They’ve got these lovely purple sort of blue flowers, oval shaped dark leaves, and the leaves are picked just on perfection with the highest oil concentration. So they know exactly what this is, and I use several different types of Oregano products, but I would not be without it.

Oregano is one of my favorites along with garlic. I encourage you to grow Oregano in summer if you have a yeast infection and pick it particularly in the hottest parts of summer, usually just after the sun’s come up and the dew is set, is a good time to pick Oregano. Pull it off and I usually crush it up with my hands and you can smell the oil. And what you can do is use it as a marinate for lamb or beef or chicken or some food. A clever thing to do also is to crush a lot of the Oregano tips up and then stuff that in a jar and fill it with garlic and Olive oil. Isn’t that a smart idea? And by doing so, you’re going to infuse all these essential oils into the Olive oil, which again you can drizzle on your salad or use in cooking or marinate. Greeks have done this for a long time, and you can do the same thing.

So, yeah, what I’d like to tell you about Oregano is it’s very effective. It’s effective against many different kinds of fungi, protozoan, parasites, bacteria. It’s shown to be active even against things like Pseudomonas, Klebsiella, many E. coli strains, even a bug called Proteus mirabilis is affected by the incorporation of Oregano into the diet. I found it very effective with Candida albicans, but also glabrata, Candida tropicalis, and other of the harder to kill Candida species.

There are many different brands of Oregano available. Here’s one, for example, quite a high grade Oregano. Watch this space because I’m currently working in collaboration with a person on making some very nice Oregano products which will roll out in time.

I really would like you to incorporate Oregano into your diet in both fresh form in spring and summer and the rest of the year all year round in a supplementary form. And if you get an anti-fungal product, make sure there’s Oregano in this product. It’s a very effective yeast killer.

I’ll do some more video clips on how to use Oregano in terms of vaginal infections and jock itch and toenail fungus and things like that. It’s very powerful. You need to keep the oil particularly away from eyes and sensitive body parts, but it’s certainly worth incorporating into your anti-fungal regime.

So I hope that answers some of your questions about Oregano.

Good day, Eric Bakker, naturopath, author of Candida Crusher. Another question.

Does yeast infection cause diarrhea?

Yeast infections certainly can cause diarrhea. It can cause diarrhea, constipation, gas, bloating, cramping, digestive pains; all sorts of digestive issues can be as a consequence of Candida. I would tend to see constipation a little bit more than diarrhea and associate diarrhea more with certain pathogens like various parasites are implicated. But I have also seen plenty of patients with a lot of yeast have diarrhea, particularly the patients who recurrently take drugs like fluconazole or broad-spectrum antibiotics. They’re quite prone to diarrhea. So if you’ve got diarrhea, there are plenty of things you can do to counter the diarrhea.

But a good thing first to do is to find out where the diarrhea is coming from. What is its origin? Is it drug-induced? Is it parasite induced? Think about doing a comprehensive stool analysis. That may well find a pathogen like Blastocystis hominis. There could well be a bug underlying or underpinning this. And in that case, a susceptibility panel will generally give you an indication on what to do for the diarrhea. Make sure you drink plenty of water with diarrhea because it’s easy to get dehydrated, lose a lot of minerals and electrolytes and water from the body. But please find out what’s causing the diarrhea.

I’m going to talk a lot more about diarrhea on other YouTube clips, but you can get diarrhea from a yeast infection. You most certainly can.

So I hope that answers your question.

Good day there, Eric Bakker, naturopath, author of Candida Crusher. Here is another female FAQ.

Does vaginal swelling come with yeast infections?

Well, anything can happen to the vagina with a yeast infection. Because remember infections are what they are, infections. They can cause inflammation, redness, irritation, heat, immune malfunction. Women can often scratch the vaginal area with a yeast infection and that can create the release of histamine and other chemicals that can simulate a strong immune response. And, of course, you can get swelling, inflammation, pain, redness, irritation; all these things can occur as a result of a vaginal infection. So a swelling can come with a yeast infection. And if in doubt, go and get it checked out. Get that area swabbed and tested and to see if the lab can culture any yeast off these cells, and you may well have a Candida Albicans infection.

Have a look at Chapter 5 in my book, Candida Crusher. This will explain to you in detail how to get rid of this vaginal infection.

So I trust that answers your questions. Thank you.