Managing Candida Diet During Travel & Trips

Greetings! Eric Bakker, naturopath from New Zealand. I’m the author of Candida Crusher and the formulator of the CanXida range of products. I’ve got a question here from my Facebook page from a guy called Martin. Martin is in the UK. It’s England. Martin is saying, “Eric, how do I manage my Candida during travel? Basically, how do I manage my Candida diet when I’m traveling, and how do I do the diet, because I’m always on the move?”

Before you continue reading, take a moment to discover actionable insights about your Candida yeast overgrowth. Our Candida Yeast Quiz is designed to provide personalized recommendations based on your specific symptoms. Don't miss this opportunity to gain valuable knowledge and take control of your health. Click here to take the quiz now!

Okay, Martin, that’s a good question. If you’re always on the move like me (well, I used always be on the move and do a lot of traveling with my company years ago), it’s exciting initially when you do it, but then you soon get sick and tired of all this travel and you realize that you’ve got to basically be a healthy person interested in health and maintain healthy habits when you travel. Professional travelers like yourself usually work out pretty quick the right kind of foods to eat when you travel.

You didn’t mention to me which countries you’re going to, so if you’re going to some country with poor hygiene standards and poor food standards-I had a consultation with a guy in South Korea yesterday, and he spent some time in China. When he came back, he had really bad tummy problems. We’re doing a stool test now because I’m quite sure he’s full of parasites. So, if you’re going to go to a country like India or China or Vietnam or Laos or one of those countries…Indonesia, you need to take extra care with personal hygiene and how you eat.

For example, if you’re going to eat from street vendors. When you go to the bathroom, things like that, you need to really be on your toes. It’s very easy to get sick because remember: travel involves stress. Even though you think it’s exciting, everybody who travels is under a good degree of stress. The body’s under stress because it’s under time stress. It’s under dehydration stress. You’re going to go through customs’ checks and airplanes and airports. All this involves travel, looking at time zones and checking plane tickets, trying to get onboard. It’s all a little bit of anxiety and stress involved. Your stress hormones are going to be elevated, unless you’re one of these super chill, cucumber kind of people all the time, which I don’t think you are. Most people have stress when they travel. So your biggest thing in my opinion to tackle when you’re traveling when it comes to the diet or Candida in general is stress.

I have traveled with Doctor Wilson, the adrenal fatigue expert from Arizona, and I always noticed how Doctor Wilson was so calm and relaxed when we traveled. He’d say, “Sit down. Take the weight off your feet. Put your bag down. Relax.” He was always drinking water, relaxing, chilling out. That’s something I have learned to do over time is not to get stressed out. Allow yourself plenty of time when you travel. Planes arrive late. They arrive early. All these kinds of things can happen. Things get delayed. Carry water with you. Make sure you drink lots and lots of good water. Two key things pop out is: Hand washing and water drinking. Those are two things I’m really big on.

Getting off planes, wash my hands. On the plane, wash my hands. You’re touching surfaces everywhere. Not drinking alcohol when you travel, drinking water. Really good quality water all the time. Because you get very, very dehydrated. Watch out for snack foods. It’s easy to buy chocolate bars or candy bars or… it’s easy to drink soda drinks or have ice creams or all these crappy foods that are on show when you go into airports or street vendors or things. These things all compromise your immunity. It may taste good, but they’re not good for you. Drink water, cut the crap out of the diet, quickly find places. We’re lucky today with mobile phones. We can do a quick Google search for a really good restaurant or a good place to eat, and you can eat very high quality food in most places you travel to regardless of where you go. That’s one advantage of having Google now is being able to locate places, for example, like really good places to eat.

When I grew up, there was nothing like that at all. You had to look at Lonely Planet guides and stuff like that. But now, you just push a few buttons on a phone, poof. It’s got your location; it shows you exactly where to eat. For example, I love really good-I love Japanese food, especially high quality fresh Japanese food. So when I travel around New Zealand and Australia a lot, I grab my iPhone and I type in “Best Japanese restaurants in Melbourne” for example. Then three or four would come up and I’d check some reviews and I went to a really good one for example in Melbourne and it was fantastic food. It’s was like really fresh sashimi and beautiful seaweed. The Google takes you straight to that place. Catch an Uber, get straight to the restaurant.

These are things we can do with technology. All the advantages. So, get lots of good sleep when you’re traveling. You get very tired when you travel. You must get plenty of sleep. It’s easy to go to a new city and get excited and want to walk all around the place or get in a taxi cab and go all around and it just adds to exhaustion. As soon as you’ve done your trip, you’re there and relaxed. You chill out for a while, and if you’re tired, go and sleep for a few hours. You’re going to just pick up your immune system. It’s going to stop you sliding into deeper stress. which is going to compromise your immune system even more.

Good food, lots of water, lots of relaxation. Plan your travels well. Have your paperwork done beforehand. Take the edge off stress by organizing yourself properly before you go. That’s a smart move. That’s how you’re going to manage your Candida really well. Some patients I speak to are so anal, they actually work out all the restaurants or all the places to shop or buy good food before they even go. They write it down on paper. They’ve got everything planned out. Planning is a smart thing because when you get there, you don’t have to worry about everything because you know exactly what you’re going to do. That’s how you’re going to manage your Candida is a bit of planning.

Stick with natural foods when you travel. Try not to eat a lot of processed foods. Spend the money on even better quality restaurants rather than the budget sort of places. I was very disappointed when I go to Los Angeles, for example. I find it hard to find good food in Los Angeles. Even when I order a healthy breakfast, they bring out this crap. Crappy food. I wouldn’t even feed my dog some of the stuff that I’ve been served up in so-called “health places.” But no matter where you go, the choice is yours. You can still manage to get good food.

Just to recap on a few things again. Organize your time properly. Work out where you want to go. Get your paperwork in order. Leave lots and lots of time for travel because always unforeseen things happen. Another good tip I learned from experienced travelers was inside your suitcase or rucksack or bag is having a list that’s been laminated with exactly all the things that you need, so that when you pack, everything’s there. You look at that list, “Everything’s there.” or “Oh, I forgot this or Oh, I forgot that.” Everything goes in the bag. You can find some of these lists on the internet if you look from very experienced travelers. You can take technology with you, but scope all that out properly. I mentioned that. You’re organizing your time. Eating good food, no matter where you go. Drinking plenty of water and getting lots of sleep. Basic stuff.

I hope that answers your question, Martin. So thanks for tuning in. Click on my link if you haven’t got my Candida report and subscribe. Thanks very much.

Before you leave the page make sure to watch My TOP 5 Candida Fighting Foods. I share my 5 favorite foods that beat candida overgrowth. The video is on my youtube channel and you can click here to watch it. Let me know if you have any other questions.