The Body Ecology Diet is a gut-healing diet that I highly recommend. Its basic premise, building upon the foundation of what Dr. William Crook built in his “Yeast Connection” books, is that many chronic issues are due to a buildup of yeast (Candida) and other pathogens in the gut.
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Because doctors don’t offer systemic Candida infections as a diagnosis, it is often overlooked as a causative factor in autoimmune, neurological and hormonal diseases, disorders and conditions, even cancer, when, in my mind, it should be one of the first suspects.
Most people don’t understand how the use of steroids, antibiotics, birth-control pills and even ibuprofen can negatively affect the gut’s ecosystem. The Standard American Diet (SAD) with its grain, sugars and starches also contributes heavily to a disrupted gut ecology.
It boils down to this: 70% of your immune system is located in your gut. If its inner ecosystem is overrun by bad guys, like Candida, it can leave you vulnerable to more virulent infections, diseases and disorders.
Not only that, but Candida can affect your ability to produce hormones, which is why people with candidiasis often have adrenal, thyroid and reproductive-hormone problems.
People with candidiasis are frequently fatigued, get sick a lot, have “female problems”, food allergies, chemical sensitivities, constant headaches and other symptoms that are often dismissed by the medical establishment.
To me, the Body Ecology Diet is the most comprehensive approach to healing the gut, and therefore the body, because Donna addresses these hormonal balances; as far as I know, hers is the only gut-healing diet that does. She emphasizes the use of sea vegetables to heal the thyroid and adrenals, which is brilliant, in my mind.
She also emphasizes the consumption of probiotic foods that contain oodles of probiotic bacteria. Foods such as homemade kefir, sauerkraut, kim chi and other fermented foods.
If you think about it, before the invention of refrigeration, all foods that our great-grandparents ate were fresh, preserved with salt (real salt, not the processed white stuff we find today) or preserved with fermentation. These are truly health-promoting foods! That’s why the subtitle of this book is “Changing the Way the World Eats with Probiotic Nutrition”.
I won’t say it’s an easy diet to follow, although it is far easier than the basic anti-Candida diet, mostly because of the various principles upon which the diet is based:
- Expansion and contraction
- Acid and alkaline
- Uniqueness
- Cleansing
- Food combining
- 80/20
- Step by step
Because of the food-combining principle, you can have gluten-free grains on the diet (just not with protein), which is a nice highlight for people out there who feel better eating grains or those who need more carbohydrate-rich diets like children and athletes. To this end, Donna also includes Peter D’Adamo’s Blood Type theory in the book.
However, food combining makes it a bit more challenging about when to eat things like olives, avocados, nuts, etc. If you’re eating out, it’s best to think Paleo-type foods (minus the nuts and fruit).
All in all, it’s a very well-thought-out and comprehensive diet that offers health-promoting principles for everyone.
