"Candida diet" after a saliva test?

Brent A. Bauer, M.D.:

"There are no clinical trials that document the efficacy of a candida cleanse diet for treating any recognized medical condition."

The saliva water test for candida has no scientific foundation. 

Stay sceptical even if it is recommended by a doctor (Oz) on TV :)

The Rarámuri or Tarahumara are a Native American people of northwestern Mexico who are renowned for their long-distance running ability. Rarámuri, means "runners on foot" or "those who run fast". Staple crops are corn and beans.

Frugan (fruitarian) runners Tarahumara were described by Ruth Heidrich, Ph.D., a runner for 36 years and vegan for 21 years, who won over 800 age-group first place trophies in runs, triathlons, biathlons, and track and field, and completed the Ironman Triathlon 6 times, run 67 marathons, and holds a number of fitness records, following a diet similar to the Tarahumara:

"...Their only food is tesguino, milled corn mixed with water to a drinkable consistency. This is the mainstay (75%) of Tarahumara diet, with the remaining food being beans and squash. They also take the milled corn as their sole food when traveling, since it is lightweight, doesn't spoil, and is easily prepared by mixing it with water in a half gourd they carry with them. This gives them great stamina and, more importantly, none of them appeared to be protein or calcium deficient with this plant-based diet."

The Tarahumara runners are legendary for their 24-, 36-, even 72-hour long runs. In the Leadville 100-miler in 1991, the Tarahumara took first, second, and fourth places. 

For many fruits, organic farming was nearly as productive as conventional farming (an average difference of just 3%). Cereals and veggies are where organic farming got trashed, with yields averaging 26 and 33% lower than conventional agriculture.

So the data suggests that switching to organic farming for specific crops like various fruits might be a smart move; the slight loss in productivity would be a small price to pay for the environmental benefit. Yet for other crops like corn, wheat and soybeans, organic farming would cut yields substantially. You could argue we grow more corn than we need, of course, because a lot of our corn goes to ethanol (thanks, Congress) and cattle (which is a crazy-inefficient use of corn, BTW — the ratio of corn consumed to beef produced is terrible). But the fact remains that organic farming is not the universal solution its advocates claim it to be. It looks like a good solution for a variety of specific crops, but we probably can’t do all our farming organically, because for many other crops it just doesn’t have anywhere near equivalent productivity.

Canadian champion figure skater Meagan Duhamel, an olympian medalist:

Well, I eat an entirely plant-based diet. 

I believe in a whole-foods diet filled with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, ancient grains, proteins and healthy fatty acids. Green vegetables, chia seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds, ancient grains, avocado, quinoa, tempeh, beans and fruits are a main source of fuel.

According to Professor Bruce Ames, a biochemist at UC-Berkeley, our foods contain 10,000 times more natural pesticides than synthetic ones - plants develop their own defenses against fungi and predators. 

Although the minuscule amounts of synthetic pesticides in our foods pose negligible health risks, some activists actually advise consumers not to eat fruits and vegetables at all if they can’t afford organic varieties — in spite of 100 years of evidence that those who eat the most conventionally grown fruits and vegetables have half the cancer rates for practically every type of cancer and live longer than those who eat less.

90% Of the cases “exposed” in EWG’s 2010 list involved levels of pesticides 1,000 times lower than the chronic reference dose - the level of daily exposure likely to be without an appreciable risk of deleterious effects during a lifetime of chronic exposure. 

Dr. Carl Winter and Josh Katz, UC-Davis:

The potential consumer risks from exposure to the most frequently detected pesticides on the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list of foods are negligible and cast doubts as to how consumers avoiding conventional forms of such produce items are improving their health status.

Steve Savage, an agricultural scientist:

Eat more fruit and vegetables! And don’t worry about whether it is organic or not. The fact is, we know less about what is on organic produce than on conventional.

William T. Jarvis, former professor of public health, founder of the National Council against Health Fraud (www.ncahf.org):

“Enzymes are complex protein molecules produced by living organisms exclusively for their own use in promoting chemical reactions. Orally ingested enzymes are digested in the stomach and have no enzymatic activity in the eater.” 

Andrea Giancoli, R.D., a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association:

“Enzymes are proteins and proteins denature with heat, but those enzymes are denatured - and thus inactivated - when they reach our stomachs. Our stomach acids are designed to break down proteins very efficiently.”

People wrote thousands of love emails to trees. 

The city of Melbourne assigned trees email addresses so citizens could report problems. Instead, people wrote thousands of love letters to their favorite trees.

To: Golden Elm, Tree ID 1037148, 21 May 2015: 

I'm so sorry you're going to die soon. It makes me sad when trucks damage your low hanging branches. 

To: Algerian Oak, Tree ID 1032705, 2 February 2015: 

Thank you for giving us oxygen. Thank you for being so pretty.

To: Green Leaf Elm, Tree ID 1022165, 29 May 2015: 

I don't think that there is much more to talk about as we don't have a lot in common, you being a tree and such. But I'm glad we're in this together.

To: Willow Leaf Peppermint, Tree ID 1357982, 29 January 2015: 

Do trees have genders? I hope you've had some nice sun today.

The interplay between the fruit-eating primates and the tropical fruit trees is an example of coevolution, where species adapt to each others’ needs over millions of years. The plants have an interest in their fruit being eaten when the seeds are ready to be dispersed, and for the animals the value of a fruit is greater when it contains more sugar and nutrients. An unripe banana for instance contains mostly starch.

Prof. Matthias Laska: 

”This adaptation goes back some fifty thousand years, when the first primates appeared. Initially they ate mostly insects, before eventually trying fruit and vegetables. Some fruit didn’t want to be eaten, so they developed toxic substances. Others acquired better and better odours that signaled energy-rich sugar and nutrients.” 

Vegan Skeptic Theo Summer on using tools of skepticism for GMO publications and studies:

Make sure you can identify the title of the study in question and the journal in which it was published. Don't ever take a blog post or a news story reporting on the results as an accurate representation.

If you can't read the entire study for yourself, use the reputation and the peer review process of the journal in which the study was published to judge how thoroughly the research may have been vetted prior to publication.

Look for follow-ups or critiques to the study that may have been published. See if the research has been reproduced anywhere else or if any similar studies have obtained similar results.

Make sure the study used appropriate controls and statistical methods. Ask yourself: “If an identical study had been run with all samples/groups/etc following the control procedure, would a statistically significant result be obtained the expected percentage of the time?”