Lyme Disease Diet
Most times, dietary modifications are an essential component to a successful chronic Lyme disease treatment.
Lyme pathogens thrive with foods that metabolize as a polysaccharides and yeasts. Some examples are sugars, yeasts, dairy lactose (sugars), vinegars except apple cider vinegar, alcohol and so on.
With a healthy Lyme disease diet, a successful treatment is better assured. Without dietary modifications and certain food abstentions, most times any treatment will not work.
As many of you may know, Lyme disease may be accompanied with other infections such as an overgrowth of yeast, candida and parasitic nematodes. Lyme disease pathogens may also be accompanied with bacterial and parasitic co-infections that go under the radar of the immune system, as well as molds, fungi and other forms of bacteria.
So, what we need to do with a Lyme disease diet is not feed any of these other pathogens. This prevents them from multiplying quicker than treatment can control or reduce them, as well reduces and prevent further inflammation so treatment can work.
Foods to Avoid with a Lyme Disease Diet
These foods are never to be considered while fighting Lyme disease.
Foods containing certain unwanted polysaccharides or starches excite pathogens, which in turn excites the immune system, which in turn causes symptoms (immune reactions). All of these foods below with give strength to unwanted pathogens and cause immune reactions, thus preventing any treatment from being effective.
All sugars such as refined sugar, sucanat, brown sugar, maple syrup, agave, honey, bananas, mangoes, dried fruit or berries, any herbs with polysaccharides (sweet) such as Astragalus. Absolutely no syrups, jellies, dried fruit or berries, or sweet herbs.
All Dairy, except butter and ghee is okay to eat.
All baked goods
- Grains – I think it is okay to have rice later on once a week, after 4-5 months of impeccable diet and treatment.
Wheat products – all wheat feeds/excites many infections thus causing immune reactions.
Alcohol metabolizes as a sugar. It is like airplane fuel for infections
- Anything with yeast. Nutritional yeast is okay. Brewers yeast is not okay. All other yeasts are not okay.
Soy sauce, tamari and other sauces containing alcohol. Even when it is burned up, part of it is converted to polysaccharides.
Fermented foods such as kombucha, pickles, ect.
Mushrooms
Coffee – Feeds candida and restricts the capillaries. When combatting Lyme disease, we want to open up the capillaries, dilate them, help the blood get to the difficult to reach areas of the body.
- Cocao and chocolate – even sugar free. As it has natural occurring sugars and caffein
Certain nuts – Cashews, pistachios, These nuts contain troublesome polysaccharides
- Lentils, garbanzos, chickpeas
- All beans/legumes
- Popcorn – Very high glycemic index
All vinegars except apple cider vinegar.
Ground beef – Even organic or grass fed. It contains contains a natural occurring sugar (alpha-gal) that infections like.
- Red meat – Beef, pork, venison, buffalo, elk – Contains alpha gal (unwanted polysaccharide)
- Coffee
- All caffeine – We want to dilate the vessels, not construct them. As well, caffeine feeds certain infections, such as candida.
- Yeasts – feed certain infections
- Coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut
- Squashes – except zucchini is fine
- Carrots
- Beets
- Root veggies – contain mucilage which feeds bugs
- Dried fruits
- Sweet potatoes, yams – contain sugars
- Avocados – contain sugars
If you are sensitive to nightshades, honor that. If not, eat them raw or steamed.
Foods to Eat with a Lyme disease diet
Other Protein Sources to Eat with a Lyme Disease Diet
Tofu is good. Just make sure to eat tofu made with sprouted soybeans. Research shows this offsets the estrogen production effect. Sauté it with veggies, herbs such as rosemary, oregano, thyme and salt. Pure, unflavored tofu. Flash fry it with salt, pepper (not pepper with babesia or bartonella), with broccoli and onion; over a bed of chopped romain.
Pumpkin seeds and nuts! Soak them first overnight. This neutralizes some of the histamine content. Refrain from eating them with severe symptoms.
Almond milk, sugar free/unsweetened (read ingredients as always)!
- Chicken, fish and turkey, white meats.
- Almonds (no cashews or peanuts). Soak almonds overnight is best but not essential, then rinse, pluck the skin off, rinse again, then eat and store the rest in the refrigerator.
- Blend at times – sprouted blanched almonds, ½ fresh squeezed lemon, pinch of stevia, dash of salt, filtered water.
Carbs for the Lyme disease diet
- Almond flour tortillas – you can buy them at Whole Foods or make them (2 tablespoons of almond flour/1 tablespoon of psyllium husk/salt/ water. Add baking soda and baking powder and an egg for waffles.
Fats for the Lyme disease diet
Eat a slight amount consistently, but not a lot. The liver metabolizes fats, but also metabolizes toxins. Toxins are many times fat soluble so fat is needed to bring them out to the liver, but too much fats will exhaust the liver and gallbladder.
- Butter, ghee is best
- Olive oil, other oils are fine too. Just not coconut.
Green smoothies!!
Green smoothies will change your gut flora real quick! Get on board with green smoothie and you’ll be on the road to recovery before you know it.
Green Smoothies are great to replace electrolytes, minerals and to help supplement the tissues with glutathione naturally. Glutathione is essential to detoxification and processing die-off.
Green smoothies with no fruit (except Lemon) in the morning and evening can be great, or when you can!
Soak almonds overnight, pour off the water the next morning and peel the skin off.
Add to blender ½ bunch of spinach, ½ cucumber, small handful of almonds and 1 fresh squeezed lemon. Modify how you like! No avocados. They have natural occurring sugars that Lyme bugs like.
Soups are great!
Kidney bean soup with veggies and greens is packed with minerals and proteins and aids very well to the Lyme diet. Lyme weakens the digestion as it pulls energy from the body. By eating a warm power packed soup, the warmth aids in rekindling the digestive fire.
Veggie broth soup with meat or tofu. Eat up to 4 bowls per day. Add salt.
Then boil in any of the following:
Pack in as much as possible: Celery, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, onion, garlic (onion and garlic can exacerbate bartonella and babesia but not feed them) and add spinach, parsley at the end.
Add broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus’, IF YOU LIKE THEM!
Add fresh rosemary, oregano and basil.
No spices
Steamed Veggies
Steamed veggies such as: cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus..
Salads
Salads are great as part of a Lyme disease diet. Add beans, tofu or a white meat. If you have digestive issues with salads, resort to a green smoothie. Green smoothiesare easily digested for those who have problems digesting salads. Green smoothies help create beneficial bacteria in the gut. Green smoothies will quickly change the digestive flora in the gut, get rid of unwanted bacteria and help the detoxification process,
Salad dressing ingredients to choose from for a Lyme disease diet
Apple cider vinegar (only type of vinegar, nothing else!)
Olive oil
Basil
Parsley
Dill
Onion
Celery
Bell pepper
Garlic
Ginger
Salt
Milks
Fresh Almond milk (Almonds have all the essential amino acids needed.)
Soak almonds overnight – This neutralizes anti-enzyme inhibitors and allows them to be more digestible.
Pour off water, rinse and pop off skins (if you choose, otherwise skins are fine.)
Blend with filtered water, salt and a tiny bit of stevia. Again, not a hair too much. If it tastes perfect and not too sweet, that’s good.
Refrigerate
- Other nut or soy milks – make sure to read the ingredients. Seeing the label saying “unsweetened” is not enough. Give these bugs a taste and you will react negatively.
Snacks for the Lyme disease diet
- Soups
- Almond flour tortillas with cooked salmon or other fish and grated cabbage.
- Almond butter and celery
- Fresh veggies
- Pumpkin seeds
Cleansing Reaction elixir – Only drink when feeling sick, spun, toxic or ill.
16oz of warm water with 1 tablespoon of bentonite clay stirred in if you feel sick, spun or uncomfortable at any time.
Water
Replenish body fluids!! Lyme depletes body fluids.
10 cups per day with fresh squeezed lemon is great for many reasons. (Vitamin C helps the immune system, cleans the blood vessels exposes pathogens to biochemical agents of treatment and reduces inflammation).
Lyme consumes body fluids and electrolytes.
Water replaces body fluids and helps flush out dead Lyme toxins.
Lyme does well in acidic environments. Lemon creates a highly alkaline environment in the body and contains electrolytes; therefore eating FRESH lemon is great.
Stevia kills Lyme. In just the right amount stevia makes things taste good. As soon as you taste the bitterness, you have added too much.
A small pinch of salt helps the body use the water. Many times the adrenals and the kidneys get compromised with Lyme. Use once per day around 7:00 pm but not all day. According to Chinese medicine, the right amount of salt at the right time of day, when indicated can be very beneficial to the kidneys.
Times of day to eat for the for the Lyme disease diet
Eat when you are hungry!
- Food prep is key to keeping yourself on track.
- Don’t not eat, even if you aren’t hungry. Sometimes this is okay, but do not make a habit of it.
Polysaccharides to refrain from with Lyme disease diet
Sucrose, fructose, lactose, alpha-galactose, mucilage – less than 1gm per cup per serving
References:
- Moriya Ohkuma, Satoko Noda, Satoshi Hattori, et al. Acetogenesis from H2 plus CO2 and nitrogen fixation b an endosymbiotic spirochete of a termite-gut cellulolytic protist. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2015;112(33):10224-10230. doi:10.1073/pnas.1423979112.
- Akatsu S. The Influence of Carbohydrates on the Cultivation of Spirochetes. The Journal Of Experimental Medicine. 1917;25(3):375-380.
- Phillips ND, La T, Pluske JR, Hampson DJ. A wheat-based diet enhances colonization with the intestinal spirochaete Brachyspira intermedia in experimentally infected laying hens. Avian Pathology. 2004;33(4):451-457. doi:10.1080/0307945042000260620.
- McKenna M. A meaty mystery. Biologist. 2019;66(3):18-21.
- de la Fuente J, Pacheco I, Villar M, Cabezas-Cruz A. The alpha-Gal syndrome: new insights into the tick-host conflict and cooperation. Parasites & Vectors. 2019;12(1):154. doi:10.1186/s13071-019-3413-z.
- McFadzean N. Nutrition and Lyme Disease. Townsend Letter. 2010;(319/320):64-65.
- Nieto-Patlán A, Campillo-Navarro M, Rodríguez-Cortés O, et al. Recognition of Candida albicans by Dectin-1 induces mast cell activation. Immunobiology. 2015;220(9):1093-1100. doi:10.1016/j.imbio.2015.05.005.
© Patrick Lynch L.Ac., M.A.O.M., D.A.O.M. Intern
February 2019
Could you please recommend a green smoothie brand for the Lyme special diet ? I would have to spend hours doing research on this and am too sick to do so.
I wish I knew! All of them I have seen have fruit and something with polysaccharides.
What is your take on the low mercury fishes like sardines, mackeral, anchovies, and kippers? While many come in olive oil (yum), they are still high in purines and many of the symptoms of gout (also poorly tested) resemble many tick illnesses? Also, would you include sunflower, safflower, hemp, flax and sesame oils as all are available in organic form and allow a good rotation?
Hi there,
While purines don’t feed nor directly excite bugs, they do add to the uric acid load in the body. Uric acid load contributes to the inability to detox, body soreness, tightness and inflammation.
Antibiotics and herbs may contribute to increased uric acid boil-up in the the body as well by microbial die-off. So moderation of eating foods with purines may be a good idea.
Uric acid build-up may be ameliorated by taking s-acetyl glutathione, doing infrared saunas and or ionic detox foot-spas. People combatting chronic Lyme disease and MSIDS should be taking s-acetyl glutathione anyway. S-acetyl glutathione is the optimal form and in my opinion should be the only form, hence the immediate and continued results; however, it needs to be dosed correctly. Good question. Thank you for asking.
Can you recommend a good protein powder? Thank you