My question is: why not? I have not found an explanation for these admonishments. What does caffeine do to promote the flourishment of yeast? What negative effect can artifical sweeteners have?

If they don't directly promote the development of yeast in the body, then I don't think people should be told to avoid them .... both caffeine and sweeteners can ease the discomfort associated with adjusting to a diet that is geared toward eliminating yeast.

With that said, we all have to live, so choose you piosons carefully and well informed.

I LOVE COFFE but when I started Lyme treatment I quited.

In a couple of weeks I realized that coffee helped me a lot with regular bowel movements so after suffering from constipation, etc, etc, (I DON'T WANT TO BE TOOOO GRAPHIC HERE) I decided that in my case the possible problems caused by caffeine were nothing compared to the "benefit" I daily got from coffee. I don't drink 6 cups as I used to but I settle for 1-2 on the AM and I do the real thing -caffeinated-.

I have never totally buy the fact of decaffeinated coffee, for me it sounds like fat free oil; some kind of quimical compound that in the end will be worse than the real thing; however this is just my humble opinion. Following this reasoning I don't do artificial sweeteners; stevia is a natural sweetener and is OK for the yeast free diet, it does have a slight licorice aftertase but not bad at all.

Take care, it's so hard to follow this d.... diet, hang in there

Lymster