The most effective way to prevent colds and flu is to keep your immune system healthy. Eating certain immune-boosting and nutrient rich foods is your first and best line of defense. Second is keeping your digestive system happy. A happy digestive system is better able to break down and access nutrients from the foods you eat, eliminate toxins, and process “bad” bugs such as bacteria and viruses. Here are seven foods that are key to maintaining healthy immune and digestive systems:
- Lemon Help your body keep its acid/alkaline chemistry in balance. Start each day by squeezing a half a fresh lemon into a glass of room-temperature water. Lemon water helps break up congestion, stimulates digestion, scrubs your liver and creates an alkaline or healing PH chemistry in your body. Try to wait a half hour before eating or drinking anything else.
- Garlic Garlic has allicin as an active ingredient giving it antiviral and antibacterial properties. It also cleans your liver (which cleans your blood!).
- Cayenne Spicy and warming, Cayenne pepper is high in vitamin C, making it a natural choice for a cold. Cayenne also increases the circulation.
- Ginger The oils in ginger warm the body, helping it to sweat, break a fever and eliminate toxins. Ginger also stimulates mucus release. It is a great digestive aid, helps quell nausea and helps in decongesting lungs. Make a ginger tea and add a little honey.
- Eat your Greens Eat dark leafy green vegetables like kale, swiss chard, and spinach. They all provide vitamins B12, folic acid, potassium, vitamins A C and K which all support a healthy immune system.
- Honey Honey (raw and local when possible) acts as a natural antibiotic with antiseptic properties. Honey contains such vitamins as B-Complexes, C, D, E, as well as minerals, enzymes and propolis. Propolis in boosts the immune system, disables viruses and fights infections. Take a tablespoon a few times a day or better yet add it to your ginger tea.
- “Good” Bacteria: Increase it! Good bacteria such as acidophilis and bifidus which can be found in yogurt or kefir or any fermented foods like miso or kim chi.
Remember these 4 Things
1. Drink plenty of water
You should be drinking, in daily ounces, half your body weight in pounds. (i.e. your weight divided by two equals the number of ounces you should consume per day))
2. Try to eliminate all refined white sugar
This could be the single most effective thing you could do for your immune system. Removal will result in increased energy, fewer sugar cravings and better weight distribution. Avoid all artificial sweeteners and replace sugar with honey or pure maple syrup. For baking try brown rice syrup.
3. Exercise
Exercising releases endorphins, which have a noticeable effect on your health and happiness. Get outside in the cold- where other people’s germs can’t find you!- take a long walk, go sledding or have a snowball fight.
4. Nurture yourself
Take time out for yourself, have a bath, get a massage, enjoy a yoga class. Light candles, put on some music and create a space of harmony and joy. After all, a happy person is far less likely to get sick.
