Eating your way to a healthy body
If you’re a doctor, nutritionist or simply someone who is very conscious of their health, it comes as no surprise that the key to reducing and even preventing illnesses has to do a lot with what you eat.
According to specialists and experts in the field, what a person eats can help his or her immune system by being the energy or fuel to fight off sicknesses, infections, illnesses and diseases caused by bad bacteria and or viruses.
It’s ironic how people take lots of medicine when they are sick when the fact of the matter is, a lot of foods have the same building blocks or functional properties as that of medicine. What’s more, food that is natural like fruits and probiotic food stuffs, are not synthetically made, often cheaper than medicine and do more than one function as compared to medicine.
Going back on topic, diet is the key to staying healthy and even fighting off sicknesses. Diet is what provides the building blocks for the immune system to function.
For example, food like oranges, carrots, orange cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, and other “orange” colored food give the immune system much needed beta carotene and carotenoids.
Another example is our favorite friendly bacteria. According to Patti Milligan, a registered dietician, “immunity starts in the gut, and there’s always a war between the good, friendly bacteria and the bad bacteria. So eating yogurt, kefir and fermented food like sauerkraut and tofu help cultivate the army of friendly bacteria.”
Mushroom and nuts on the other hand have zinc and selenium that also build the immune system. While garlic is another often overlooked food that has been proven time and time again to be able to combat viruses and stimulate immune cells into action.
Another immune system booster is green tea. There’s a reason why the Chinese have been drinking this stuff for centuries and it’s because green tea is wicked high in antioxidants. It has flavonoids and polyphenols that keep the immune system nourished and functioning properly.
Other food stuffs that are good for the immune system and body in general are naturally Vitamin C, Zinc lozenges, chicken soup made with garlic and ginger, vitamin D and so forth.
In lasting, if you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, you must know that I am a true advocate of eating healthy food to become healthy. With this post, I simply would like to reiterate that and want to urge you to switch to a healthy food lifestyle instead of a junk food + medicine lifestyle.
With this I leave you with a word of advice from Shannon Parnett, who is a registered dietitian and clinical nutrition senior manager at Banner Boswell Medical Center at Sun City.
“In order to maintain a healthy immune system you must maintain a healthy lifestyle,” Parnett said. “Choose more nutrient rich foods, maintain a healthy weight, be physically active, minimize stress, use good hand hygiene and get plenty of rest.”
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Interesting and informative article. I just read that watermelon and cabbage were good sources of glutathione for boosting the immune system.
@Dennis – That’s interesting indeed but not at all surprising! Fruits, vegetables and a lot of other food stuffs are incredibly nourishing and healing too. it’s probably only because there isn’t that much of a profit to be made from things like “fruits”, that people aren’t educated about it… tsk tsk the perils of capitalism. lol
I have just started my kefir and it has been growing good; however the last batch that I made the whey came to the top of the jar instead of the bottom, am I doing something wrong? It still smell good and has no mold. Thank you for your help.