The coronavirus pandemic at the start of 2020 reminded us all about the importance of our immune system. People who are healthy are less likely to develop symptoms of COVID-19 as well as other respiratory illnesses such as the common flu.
Naturally Boost Your Immune System
When it comes to boosting our immune system, apart from regular physical activity, food is a vital factor in how healthy we are. As the old saying goes, “you are what you eat” so we should take more care of our dietary habits. Here are several ways to naturally boost your immune system through eating right.
A cup of tea a day
The world population can generally be divided into tea drinkers and coffee drinkers. Although the latter has dietary properties of its own, you’d be amazed by what a cup of hot water does to your immune system.
A cup of tea a day helps soothe any throat ache you might have by helping the mucus regenerate through hydration. The herbs from the tea have an additional beneficial effect on your immune system because they are loaded with antioxidants. The extent of this beneficial effect depends on the exact herbal or fruit tea blend you use.
As far as the ritual of drinking a hot beverage is concerned, tea can serve as a 1-to-1 replacement for coffee. Namely, black tea contains more caffeine than your average cup of espresso so only will you be healthier from drinking tea but more energized as well.
A bit of black pepper
The spice that was central to medieval trade in Europe is still very much important in our diet, although no longer in the limelight. It is rich in piperine that has anti-fever traits and that’s a painkiller. However, many people dislike eating pepper as a while so they grind it and sprinkle it onto food.
If you too find pepper spicy to eat, you can add just a pinch of it to soups and other dishes but don’t discard pepper completely from your diet just because you don’t like its taste.
Fresh (red) fruit and vegetables
We all remember the time out parents used to reply that there is an apple in the bowl when we asked them for sweets. Actually, mum and pup were right because fruit contains natural sugars that are much healthier than artificial ones.
However, there is one rule to remember when it comes to consuming fruit and vegetable alike: they must be fresh. If a banana or a pepper is frozen, it is still edible when unfrozen but loses much of its nutrients that make it the power fruit of the human immune system.
Asked to single out a particular fruit, we should note that red fruit, such as strawberries, tomatoes, blackcurrants, chokeberry, beetroot, etc., are particularly useful when it comes to boosting your immune system.
Pic by shutterstock
All the benefits of honey
Apart from tea, another wonder food for the throat is honey. It comes with numerous medicinal properties such as richness in antioxidants, helping us age slower. In addition, honey helps us fight both bacterial and infections from viruses; more than a useful trait in the age of the coronavirus pandemic.
Additional benefits of honey you need to know about include improved digestion, more favorable cholesterol levels, and anti-cancer traits. Moreover, honey can help relieve the itching sensation for people with hemorrhoids when combines with olive oil and beeswax.
A healthy ginger man
During recuperating from a cold or a flue, it is not uncommon for people and experts alike to advise you to try out ginger. This should not come as a surprise as ginger helps decrease inflammation inside the body. It is no wonder that ginger tea is among the world’s most popular flavors.
In addition, ginger helps decrease nausea and chronic pain because it contains gingerol, a substance similar to capsaicin. Finally, ginger is a sweetener used to make desserts because it actually decreases cholesterol levels, unlike sugar.
Yogurt cultures
There are many types of yogurt out there, from the ones you eat with a spoon to the ones you drink like a milkshake. However, if you want this dairy product to have an effect on your immune system, then look for yogurts that have live and active cultures or in other words, probiotics.
Not only do yogurt cultures improve digestion but they help fight off nasty diseases by boosting the immune system. When selecting the right yogurt, be advised that flavored ones might taste better but are poorer in cultures so better buy Greek yogurt instead.
If you want to sweeten yogurt, you can always make a milkshake-like drink out of it in a blended, using honey and fruit as natural sweeteners.
There are endless food options out there but not all food is considered healthy. If you want to improve your general health and boost your immune system, give the superfoods listed above a try. After a while, you will feel invigorated and your immune system will be more capable of battling viruses that seem to be growing in number worldwide.
