- How can we boost our immune system through diet? What foods we should be avoiding?
Go natural! Be AWARE of what you are actually putting into your body cause that's exactly what will transform into your physical body. Better quality materials you use, better and stronger your body will become. Avoid processed products. Read ingredients on the products you are buying to minimise consumption of chemicals entering your body.
Avoid pre-packed meals, leftovers, deep fried and low quality food. Cook fresh meals for yourself and your loved ones (or have it from the trusted and healthy source). Freshly cooked food with fresh and natural ingredients contains highest amount of vitamins and minerals. With the time it simply looses it's properties. According to Ayurveda ideally meals should be freshly cooked and consumed up to 3h after preparation.
Choose easy to digest foods. The reason why we want to have easily digestible foods is that we give our body a chance to direct energy into strengthening our immunity instead of using that energy on digesting a heavy meal. Example of easy to digest food is kitchari - traditional healing and cleansing Ayurvedic meal, made of rice, split mung dahl and spices.
Have more warming up meals like soups, curries, cooked veggie stews. Basically foods which you would be naturally craving in winter time, when it's cold outside and you need some extra warmth coming for example from creamy pumpkin or sweet potatoes soup, ginger-cloves-cinnamon tea or warm spicy curry.
Avoid cooling and heavy foods like cheese, ice cream, fried food.
Boost your digestive fire by adding more immune supporting spices like ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, black pepper, long pepper, cardamom, cumin, fennel, coriander. Drink hot water to stimulate your digestive fire.
Increase intake of natural vitamin C. Examples of the foods rich in vitamin C: guava, broccoli, brussel sprouts, kiwi, amla (Indian gooseberry), bell peppers, lime, lemon, orange, parsley, papaya.
Add more colors to your diet! Make your diet more colorful - veggies and fruits of different colors contain different vitamins. Various nutrients which we find in them, give them their characteristic color - that's why we encourage you to turn your plate into a rainbow!
Probiotics can boost immunity and assist the body in warding off infections. A probiotic source which we would like to share with you is kombucha - fermented tea. Kombucha has become increasingly popular as a potential source of probiotics, which are live organisms that help balance the intestinal flora