Our immune systems are influenced by environment and behavior, including our diets. While there’s no strong evidence that a particular food or supplement can enhance immunity, one of the best things we can do to give it a boost is eating an overall healthy diet.
Dietitian Molly Hembree recommends what to eat to keep our bodies in top shape for fighting disease and infection:
- Load up on a range of colorful fruits - Fruit is good for you, but eating a rainbow of fruits? Even better. Branch out from your go-to bananas and apples and try kiwi and honeydew for greens, blackberries and plums for purples and pineapples for yellow. The range of fruits offer a variety of vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals to help keep you healthy.
- Eat more dark leafy greens and orange and red veggies - These two groups of vegetables are packed with fiber and compounds, including beta-carotene and lycopene, which help keep the immune system nice and strong.
- Include prebiotics and probiotics regularly - Prebiotics help promote more friendly bacteria in the gut and good sources include garlic, onions and asparagus. Probiotics are made of good bacteria that help keep the body healthy and yogurt and fermented foods, like sauerkraut and kombucha, are top sources.
- Stick with sensible portions - This is to help you maintain a healthy body weight, which is essential for controlling the risk of chronic illnesses and may help protect you from infection and disease.
- Limit added sugars - They can be in the form of cane sugar, honey, maple syrups, agave nectar and more and when you read food labels, you’ll see how added sugars are in practically everything. Added sugars provide little to no nutrition, so dietitians recommend limiting them to less than 10% of your total calories.
Check out the full article at Eat This Not That