We all know the basics of avoiding getting sick: hydrate, keep stress at bay and wash your hands often. But our diet can also greatly impact whether or not we get sick. To find out how to avoid coming down with a cold or the flu this winter, we asked health and wellness expert Ellie Scully to highlight four ways we can improve our diet today.
Sprout Your Diet
Sprouts can contain up to 100 times more enzymes than raw fruits and vegetables, allowing your body to extract more vitamins, minerals, amino acids and essential fats from the foods you eat. During sprouting, minerals such as calcium and magnesium bind to protein, making them more bioavailable. Sprouts are very easy to eat by incorporating into a salad, sandwich or smoothie.
Rush to Reduce Sugar
Sugar has limited nutritional benefits and requires the body to use up its own resources of nutrients, depleting the immune system. With enough working against us in the wintertime, it is better not to give your body more toxic elements to overcome.
Get Your Garlic
Garlic is antibacterial, which helps to fight both bacterial and viral infections. It’s a delicious and easy ingredient to add when cooking dinner.
Find Fermented Foods
Eating fermented foods or similarly, taking probiotic pills, is important in order to benefit the bacteria that occur naturally in our digestive tract, keeping pathogens at bay and aiding our digestion. By incorporating fermented foods into your lifestyle, you can improve digestion, your skin, decrease sugar cravings and help with detoxification and elimination. A large percentage of us have imbalanced gut flora thanks to processed foods, sugar and a whole variety of toxins and stressors, which cause disease. Good sources of fermented foods include sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, kombucha and Japanese miso.
