My first line of defense: Acerola powder and cod liver oil
It seems a funny thing to talk about. Winter is over and summer is on the way. Today is sunny and gorgeous and expected to hit 90 degrees! Well, I want to talk about immune system support anyhow. You may have heard about the Swine Flu that is going around. Now, it seems to be mild in the US, but it is a good idea to take proper precautions.
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to take supplements. We would get all the nutrition our body needs to remain healthy just by eating a healthy diet. Well, we don’t live in a perfect world. Many of us haven’t been eating healthy our whole life, so we are already at a disadvantage. Many if us still don’t eat perfectly, even if we would like to. There are pollutants in the air around us that make our body work harder. There are lots of reasons why diet just doesn’t cut it.
That being said, I still prefer to get my vitamins and minerals from food sources. Here is what I take/eat to support my immune system:
- Cod Liver Oil – Contains Vitamins A and D. Estimated about half of the US adult population is not efficient at converting beta carotene to vitamin A. Vitamin D has a similar problem, never mind the fact that for most of the northern US, we are just barely in the part of the year when we can make vitamin D from the sun. That is, if we spend enough time in the sun without clothes or sunblock.
- Acerola powder – This comes from a South American berry that has extraordinary amounts of vitamin C in it. If I’m going to take vitamin C, I’d rather it be in this form, from a whole food, rather than a sugary powder that is as far from a whole food as possible.
- Dessicated Liver – Vitamin B12
- Whole Milk – preferably raw or pasteurized at a low temperature. Do not get the kind in the shelf stable boxes, as that has been treated at an extremely high temperature which completely destroys much of the good things in milk. It is essentially cooked milk. It tastes funny too. Anyhow, milk contains vitamin A, D, and E, all needed for your immune system to function.
- Eggs – preferably pastured, organic eggs (hens fed low or no soy, organic feed, allowed to forage for bugs, grass, and weeds). Eggs contain vitamins A and D. Be sure to eat the yolk – the most nutritious part!
- Vitamin E – found in whole grains, nuts, and oils. If you eat whole grains, be sure to soak them first to rid them of the phytates which block mineral absorption.
- Coconut Oil – Coconut oil has many wonderful properties. One of them is the kind of fat that makes up coconut oil disrupts the lipid coating of viruses and bad bacteria. The viruses and bad bacteria are then unable to infect you.
- Zinc – the best dietary source of zinc is oysters. Then meat, crab, fish, etc. White meat such as chicken and pork has plenty of zinc in it – it isn’t just red meat.
- Probiotics – this is a pretty big category: Yogurt, kefir, kombucha, kimchi, sourkraut, beet kvass, etc. Our body needs beneficial yeasts and bacteria to keep our body running smoothly. When we have a healthy growth of beneficial organisms, it becomes harder for a hostile one to come in and reproduce enough to make us sick. The good ones crowd it out!
Finally, not enough can be said about getting the proper amount of sleep and keeping good hygiene. Most adults need between 7-9 hours of sleep in a night. Make sure you get enough. The body needs a chance to rest and repair itself. As for handwashing, simple soap and water is plenty good. No need for antibacterial soaps (which won’t prevent the swine flu as it is a VIRUS anyhow). Just be sure to wash your hands for a full 20 seconds and get inbetween the fingers and on the top of the hand as well as the palm.
Stay well!