The cold season is here but that doesn’t mean you have to get sick. Food is your best medicine when it comes to fighting off colds and flu. The most important thing you can do to boost your immunity is to clean up your diet and significantly reduce the amount of sugar or empty calories such as alcohol and damaged fats. Eating or drinking more sugar or refined carbohydrates than the body requires can result in the following scenarios.

Excess sugar puts your pancreas and adrenal glands on a fighting seesaw, which increases your body’s production of adrenaline (stress hormone).

Excess sugar inhibits the immune system increasing flu, colds and infections.

Excess sugar supports the development of food allergies, asthma, behavioural disorders, joint pain and deterioration and muscle pain It can also lead to auto-immune diseases which attack and destroy our own tissues

Sugar feeds Candida (yeasts) and interferes with transportation of Vitamin C.

Sugar or refined carbohydrates lack vitamins and minerals.

Increase immune boosting foods such as lean proteins, healthy fats and fresh vegetables. Protein keeps the body firm and tight, it repairs and renews cells, helps form anti-bodies and prevents sickness and disease.The omega 3 fatty acids in fatty fish (such as salmon, tuna, and sardines) act as immune boosters too. Increase your intake of vitamins and minerals. A vitamins role is to serve as a helper, making possible the processes by which other nutrients are digested, absorbed and metabolised. There are 13 different vitamins each with a different role to play. Minerals play a major role in our bodies structure. They strengthen the bones, maintain fluid balance, help us resist infection and increase our vitality. Water is by far the most important nutrient. Thirst is not an accurate indication to know that water is required. Water carries nutrients to cells, it aids digestion and metabolism, decreases bloating and fluid retention, promotes good skin tone, and curbs the appetite.