How to maintain a healthy and balanced Immune System?
In testing times like these, we’ve all come to realise that health is ultimately wealth. Being healthy is our greatest competitive advantage. As the pandemic continues in many parts of the world, everyone is making an effort to stay healthy. You must have read several blogs and articles online by now (if you’re health nerds like us) but we cannot emphasise enough how important they are, which is why we are bringing you the ultimate way you can balance your immune system.
Yes, you read that right, we are not boosting or strengthening our immune system but we are going to keep it balanced. The concept that has been flying around since COVID-19 has been around, about boosting your immune system is inaccurate. An immunologist says, too much of an immune response is just as bad a too little of it.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle i.e. exercising, sleeping enough and eating well are extremely important in determining your immune response. Smoking, drinking and obesity are also known to interfere with your immune response.
Out of all these factors, we’ll focus on eating well.
A plant-based diet has also been shown to reduce inflammatory biomarkers. Inflammation is what happens when your body goes under stress to fight an infection, wound or disease.
Essential Vitamins and Minerals
We need a whole dose of essential vitamins and minerals every single day to maintain a healthy immune system. We think it’s important to focus on each nutrient and be mindful to include them in our diet. It comes as a surprise to a lot of people when they find out that most of their vitamins and minerals are found in fruits and vegetables. Sadly, a lot of us don’t eat enough.
Vitamin A, C, D and E
We’ve all heard about how much Vitamin C an orange has, right? All these vitamins are powerful antioxidants and infection-fighters. They fight free radicals and help maintain the body’s natural immune system.
Iron
Iron is a very important mineral, its the one helps transport oxygen to your cells and carries away metabolic waste, carbon dioxide. While it is true that our body can absorb heme iron (animal-based) iron more, we can still get a sufficient amount from plants. It is recommended that vegans aim for 1.8 times as much iron as non vegans.
Legumes such as beans and lentils and soybeans or tofu are an excellent source of iron. Iron intake can quickly reach recommended levels with an assortment of vegetables, oatmeal or other whole grains, pumpkin seeds and dried fruit.
Soaking, fermenting, and sprouting plant foods increases the body’s absorption of iron and other valuable minerals.
Fun Plant Fact: Tannins found in tea, coffee, or red wine; they inhibit the absorption of iron. Enjoy these drinks in between meals rather than with meals.
Selenium
The body needs minuscule amounts of selenium. It is used to build powerful antioxidant enzymes, which protect cells from damage by free radicals, reducing the risk of cancer and heart disease.
The Brazil Nut otherwise known as the selenium superstar, gives us a whopping 100% of daily intake of selenium through just one nut. Also, its important to mention, selenium is super toxic in excess, so don’t eat more than 2 nuts in a day. The daily intake of selenium can also be obtained from 1.5 cups (375 ml) of whole wheat spaghetti.
Zinc
Zinc is important for immune response and is necessary for wound healing. It is also a catalyst for 300 enzyme system and is critical for nerve development. The ability to taste is highly dependent on zinc (remember losing your ability to taste because of Covid?).
Zinc is available in seeds, nuts, legumes and tofu, and whole grains, including oatmeal and brown rice.
Soaking, fermenting, and sprouting plant foods increases the body’s absorption of zinc and other valuable minerals.
Focusing on foods
Choosing whole, unprocessed foods does wonders for overall health. Being conscious about focusing on natural, organic plant foods provides longer-term benefits. There are certain foods that when introduced, the body thanks you:
Prebiotic and Probiotics
These are the microorganisms that are truly loved by our gut bacterias. It is our duty to keep our gut bacterias healthy and thriving.
Probiotics are found in fermented and cultured foods such as vegan yogurts, sauerkraut, kimchi, tempeh, and miso.
Prebiotics are found in raw foods such as chicory, Jerusalem artichokes, garlic, onion, leeks, green bananas, asparagus and sweet potatoes.
Turmeric
Also known as the magic spice! (no, we are not kidding). Turmeric increases the antioxidant capacity of the body. Widely used as a medicinal remedy in Asian households; for a sore throat, drink some hot water with 1/4th tsp of turmeric, if you have a wound, apply a turmeric paste on the wound, if you have an acne spot, apply some aloe vera mixed with turmeric.
Adding just 1/4th tsp of turmeric to your meals can increase your meals’ antioxidative properties. Add a pinch of back pepper to your dish containing turmeric, and boost its bioavailability. It is available everywhere around the world.
Steer clear of juices, focus on the real fruit
It’s always good to get your daily dose of Vitamin C from a fruit. Most people often reach out to juices to meet their vitamin c intakes, but not only is the vitamin content very low, the sugar content is high in such juices.
It’s better to get vitamins and minerals directly from the fruit, this way you get to enjoy the natural sweetness, get the dietary fibre and reap the benefits of the vitamins and minerals available.
Overall, focusing on whole plant-based foods, and consuming less processed, refined junk vegan food, helps in maintaining a healthy balance of your immune system.
Other factors that matter
Like we mentioned earlier, eating well is not the only factor that matters.
Sleep
Sleep is extremely underrated. A good, qualitative six to eight hours of sleep does wonders, and can heal your body off of a wound or infection faster than you think. Chamomile tea can help you calm down and have a nice sleep.
Exercise
Everyone knows how important exercise is to maintain overall health and increase longevity. As little as some stretches, even just 10 mins of a workout can boost your energy and mood.
Planning Meals Ahead
Meal planning is a super effective method to make sure all nutrients are accommodated for in your meal plan. Its recommended to make a weekly plan as per your dietary needs. This not only helps you get a proper, healthy meal every day but also saves you time and money!
PlantEats is a plant-based meal planner that allows you to create your meal plan per week, you can either create your own recipes or import them from the web. Just an hour of meal planning on one day can save you a lot of time, money and the stress during the weekdays!
Positive Mindset
We’ve all heard of the saying, “a healthy body starts in a healthy mind”. Being grateful about all that you have, and believing that everything will be OK someday takes you a long way. Also, happiness and positivity is contagious, you never know whose day you might be making by being positive yourself.
That’s it folks!
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