How to avoid the flu season: Nutritionist reveals the foods to eat to help you boost your immune system – including Japanese mushrooms and blueberries
- A nutritionist has revealed the foods to eat or avoid so you don’t get sick
- Sarah Di Lorenzo shared the top ingredients to help build up your immunity
- She recommends that people consume half a punnet of blueberries a day
As the days get colder, you may find that tweaking your diet can help you build immunity ahead of the dreaded sniffle season.
Australian nutritionist Sarah Di Lorenzo has listed the foods to eat to help you boost your immune system so you can fight off colds and flu this season.
Speaking to Sunrise, she also revealed the foods and drinks to avoid because of the negative impact they could have on your health.
With the flu season right around the corner a nutritionist has revealed the foods to avoid and the meals to consume to avoid getting sick (stock image)
Consuming vitamin C is one of the best ways to increase your immunity. The top three sources to add to your diet this season are strawberries, capsicum and kiwifruits.
‘We know from studies that those who eat blueberries have a lower incidence of respiratory tract infections than those who don’t,’ she said.
The clinical nutritionist recommended we consume half a punnet of blueberries a day to stay on top of our health.
For gut health, it is also important to consume yoghurt as it contains lots of probiotics.
‘Chicken soup is great for when you’re sick but it’s also good for building up your immunity,’ she said.
For chicken soup a lot of the nutrients is in the bone so they recommend boiling that, gelatin for gut healing properties.
‘And you can’t go past Japanese mushroom as we know that it enhances the activity of our white blood cells,’ she said.
‘Things like soft drink has phosphoric acid this binds really important minerals in our gut, like zinc, which is extremely important for immunity, and we actually excrete it,’ she said
Sarah explained that the MSG in noodles and alcohol interfere and deplete the production of the important immune cells we have located in our gut
Meanwhile, Sarah said there are certain foods that compromise our immunity so it’s best to avoid them.
‘Sugar actually competes for vitamin C in our bodies so that’s going to deplete us of vitamin C,’ she said.
‘Gluten as well as fried foods are going to inflame our gut and 70 per cent of our immune system is located in our gut so we really want to be taking care of our gut health.
‘Things like soft drink has phosphoric acid this binds really important minerals in our gut, like zinc, which is extremely important for immunity, and we actually excrete it.’
She explained that the MSG in noodles and alcohol ‘interfere and deplete the production of the important immune cells we have located in our gut’.
‘This is all about building up our immune system so we don’t become one of those statistics and so you don’t get sick,’ she said.