Immunity-boosting foods

There is no "super food" that can boost your immunity just by eating it. The foods that can really help you build a strong immune defense line are essentially natural ingredients that can balance the four core nutrients of protein, vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber without adding extra burden to the body's metabolism. If you want to rely on food to improve your immunity, you should prioritize eating the right three meals a day, which is far more effective than spending a lot of money on niche supplements.

When I was doing nutrition science popularization in the community two months ago, I met an Aunt Zhang. She was holding a thermos cup filled with Ganoderma lucidum slices in her hand. She said that she spent a thousand dollars every month to buy health ingredients. As a result, she still caught a cold when the season changed and had a sore throat when the temperature dropped. I looked through her food diary and found out that in order to control blood lipids, she was reluctant to eat even one egg a day, could not eat lean meat twice a week, and the porridge she drank was all boiled white rice, without even adding any grains.

To be honest, this is also a common problem among many people. They always think that something that can improve immunity is expensive and rare enough. Instead, they miss out on the most cost-effective "immune tool" on the table. Let’s take eggs for example. They cost less than two yuan each. The high-quality protein and lecithin inside are the basic raw materials for immune cells. If you can’t even supply the raw materials, how can immune cells be generated? I generally recommend that people who get tired easily or get sick during the change of seasons should have at least one whole egg every day, and add about 300ml of pure milk. If you can't drink milk, you can switch to sugar-free yogurt or Shuhua milk. These two are the most cost-effective sources of high-quality protein, bar none.

After talking about protein, let’s talk about vitamin C, which everyone is most familiar with. Nowadays, there is a lot of quarrel on the Internet. Some people say that 100mg a day is enough, and some people say that 1000mg is needed to prevent colds. In fact, there is nothing wrong with both sides. The recommended dosage by mainstream nutritionists is 100 mg per day for healthy adults, which is about the amount of a medium-sized kiwi or half a pound of tomatoes, which is enough to meet daily needs. However, there are also many studies on special groups that show that if you often work outdoors, stay in the gym for a long time, or have to stay up late and work overtime, supplementing 200-300mg a day can indeed reduce the probability of upper respiratory tract infections. If you find it troublesome to calculate the dose, just eat one more orange every day. There is really no need to buy hundreds of VC effervescent tablets. Taking too much will put a burden on the kidneys.

I worked on a project for three weeks last winter. It was almost 12 o'clock when I got home every day. I was afraid of catching a cold, so I ordered steamed pumpkin with stir-fried spinach and some boiled shrimp for lunch every day. During that time, I didn't get pharyngitis as soon as the temperature dropped like in previous years. It is said that the beta carotene contained in these orange and dark green vegetables can be converted into vitamin A in the body, helping to repair the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract and digestive tract. You can think of the mucous membranes as the first wall of the body. If the wall is strong, it will be difficult for viruses and bacteria to get in.

There are also “Internet celebrity immune foods” such as probiotics and garlic that are often mentioned nowadays, so don’t blindly follow the trend. Let’s talk about probiotics. The Chinese Nutrition Society recommends that if you often have constipation or diarrhea, or have just taken antibiotics, you should eat some sugar-free yogurt and natto containing Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus rhamnosus, which can indeed help regulate intestinal flora and indirectly improve immunity. But if you have a balanced diet and normal bowel movements, then buying hundreds of extra probiotic supplements is really useless. Many studies have shown that supplementing healthy people with extra probiotics has minimal improvement in immune levels.

The same goes for garlic. Many people think that eating garlic can fight viruses. It is true that allicin has antibacterial effects in in vitro experiments, but you have to eat three or four cloves of raw garlic at a time to achieve the effective dose. If you only eat one fried clove, the allicin will have evaporated long ago. Not to mention people with gastric ulcers and reflux esophagitis. Eating too much raw garlic will irritate the gastric mucosa, which is not worth the gain. There is really no need to force yourself to eat it.

Oh, by the way, there is another interesting controversy. Many elderly people say that when they are sick, they should avoid eating "food", such as shrimp and beef, otherwise they will aggravate the condition. From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, it is true that you should avoid eating too fishy and hot foods after surgery and during the fever period. But from the perspective of modern nutrition, as long as you are not allergic to these ingredients, they are a high-quality source of protein, which can help the body repair damage faster, which is much better than drinking white porridge all the time. If you are really unsure, you might as well take half and half of the two theories. When you are sick, eat less braised beef and braised prawns with too many chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns, and replace them with boiled shrimps and braised beef. It is not only easy to digest, but also nutritious, and does not delay anything.

In fact, when it comes down to it, if you want to rely on food to improve your immunity, the most important thing is the simplest truth: don't look for any folk remedies. Eat enough 1 egg, 1 cup of milk, half a catty of vegetables and half a catty of fruits every day, add some whole grains and lean meat fish and shrimp, drink less milk tea and eat less fried foods, all supplements are more effective than any other. After all, immunity is a slow process. If you stay up until two or three o'clock every day and eat high-fat and high-sugar foods, it will be useless even if you eat ginseng every day, right?