Resources to Find Foods that Help You Prevent Flu

Can your diet really reduce your risk of catching a cold or influenza? Nutrition experts certainly thinks so. Diett and other smart lifestyle choices will help you to avoid the sniffles, stuffy nose and aches of the cold, as well as the outright misery of influenza.

Food and healthy lifestyle choices boost your immune system, and that can prevent you from coming down with colds and flu. The key is not waiting until you get sick to make these changes; you need to revamp your diet and lifestyle before the cold and flu bugs get to you.

Eat more garlic and onions

Garlic is a highly esteemed vegetable to many cultures around the world and for good reason. In fact, its use as a vegetable and as a medicine dates back to 5000 BC. Garlic certainly adds wonderful flavor to food, but it also has a positive effect on the immune system. It is rich in phytonutrients which are known for their antibiotic and antiviral properties. Garlic's medicinal benefit is most potent when used raw so consider adding it to salad dressings for this use.

However, garlic still offers benefits when cooked so use it generously in stir frys, soups, and casseroles. Top crusty bread with roasted garlic instead of butter. Similarly, onions enjoy a long history with their cultivation dating back to 3200 BC. Clearly onions are the most universal seasoning used today. The flavonoids in onions actually work with vitamin C to help kill harmful bacteria. It's hard to find a savory recipe that doesn't use onions but consider making a soothing and delicious pot of onion soup or include onions with slow roasted winter vegetables.

Eat brightly colored fruits and vegetables

While nutritionists tout the health benefits of beta carotene, its conversion into vitamin A in the body has immune boosting qualities as well. Fortunately foods rich in the nutrients are readily available in the fall and winter months including winter squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin. Additional sources include cooked spinach, apricots, and mangoes.

Instead of a russet potato, substitute a delicious sweet potato. Just that simple change increases antioxidants significantly and also provides more vitamin C and trace minerals. Use that can of pumpkin puree in your pantry to make pumpkin bread. Make a pot of carrot ginger soup. Fish are also good sources of vitamin A including halibut, wild caught salmon, and cod. Evidence suggests the nutrients in these foods can prevent or lessen the severity of certain infections.

Resource: Cooking cache .com

Rely on Real Food, Not Vitamins

Foods are better than dietary supplements for the prevention of colds and flu because you get the whole nutritional package. For example, Dr. Hark points out, eating an orange is better for you than just taking vitamin C because the orange offers you a combination of nutrients -- magnesium, potassium, folate, vitamin B6, and antioxidant-rich flavonoids.

While we know that vitamin C is important for a healthy immune system, studies don’t show that taking massive doses of vitamin C helps to prevent colds and flu at all. However, we do know that eating fruits and vegetables high in vitamin C will help to keep your immune system strong. Your immune system is what protects you from viral infections, and the foods you eat have a major impact on your immune system’s ability to fight off colds and flu. The reason that fruits and vegetables do a better job of keeping your immune system ready is because they also contain vitamins A and E, as well as the flavonoids that work along side vitamin C to keep your immune system and your whole body healthy.

Resource: Nutrition About .com

I think that everybody of us know that to prevent flue and colds you should:

* Drink plenty of liquids. Water and fruit juice
* Eat Garlic that contains an agent called alliin which acts as a decongestant.
* Drink a lot of Lemon juice and Red Orange juice to increase your vitamin C intake.
* Eat foods full of Vitamin C like Citrus fruits, Potatoes, green peppers and strawberries.
* Eat honey to stop cough

Here the foods to not eat with fever:

* High-fat
* High-sugar junk foods
* Skipped meals
* Lot of caffeine
* Dairy products
* Excess salt

Other to these well known rules I’d like to suggest you some foods and plants typical of the Mediterranean region that could help you prevent and defeat fever, cold, Bronchitis, Cough and Sore throat.

Resource: Mediterranean Diet Food List

Protein-rich meat, chicken, eggs and fish, milk, dairy foods, pulse vegetables, nuts, seeds and soya-based foods all supply vital nourishment for the epithelial cells in these membranes. Three average-sized servings a day of any of these are important to maintain the integrity of these “barrier” tissues.

Tucking into plenty of bright orange and dark green fruits and vegetables such as carrots and pumpkins, apricots, mangoes, spinach and cabbage, meanwhile, will keep levels of vitamin A, another nutrient that is needed for strong respiratory membranes, topped up.

If the virus does penetrate these physical barriers, it is the job of an army of white blood cells to try to engulf and eat viral invaders. Vitamin C appears to be especially important in playing a role in mobilising bug-eating macrophage cells, as well as having its own specific anti-viral properties.

Given that we cannot store this nutrient in our bodies, ensuring that some vitamin C-rich foods are on the menu each day is important. This can be anything from peppers and spinach to citrus fruits, berries or frozen peas. Even canned fruit provides some, as do orange and grapefruit juices.

Resource: Timesonline.co.uk

Research from the University of North Carolina suggests that a general protection against influenza viruses is offered by the mineral selenium. Three Brazil nuts a day will meet your daily needs.

Medical herbalists suggest that the following can boost immunity against ordinary seasonal flu: two echinacea tablets two or three times a day, plus a 300mg tablet of extract of St Johns Wort three times a day, and a cup of herbal tea made from equal parts of 10g mint, 10g elderflower and 10g yarrow.