Get an Immune System Boost Through Healthy Eating

Yesterday at work we had a required in-house OSHA training session given by a nice woman. Since the big—and I do mean big; it’s taken over the news lately—news these days is the so-called Swine flu, she talked a lot about that, along with other serious diseases that funeral home workers are especially at risk for, such as hepatitis.

The trainer focused on methods of preventing communicable diseases, including hand washing, hand washing, hand washing, and rigorous cleaning of frequently touched common surfaces like keyboards, phones, light switches, and door handles.

Afraid to Leave Home?

Her presentation could have caused a person to think that the world is simply crawling with bad bugs out to get us. Scary. It might make a person afraid to leave home.

It occurred to me, though, that in the midst of all of the recent news stories and this workplace presentation about how to stay healthy when surrounded by these environmental pathogens, nobody mentions the importance of having a healthy immune system and just how to get an immune system boost.

Your Body's Natural Protection System

Your immune system is your body’s natural way to fight off diseases, including viruses and bacteria. If your immune system is healthy, you don’t need to worry so much about contracting every new flu strain that makes its way onto the evening news.

There are plenty of healthy things you can do to help yourself, like meditation, exercise, yoga, and other stress-reducing activities. Since this website is about healthy eating, I offer these food-related suggestions for getting an immune system boost:

• Stop eating animals and animal products like dairy. According to Mike Anderson in The RAVE Diet, animal-based diets weaken immunity by killing the immune system cells. He goes on to say that lowering the fat in your diet is the single best way to strengthen your immune system. Of course, this doesn’t mean eating those awful fat-free, high-sugar, highly processed foods in the grocery store. This means eating a natural, whole-food, plant-based diet.
  
  
• Eat a diet of fresh vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts, and grains. For the strongest immune system, consider a raw foods diet or something like the Hallelujah Diet. People who follow these food programs recover from serious chronic ailments and don’t get the minor sicknesses like colds and flu with the help of their strengthened natural immunity.
  
  
• Eat plenty of antioxidant-rich foods. Certain plant foods are particularly effective in helping our bodies fight off disease-causing invaders. These include garlic, broccoli and other greens, berries (blueberries, raspberries, wolfberries) red grapes, spinach, carrots, and apples and oranges, to name a few.

So, don’t panic when you hear the frightening Swine flu scare stories on the news. There are steps you can take to protect yourself from disease. It would be wonderful to hear the “experts” tell people that there are other ways, besides hand washing and sneezing into your elbow, to keep yourself healthy… simple ways, such as improving your natural immunity by eating a plant-based, whole-food diet.

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