Do you know that our body holds a magical power that helps us fight various health issues automatically? Well, that magical power is called immunity.
Previously, only a few people were aware of immunity and what makes it important for the human body, but with the COVID-19 outbreak, when everyone noticed people with low immunity facing negative consequences and people with higher immunity facing nothing, everyone understood why it is important.
That was the time when everyone started reading and researching about how to increase immunity, food items to increase immunity, and what not.
But, being a new term in the market, there was a lot of unawareness around these topics, and this leads to misleading information that is not useful at all.
However, if you are still looking forward to ways to supercharge your immunity by adding a few food items to your diet, then you are at the right place. Here, we are going to discuss six food items to increase immunity in your body.
But, before moving forward, let’s understand precisely what immunity is and how it helps our body.
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Understanding Immunity
The immunity system in your body works as a defence system for bacteria, viruses, and parasites.
The major workings of immunity comprise complex networks, cells, and organs that are continuously working towards preventing health issues in our body.
Our immunity system comprises a number of cells, such as white blood cells and neutrophils, and every cell has its own unique capabilities for making our body issue-free.
It is suggested that the immunity of our body depends a lot upon our nutrition; let’s understand it in the coming section.
The Role of Nutrition in Immune Health
Nutrition is considered a fundamental need to maintain good immunity. Different types of nutritional products help us build our immunity in different ways.
Here are a few facts about the role of nutrition in immune health. Let’s look at them:
- Vitamins like A, B, C, D, and E are essential for immune cell development, formation, and activation.
- With the help of minerals such as zinc, selenium, and copper, our immune system is able to carry forward antibody production in our body.
- There are a number of antioxidants, such as lycopene, lutein, and many more, that reduce stress and inflammation in the body, which directly helps in enhancing your immunity.
This was all about how nutrition affects our immunity. In the coming section, we are going to talk about the top 6 food items to increase immunity.
These food items are full of healthy nutritional value and can improve immunity effectively.
6 Food Items to Increase Immunity
By incorporating a number of nutrient-dense food items into your diet, you can exceptionally enhance your immune system and its ability to fight against various illnesses.
Here are the top 6 food items that can help you achieve this goal:
1. Citrus Fruits:
There are a number of citrus-based fruits, including oranges, lemons, and many more. All these fruits are high in vitamin C.
For those who don’t know, vitamin C works as a powerful antioxidant and helps in enhancing the production of white blood cells.
These white blood cells are responsible for enhancing the immunity of our body, and with a higher amount of white blood cells, your body has the tendency to fight various infections.
If you are someone who doesn’t know how to add citrus fruits to their daily diet, then you can add slices of citrus fruits to the salads that you eat regularly. Moreover, you can also go for freshly made juice with citrus fruits.
2- Garlic:
Garlic is also considered a superfood, and the major reason it’s considered a superfood is its addition of allicin.
Allicin is a compound that is found in garlic, and it comes with a number of immunity-boosting properties.
Moreover, if your body is able to fight off all the infections and is able to boost the overall activity of your immune cells, then it’s just because of this compound.
If you want to add garlic to your diet as one of the food items to increase immunity, then you can use garlic while cooking your food items, and secondly, you can add garlic soup to your diet. These can help you boost your immunity effectively.
3- Spinach:
Spinach is the third entry from the list of food items to increase immunity, and it’s helpful because it comprises various vitamins such as vitamin A, C, and E.
The goodness of spinach does not end here, as it offers you the benefits of antioxidants and beta-carotene as well.
With the help of these additions, spinach is able to enhance the ability of your immune system to fight infections and other health issues.
If you do not consume spinach in your daily diet and want to add it, then you can add it to your salads, or you can also create tasty smoothies that will also help you refresh your body in no time.
4- Turmeric:
If you are living in an Indian household, then there are high chances that you will already be using turmeric in your food items.
If you are someone who is not using turmeric, then you are leaving out a number of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds that can help you enhance your immunity.
Well, the actual source of these factors is curcumin, which is a compound available in turmeric that eventually helps in enhancing immunity cell activity.
There are a number of ways with the help of which you can consume turmeric in your daily diet.
One of the best ways is by adding turmeric while preparing food items such as curries, soups, and rice.
If you are unable to consume turmeric in the above-mentioned ways, you can consume it by adding it to warm milk and drinking it directly.
5- Broccoli:
Broccoli is another superfood that you will find on the list of top food items to increase immunity.
This superfood is able to offer you immunity-enhancing properties because of its vitamins, such as vitamin A, C, and E.
Not just that, broccoli also comes with a number of fibers and antioxidants, such as sulforaphane, that enhance the overall performance of the immune system.
Here are a few ways, with the help of which, you can add broccoli to your salad. Moreover, you can also steam or roast broccoli, which will help you create a side dish that you can eat with your meals. Along with that, you can also add steam broccoli to your soups.
6- Ginger:
We all know that ginger is one such food item that offers a number of health benefits. But do you know what’s behind those health benefits?
Well, ginger has plenty of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties that directly help in enhancing immunity and protecting our body against various illnesses.
To add ginger to your daily diet, you can drink ginger green tea or soup. Not just that, you can also add ginger while cooking various food items and vegetables; this will add to the benefits of ginger in those food items.
Conclusion:
Enhancing your immunity is an easy job if you know the right food items to increase immunity.
And through this blog, we have shared the top 6 food items that can help you boost your immunity effortlessly.
Make sure to use those food items and add them to your daily diet in the right way.
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