Foods That Help Fight The Flu

If you're looking for ways to combat the flu, today and tomorrow I will share with you four foods that can help. Of course eating healthy is what it is all about.

First of all, increase your antioxidants by eating lots of colorful fruits and vegetables. The brighter and more vibrant the color, the better. Antioxidants are key to immune system health and its ability to ward off disease. Get at least 5-6 servings a day.

Second in the line up of things to eat is yogurt. Be sure to get the kind that is live culture and has the good bacteria in it. These good bacteria actually strengthen the immune system. The other thing about yogurt is that it can help alleviate diarrhea, prevent yeast infections and improve overall health.

I'll cover the other 2 foods tomorrow.

Should I Eat Frozen Yogurt or Ice Cream?

You may be surprised at my answer here. Pick the ice cream, just don't eat too much. Frozen yogurt is another one of those products that the manufacturers have perpetrated as a health food. The fact of the matter is that while yogurt with live culture actually does support your digestive tract, frozen yogurt does not contain any active live cultures! In addition, the frozen yogurt is often loaded with artificial sweeteners which actually make your sugar cravings increase. This is not to mention all of the other chemicals in the frozen yogurt.

Read those labels and you'll see. Pick the ice cream, just limit your portion. Here's a trick instead of buying the 5 gallon bucket of ice cream, buy a quart of smaller size and then eat less of it. You can put it in a custard cup which will look full but you will be getting less.

Diet Tip #7

Get your dairy with reasonable amounts of cheese and regular yogurt. The "light" or "fat free" yogurts have larger amounts of sugar in them. Best if you can cut out cow's milk for a period of time.

If you absolutely have to have milk, see my tips on milk. There are multiple posts on milk in the blog and you may want to go back and review them.

Some last thoughts on Yogurt

Just a couple of last thoughts on yogurt. I know I mentioned that you should buy active live culture yogurt. Be sure to read the label to see that it is "Live and Active Cultures."

If you are concerned about calories, the buy plain non-fat yogurt. You can add your own fresh fruit for flavor. This will give you better nutrition than buying the already flavored yogurts.

More On Yogurt

There are some other things that yogurt is believed to help. Again, be sure you are eating active live culture yogurt. There are a couple of studies that indicate that eating yogurt daily may decrease allergies, especially in children.

Specifically, there were fewer episodes of allergic rhinitis (hay fever). In a study of pregnant women, who ate the live culture late in the pregnancy, they had babies who were less prone to allergies.

There is controversy in the arena of cancer. Studies have indicated that live active culture yogurt may actually decrease bladder cancer risk and colon cancer risk. But there is evidence that it may increase prostate and kidney cancer.

Yogurt - should you eat it?

Yogurt has some wonderful properties which can be helpful to you. The first thing to look for when buying yogurt is to get yogurt that contains active live cultures. This means that it actually contains the type of bacteria normally found in the intestine.

These live bacteria can help in regulating the function of the bowel. Hence, if you have a problem with constipation, it can help the gut motility to move things through. On the other hand, if you have diarrhea, often times the normal bacteria in the gut has been killed off or is gone. One of the biggest causes of this is antibiotic treatment. So eating active live culture yogurt can restore the normal bacteria in the gut and stop the diarrhea. It's not a bad idea to eat yogurt if you are on antibiotics to help the gut.