Increase your immunity by bringing small changes into your diet

Do you find yourself falling sick as the season changes? Or every time a new variant comes up? Or there is a viral fever going around in your social circle and immediately you find yourself coughing and catching a cold? No worries! Most often than not, it is your body's defence mechanism trying to take care of you and protect you, but in the process tires you out completely.

Well, you could support and increase your immunity by bringing about small changes into your diet, after all in the end it is all about your essential vitamins and other nutrients. We have Dietician Vidhi Chawla here to explain how these are easily available and take very little to no effort in preparing or even eating them!

Lemons, Oranges see to your Vitamin C

Whenever somebody gets sick, the first thing they hear is to stack up on Vitamin C. There may be plenty of supplements to fill this nutrient gap, but the best way is through eating vegetables and fruits. Starting from your citrus fruits which include Limes, Lemons, Oranges, Clementine, to your vegetables like Bell Peppers, leafy vegetables like Spinach, Lettuce, Kale, etc.

Turmeric

Remember how every time your mother would bring a glass of Haldi ka doodh, you were grossed out. Well, time to go back to it. The purest form of turmeric, which is easily available in all Indian kitchens contains a compound called curcumin which makes the yucky haldi really beneficial because of its anti-inflammatory and antiviral nature. You can either make a powder of raw turmeric and mix it with milk and honey and drink it up or you can extract essential oil off of it which has antifungal properties.

Garlic

Garlic is not only known for warding off vampires but also, common flu and other common viruses, by increasing your immunity. And, how it does that, it contains high zinc concentrations which supplement and encourage the body's efficacy in increasing T-cells, thus making garlic a flu-fighter. You can include garlic in your meals and kadha sufficiently, as well as resort to making yummy garlic soup which also soothes sore throats.

Ginger

Ginger is actually a root, hence it carries an abundance of nutrients and minerals which include vitamin B6, magnesium and manganese. All of the nutrients play an active role in increasing metabolism in a healthy pattern and hence, immunity. Ginger also contains a specific active compound called Gingerol, which makes ginger anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial in nature and so it wards off infections. Usually, mixing ginger with tea is an effective remedy, but you could also add it to your kadha.

Herbs

You need not go too far to find the perfect remedy. Stepping into your garden will land you next to the most ancient immunity boosters. Herbs such as tulsi, pudina, neem, moringa, etc., are the best medicines even recommended by Ayurveda to fight away infections as they are all rich in antiviral and antibacterial properties. You can either add them to your kadha or even use them while steaming. You could also add some of these leaves such as tulsi to boil drinking water, it does wonders!