Abby Quillen

Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor

Wellness

5 Winter Immunity Boosters

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Most adults catch between two and four colds a year and the average infant or child catches from six to ten colds a year. That means, in our lifetimes, most of us will have a cold or flu for between two and three years. That’s a lot of Kleenex.

Immune Boosters

The good news is, nature offers some powerful immune-boosters. You may want to have these on hand this winter.

Garlic

Garlic has antibacterial, antibiotic, and antifungal properties. Allicin is garlic’s defense mechanism against pest attacks, and in clinical tests, it also prevents the common cold. In one study, volunteers were randomized to receive a placebo or an allicin-containing garlic supplement every day between November and February. The garlic group reported 24 colds compared to 65 in the placebo group. The volunteers in the garlic group also recovered significantly faster if they did get infected.

You don’t have to buy a supplement. The tastiest way to take garlic is to eat it. Raw is best. But garlic’s active ingredients are also present in cooked food.

Lemons

Lemons are loaded with vitamin C. One lemon contains anywhere from 50 percent to 80 percent of the vitamin C you need in a day.

And if you come down with a cold or virus, one study confirmed that hot lemonaid (or another hot fruit beverage) relieves runny nose, cough, sneezing, sore throat, chilliness and tiredness.

Elderberry

Elderberry is a popular herbal cold remedy in Europe. It’s getting a lot of press this flu season, because in clinical tests its flavonoids compare favorably with the antiviral Tamiflu in treating the H1N1 flu . You can buy over-the-counter elderberry syrup at most health food stores. Or you can harvest your own elderberries or buy them in the bulk section of your local health food store and make your own syrup. (Recipe below.)

Ginger

Ginger increases circulation and brings warmth to the body. It excels at quelling nausea, motion sickness, and dizziness. Many people also insist it can knock out the common cold.

Chicken Soup or Miso

Chicken soup and miso are full of vitamins and minerals. At least one study confirmed that chicken soup mitigates the symptoms of upper respiratory infections, possibly by reducing inflammation. Plus, the taste, smell, and warmth of these nourishing soups just make us feel good.

Herbalist Rosemary Gladstar recommends adding any or all of the following immunity herbs to the broth for a bigger boost of vitality:

  • Astragalus
  • Dandelion root
  • Burdock root
  • Echinacea root

Simple Immune Boosting Recipes

Here are four of my favorite recipes for the cold and flu season. 

Lemon and Garlic Quinoa Salad

(Adapted from Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair)

Salad

1 c. dry quinoa
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 and 3/4 c. water
1/2 c. chopped carrots
1/3 c. minced parsley
1/4 c. sunflower seeds

Dressing

4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
1 to 2 tbl. tamari or shoyu

Rinse quinoa and drain. Place rinsed quinoa, salt, and water in a pot. Bring to boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 15 to 20 minutes until all the water is absorbed. Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes uncovered, then fluff with a fork. Place quinoa in a large bowl. Add carrots, parsley, and sunflower seeds. Mix. Combine dressing ingredients and pour over quinoa. Toss. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Hot Ginger Garlic Lemonaid

2 cloves garlic
1 tbs. grated ginger root
Juice of one freshly-squeezed lemon
Honey, to taste
Hot water

Put ginger root in a tea ball or tea bag. Place garlic, lemon juice, honey, and tea ball or bag in your favorite coffee mug. Pour hot water in. Cover and steep. Drink very hot.

Miso

(Loosely adapted from Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair)

3 inch piece wakame
4 c. water
4 tbs. light or mellow unpasteurized miso.
2 scallions, thinly sliced, for garnish

Any or all of the following

1 potato
1 carrot
1/2 c. chopped bok choy
5 sliced shitake mushrooms
1/4 lb. firm tofu, cut into cubes
Handful of immune-boosting herbs: astragalus, echinacea root, dandelion root, or burdock root.

Soak wakame in small bowl of cold water for 5 minutes. Put herbs in a large tea ball or bag.

Put water (and potato, carrot, and herbs if using) into a pot and bring to a boil.

Tear wakame into pieces, removing the spine. Add wakame to soup. Lower heat, cover pot, and simmer 15 to 20 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Near the end of the cooking time, add mushrooms, bok choy, and tofu cubes if using, and let simmer a few minutes more.

Remove soup from stove. Dissolve miso in a little warm water. Remove tea ball or bag. Add miso to broth. Stir well. Ladle into bowl and add scallions for garnish.

Elderberry Syrup

(From Rosemary Gladstar’s Family Herbal*) 

1 c. fresh or 1/2 c. dried blue elderberries*
3 c. water
1 c. honey

Place berries in a pan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes. Smash berries. Strain mixture through a fine-mesh strainer and add 1 cup of honey, or adjust to taste. Bottle the syrup and store in the refrigerator. It keeps for 2 to 3 months.

*Make sure you use blue elderberries, not red ones. Never eat uncooked elderberries.

(Editors note: This is an updated version of Stay Well: 5 Winter Immunity Boosters and Winter Wellness Recipes, originally posted in November 2009.)

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Local, Seasonal Foods are Superfoods

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What should you eat for optimal health? That question has inspired wildly contradictory dietary trends from Low-fat to Raw Vegan to Paleo to Keto, each backed by health claims and scientific studies. However, nobody will ever discover a one-size-fits-all optimal human diet because we didn’t evolve to eat the same thing. Throughout most of history, whether humans hunted and gathered, raised animals, or cultivated crops, they ate a menu of local foods that shifted with the seasons. All traditional diets emphasized seasonal eating.

In the past hundred years, the industrialization of agriculture and the invention of refrigeration radically remade our diets. Today, 70 percent of the American diet is processed, and the fresh foods in your grocery store were likely imported from all over the globe. However, locavore, Farm to Table, and Farm to School movements are flourishing for good reason. Exotic superfoods may be trendy, but the foods grown near you are usually the freshest, most nutritious, healthiest, and most flavorful foods you can eat. Even a modest change to eating more local and seasonal foods can bring health, environmental, and culinary benefits.

Eating seasonally may require a mindset shift and some effort, because most modern Americans weren’t raised doing it. But the benefits are worthwhile! Keep reading to learn why local, seasonal foods are superfoods and discover ways to shift to a more seasonal diet.

The Case of the Missing Nutrients

The industrial food system has brought convenience, but the price tag is high, both for human health and the health of our ecosystems. First of all, we’ve lost an incredible amount of food diversity. In 1903, 408 types of peas were available in commercial seed catalogs; by 1983, there were 25 available pea types. More than 300 varieties of sweet corn in 1903 dwindled to 12 in 1983; 544 cabbage varieties in 1903 diminished to 28 in 1983.

Here’s the problem: Modern crops are significantly less nutritious than the crops our grandparents ate. Farmers must select crop types for yield and their ability to be transported and stored, rather than for nutrition. Moreover, soil depletion and rising carbon levels in the atmosphere may further contribute to the declining nutrient values of our food. The USDA has monitored the nutrition in crops since the late 1800s, and the data is troubling. According to one analysis, an orange today contains eight times less vitamin A than an orange your grandparent would have eaten. Broccoli contains less than half as much calcium as it did in 1950.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Exotic superfoods may be trendy, but local, seasonal foods are the real superfoods. #localfood” quote=”Exotic superfoods may be trendy, but local, seasonal foods are the real superfoods.” theme=”style1″]

To complicate the problem, nutrients degrade quickly after produce is picked. Conventional produce is often picked before it’s ripe, is shipped an average of 1494 miles, and is handled frequently and stored on shelves for days.

For obvious reasons, local produce is nearly always fresher than produce shipped from across the world.  And it may contain more nutrients in the first place because farmers growing food for local markets can choose crop types for nutrition and flavor, such as antioxidant-rich purple carrots and potatoes. Moreover, there’s a less understood reason to eat seasonal foods; by doing so, we tap into nature’s wisdom about what’s best to eat when.

Tap into Nature’s Wisdom

Because of the tilt of the earth, seasons exist everywhere, except for a small tropical band near the equator, which has minimal seasonality. In some regions of the earth, seasonal changes are extreme. In parts of Alaska, summer and winter temperatures vary by 100 degrees. Flora, fauna, and weather vary widely by region and and season, and it makes sense that our diets would vary accordingly, since they were once dependent on the local environment. The bottom line? We evolved to eat certain foods at certain times. And now that we’ve lost touch with which crops grow when, we may have lost a natural way to stay healthy during each season.

Consider these examples:

  • Summer crops (berries, fruit, snap beans, corn, cucumbers, melons, peppers, tomatoes, and summer squash) provide energy, hydration, and antioxidants to help people deal with the potentially damaging effects of summer sunshine.
  • Fall and winter crops (sweet potatoes, winter squash, chard, spinach, bok choy, and kale) provide large amounts of vitamin A, a nutrient that supports the immune system, just as seasonal illnesses are circulating.
  • Spring crops (watercress, pea shoots, wild nettles and greens) have anti-histamine effects in the body, which helps fend off spring’s seasonal allergies. (Nettles worked better than allergy medication in one study.)

The health benefits of seasonal eating go beyond ingesting antioxidants and phytochemicals. Eating is not only about nutrients; it’s about our relationship with the natural world, the source of all real food.

Humans are wired to be outside. Spending time in nature is therapeutic, healing, and necessary for human health. Reconnecting food to its true source by hunting or gathering wild foods, gardening, or visiting farms or orchards can be a powerful step toward better health. When you adjust your diet with local conditions, you must observe and relate with the environment outside the climate-controlled homes, buildings, and cars, where Americans now spend 90 percent of the time.

Invest in Healthier Ecosystems

The industrial food system, which was developed in the decades after World War II, features enormous single-crop farms and animal production facilities and relies heavily on chemical fertilizers. The system has been successful at increasing crop yields, making food cheaper, decreasing the need for farm labor, and increasing the availability of off-season crops. Unfortunately, the environmental costs for industrial agriculture have been huge and include mass extinctions, a biodiversity crisis, contaminated water ways, the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and pesticide toxicity.

In wealthy nations, food consumption is estimated to account for 20 to 30 percent of each family’s environmental footprint. Environmental life cycle food assessments are complicated, and it’s important to factor how the food is grown and transported to market. However, many studies suggest that even a small shift to local and seasonal eating may make a difference to the environment.  A research team found the conventional food distribution system emitted 5 to 17 times more CO2 and used four to 17 times more fuel than the local and regional food distribution systems in Iowa. A Canadian study estimated that replacing imported food with locally grown food in just the Waterloo, Ontario region would save transport-related emissions roughly equivalent to taking 16,191 cars off the road. According to another analysis, if everyone in the U.S. just ate one meal a week consisting of local and organic produce, we’d reduce our national oil consumption by 1.1 million barrels a week.

Step Outside of the Grocery Store

Seasonal eating goes against our always-available, fast-food culture, and it may not be intuitive if you weren’t raised doing it. Growing up in rural Colorado, nearly all of my family’s produce came from refrigerated cases at a national grocery chain. My dad grew a small vegetable garden one summer (an experience that had an enormous impact on me). Other than that, we didn’t grow food or visit farms or orchards. Most years, the apples and plums on the trees in our yard fell to the ground and rotted, as did the fruit on the trees around our neighborhood. Little of the wisdom my ancestors must have possessed about hunting or growing, storing, and gathering food was passed to me. However, I’m committed to eating more local and seasonal foods because it feels like the most nutritious, sustainable, and nourishing way to eat.

These days, my family and I garden, gather food, belong to a Community Supported Agriculture program, and regularly visit farms and orchards. We don’t stick to a 100-mile diet or eschew all imported foods. We enjoy coffee and imported oranges and bananas as much as the next family. But we do our best to heed some traditional wisdom and stay connected to our natural environment as we live our busy lives in the modern world.

Even a little local and seasonal eating may make a difference to your health, community, and local ecosystems. And it’s an amazing way to connect with the natural world and glimpse the beauty and wisdom pervasive there.

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Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a blog originally posted October 3. 2017.

A Simple Solution To Improve Your Health

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“So here is a simple test to tell if a thing is alive. Put it in salty water. Some things, like babies and crayfish, will do well. They get bigger, stronger and more organized. Others, even “smart” things like iPods and cell phones, laptops, cars and TVs, stop working immediately.” – Dr. Scott Haig

Seventy one percent of the earth is covered with it. By weight our bodies are largely made of it. We spend the first nine months of our lives developing in it. Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that salt water is one of the best natural healers we have.

As colder weather descends, consider harnessing the power of this simple solution to boost your health and well-being. Here are four things it can do for you:

1. Knock out colds

There might not be a cure for the common cold, but gargling with warm salt water is a great way to prevent it. In one randomized study, people who gargled with salt water three times a day had nearly 40 percent fewer upper respiratory tract infections than those who didn’t. And when those gargling got sick, the salt water attenuated their symptoms. I gargle with salt water at the first sign of any respiratory illness, and I’m consistently amazed by the results.

2. Treat Wounds and Skin Conditions

“Putting salt on a wound” may sting, but it  can also heal. Salt water is a great antiseptic. For minor cuts and scrapes, dissolve two teaspoons of salt in a quart of boiled water for a soak.

Bathing or soaking in salt water may also help heal acne, eczema, fungal infections, and other skin conditions.

3. Keep Gums and Teeth Healthy

“A number of my clients decided to start salt water rinsing daily and the results have been phenomenal,” dental hygeniest Kathleen Bernardi writes on her blog. I’ve similarly found daily salt water rinses to be an excellent tonic for my gums and teeth. And in times of distress, salt water is a handy first line of defense. It can heal canker sores, reverse gingivitis, and even ease the pain of a toothache.

4. Help you Sleep Tight

According to Dr. Oz, a salt water bath may be the perfect recipe for restful sleep. Just swap the sea salt for Epsom salt. It contains easily-absorbed magnesium, a mineral that Americans are often deficient in. Magnesium can ease pain, quell anxiety, quash migraines, lower blood pressure, and more. Here’s Dr. Oz’s recipe for an Epsom salt bath:

  • 1 bath full of warm water
  • 1 cup of Epsom salt
  • 1 cup of baking soda

“It is always the simple that produces the marvelous,” the novelist Amelia Barr said. That’s definitely the case with salt water, a simple and humble, but powerful, natural healer.

More about the healing power of salt water:

Related posts:

Do you use salt water to improve your health and well-being? Tell me about it. I love hearing from you.

Does Hot Cocoa Cure a Cold?

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Are you sniffling and sneezing? If so, you’re not alone. It seems like our entire city has a cold right now. At our house, we’ve been resting,  drinking lots of hot lemon and ginger drinks and broths, getting out in the sunshine,  and trying to remember all of those other time-tested cold remedies.

Then, I remembered some research I read awhile ago about a substance that beats codeine when it comes to knocking out a cough – cocoa. That’s right, I recalled a reason to consume chocolate. I felt better just thinking about it.

Then my skepticism kicked in. Didn’t it sound a little too good to be true? Could the confections industry have anything to do with this research into these miraculous health benefits of cocoa?

So I decided to dig up the research again. It’s the theobromine in cocoa that researchers pegged as more effective at keeping hacking at bay than codeine. “Theobromine works by suppressing vagus nerve activity, which is responsible for causing coughing,” a “Science Daily” article about the 2004 study explained. The researchers isolated the theobromine from cacao beans for the study and used it in doses much higher than I would get in, say, a velvety cup of hot cocoa. But still, a large mug could only help.

I was on my way to prepare one, when I glimpsed another “Science Daily” article, this one from 2006. “Scientists at the University of Manchester’s North West Lung Centre have found that codeine – a standard ingredient in cough remedies — could be no more effective than an inactive placebo compound at treating cough,” it read.

Wait a minute, so codeine – the gold standard of cough suppressants that all other cough suppressants are judged against – may not actually, um, suppress coughs? Where does that leave my beloved theobromine?

In general, I’ve been feeling discouraged about medical studies these days. I love to read them, especially when they reveal reasons I should eat chocolate, go for walks, garden, or do any of the other things I enjoy doing. But I’ve started wondering if reading nutrition and medical research might actually be harmful to our health.

Remember when we were supposed to be loading up on antioxidants? Well, according to new research, those oxidants we were fending off with high doses of beta carotene and vitamins C and E actually serve necessary functions in our bodies like fighting toxins and battling cancer.

Remember how we were supposed to be loading up on Vitamin D, because all of us were hopelessly deficient? Well, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. and Canadian governments, “Vitamin D and calcium supplements are unnecessary for most people and may be harmful to some.”

Does hot cocoa cure a cold? #health

If these findings are troublesome, Sharon Begley’s January 24 piece in Newsweek “Why Almost Everything You Know About Medicine is Wrong” is downright disturbing. She writes:

If you follow the news about health research, you risk whiplash. First garlic lowers bad cholesterol, then—after more study—it doesn’t. Hormone replacement reduces the risk of heart disease in postmenopausal women, until a huge study finds that it doesn’t (and that it raises the risk of breast cancer to boot). Eating a big breakfast cuts your total daily calories, or not—as a study released last week finds. Yet even if biomedical research can be a fickle guide, we rely on it.

But what if wrong answers aren’t the exception but the rule? More and more scholars who scrutinize health research are now making that claim. It isn’t just an individual study here and there that’s flawed, they charge. Instead, the very framework of medical investigation may be off-kilter, leading time and again to findings that are at best unproved and at worst dangerously wrong. The result is a system that leads patients and physicians astray—spurring often costly regimens that won’t help and may even harm you.

Of course, I couldn’t help but read the rest of the research on cocoa. It turns out “the health benefits of epicatechin, a compound found in cocoa, are so striking that it may rival penicillin and anaesthesia in terms of importance to public health … ” Chocolate consumption may also lower blood pressure, prevent heart failure, lower stroke risk, and boost brain power.

Or, hey, maybe not. But I decided to stew over it while making some hot cocoa, not as much because of its purported health benefits, as because I remembered something from my childhood. When my sister or I got a sore throat, sometimes my parents would get us a little ice cream to soothe it. I’m fairly certain ice cream does not cure a sore throat. I’ d guess that quite a few health gurus would argue sugar and dairy worsen a cold. But those ice cream treats made being sick feel not quite as bad.

I whipped up the healthiest hot cocoa I could manage, and it was a huge hit with my son. I think there’s something to the cocoa cure.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Does hot cocoa cure a cold? It couldn’t hurt to experiment. #health #remedies #chocolate” quote=”Does hot cocoa cure a cold? It couldn’t hurt to experiment.” theme=”style1″]

Here’s the recipe, in case you’re feeling a cough coming on.

Healthy hot cocoa

If you liked this post, check out more of my popular posts about health:

What’s your favorite cold remedy? Are you a believer in the cocoa cure? I’d love to hear from you.

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Stay Well: 5 Winter Immunity Boosters

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Lemons_b

If you’ve turned on a radio or television, picked up a newspaper, or logged onto the Internet in the last month, you know it’s flu season. Like many Americans you might be trying to decide whether you and/or your kids should get vaccinated against the H1N1 and seasonal flu this year. If you’re looking for some antidotes to the widespread fear circulating this season with the coughs, sneezing, and sniffles, go here, here, or here.

Whether you decide to get vaccinated or not, boosting your immunity is always a good idea as the weather gets colder. After all, the influenza viruses are hardly the only bugs out there. Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer write in “Does the Vaccine Matter” in the Atlantic this week:

We think we have the flu anytime we fall ill with an ailment that brings on headache, malaise, fever, coughing, sneezing, and that achy feeling as if we’ve been sleeping on a bed of rocks, but researchers have found that at most half, and perhaps as few as 7 or 8 percent, of such cases are actually caused by an influenza virus in any given year. More than 200 known viruses and other pathogens can cause the suite of symptoms known as “influenza-like illness”; respiratory syncytial virus, bocavirus, coronavirus, and rhinovirus are just a few of the bugs that can make a person feel rotten. And depending on the season, in up to two-thirds of the cases of flu-like illness, no cause at all can be found.

Most adults catch between two and four colds a year and the average infant or child catches from six to ten colds a year. That means, in our lifetimes, most of us will have a cold or flu for between two and three years. That’s a lot of Kleenex.

The good news is, nature offers us some powerful immune-boosters. You may want to have these on hand this winter.

1. Garlic

Garlic has antibacterial, antibiotic, and antifungal properties. Allicin is garlic’s defense mechanism against pest attacks, and in clinical tests, it also prevents the common cold. In one study, volunteers were randomized to receive a placebo or an allicin-containing garlic supplement every day between November and February. The garlic group reported 24 colds compared to 65 in the placebo group. The volunteers in the garlic group also recovered significantly faster if they did get infected.

You don’t have to buy a supplement. The tastiest way to take garlic is to eat it. Raw is best. But garlic’s active ingredients are also present in cooked food.

2. Lemons

Lemons are loaded with vitamin C. One lemon contains anywhere from 50% to 80% of the vitamin C you need in a day.

And if you do come down with a cold, one study confirmed that hot lemonaid (or another hot fruit beverage) relieves runny nose, cough, sneezing, sore throat, chilliness and tiredness.

3. Elderberry

Elderberry is a popular herbal cold remedy in Europe. It’s getting a lot of press this flu season, because in clinical tests its flavonoids compare favorably with the antiviral Tamiflu in treating the H1N1 flu . You can buy over-the-counter elderberry syrup at most health food stores. Or you can harvest your own elderberries or buy them in the bulk section of your local health food store and make your own syrup. (I’ll include the recipe in an upcoming post of favorite winter wellness recipes.)

4. Ginger

Ginger increases circulation and brings warmth to the body. It excels at quelling nausea, motion sickness, and dizziness. Many people also insist it can knock out the common cold.

5. Chicken Soup or Miso

Chicken soup and miso are full of vitamins and minerals. At least one study (Chest 2000) confirmed that chicken soup mitigates the symptoms of upper respiratory infections, possibly by reducing inflammation. Plus, the taste, smell, and warmth of these nourishing soups just make us feel good.

Herbalist Rosemary Gladstar recommends adding any or all of the following immunity herbs to the broth for a bigger boost of vitality:

  • Astragalus
  • Dandelion root
  • Burdock root
  • Echinacea root

Of course, winter wellness isn’t just what we ingest. When I look back at the winters where I came down with one cold after another, there were some glaring imbalances in my life. (Why are these so much easier to see in retrospect?) Either I’d signed up for too many college courses, I was miserable at my job, or my family had over-scheduled our days. Rosemary Gladstar sums it up nicely in her Family Herbal when she writes that wellness comes from:

Finding your joy in life. Exploring your passions. Getting up from your chair and moving your body. Wiggling. Eating good food. Playing.

Those are probably the best immunity boosters. But it never hurts to have a little chicken soup on hand just in case.

What are your tricks to staying well when the weather gets colder?

Stay tuned for  an upcoming post of my favorite winter wellness recipes, including lemon garlic quinoa salad, miso, hot garlic lemonaid, and elderberry syrup.