Immune System Boost

I hope all of you are OK and managing to stay safe and sane at home in this weird world. Here are some tips to help your immune system:

Most of your immune system is in your gut so it matters what you eat and drink. Eat more:

• Oily fish and eggs for vitamin Dwhich has many health benefits, including priming our T cells

• Vegetables which give you lots of vitamins, minerals, enzymes and antioxidants plus fibre to feed the good bacteria in your gut.

• Live natural yoghurt, kefir, lassi and fermented vegetables to repopulate your good bacteria.
• Coconut oil which has anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties.

Supplement with:

• Vitamin C (it’s quickly flushed out of your body so take some every day)
• Magnesium (most people are deficient)
• Selenium (2 or 3 Brazils nuts a day is plenty)
• Zinc (good food sources are seafood, lamb, turkey and pumpkin seeds)
• Vitamin D (most of us are short of this unless we supplement – especially at this time of year when our skin hasn’t seen sunshine for so long)

Avoid:

• Sugar – it feeds bad bacteria, unbalancing your system.

• Processed food – you want your body to cope with the virus, not use all its energy fighting bad food.
• Alcohol.

Other tips:

• Eat right for your metabolic type (I’m now offering testing by Skype/telephone).

• Get lots of sleep to make the powerful anti-oxidant melatonin.

• Exercise, especially out in the fresh air (only with members of your household of course!). It will help you sleep better too.
• If you smoke, give it up now.
• Wash with actual bar soap whenever you possibly can. Coronaviruses are in a fatty ‘envelope’ which can be destroyed by soap. Also soap won’t damage your own protective bacterial like antibacterials do. Joanna Blythman retweeted this Tweet thread on why soap is so good.Solutions of ethyl alcohol and isopropyl alcohol at between 60% and 80%, plus 3% hydrogen peroxide are effective for cleaning surfaces
• Manage stress and prioritise self-care. Your mental health, physical health and immune system are connected so it helps to keep a sense of purpose and optimism. We won’t get back to normal for some time yet so look after yourself and do things that relax you and give you joy.

Magnesium

The days are shorter, the sun slants at a shallower angle and we won’t be able to make vitamin D until next March/April. At this time of year I usually remind you that a vitamin D supplement is a good idea. And since with all micronutrients they work together, something you’ll need for your Vitamin D to work is magnesium (plus vitamins K2 and B6).

Magnesium is important for your heart, for your brain, for energy production, for insulin sensitivity and so much more. It’s essential if you take calcium. Deficiency is linked to: acid reflux, anxiety, panic attacks, ADHD and depression, constipation, fatigue and insomnia, muscle problems like cramp, fibromyalgia and post exercise soreness (the dreaded DOMS).  I heard in July from Dr David Unwin about how it helped a patient whose fitting had not responded to medication and turned out to be magnesium deficiency caused by other medication.

Having suffered with for years, I was thrilled that it also helps with Raynaud’s. As soon as there was a cool, damp day (even in summer), I’d touch something cold and the circulation in my fingers would just switch off. I’ve even had to warm up cutlery before eating and have occasionally been in so much pain with it that I cried. But since I started taking magnesium a year ago, my fingers have stayed pink.

Most people are deficient but it doesn’t show up with a simple blood test because your body will keep levels constant, even scavenging from your bones and muscles for the sake of your heart.

The main food sources are kelp, wheat (only wholegrain), nuts, soya (best only eaten fermented) and coconut. You could also take tablets, soak in an Epsom salts bath or spray an oil mixture on your skin.  There are different compounds of magnesium available as supplements.  Dr Mercola discusses their merits here.

Check out The Magnesium Miracle by Caroline Dean or her blog.

Top tip – Boost your health with magnesium

NB There are a few reasons why you shouldn’t take magnesium

• if you have kidney failure,
• very slow heart rate,
• bowel obstruction
• Myasthenia gravis
• and check with your doctor about any medication.

Ultimate Budget Meal 81p

You’ve nearly made it through the school holidays and so here is the ultimate in high-nutrition, budget food.

Some people don’t like liver but it’s worth persevering as it contains so many vitamins and minerals. I didn’t like it until a few years ago but occasionally I’d order it if it was on a pub menu – my body must have told my subconscious that I needed a boost. In France they get kids to eat almost anything by tasting repeatedly – they don’t have to eat the food but must taste it. After a few times, usually they like it.  Take a look at this article by the Sustainable Food Trust.

Liver and Onions to serve 2

Slice one medium onion 20p

Fry in a knob of butter for 3 mins 10p

Put the onion in a bowl

Add a teaspoon of coconut oil 5p

Fry 400g sliced liver until browned all over 80p

Turn down the heat and leave to cook slowly

Boil 500g potatoes for 15 mins 25p

(I don’t know why you need more when you’re going to mash them than just eating them boiled but you do!)

For the last 2 minutes, chop and steam a heap of kale 30p

or cabbage 10p

over your potatoes

Put the onions back in the pan with the liver

Drain the potatoes and mash with butter and milk 12p

Total for the most nutritious food on the planet £1.82.

That’s 91p per person with kale or 81p with cabbage.

NB If you take warfarin, you’ll need to choose a different dinner as liver and kale are both high in vitamin K.

Quote of the month

The best juicer is………the one you will use!

Cherie Calbom

(The Juice Lady)

S/W Ver: 85.83.E7P

Carrots, apples and ginger

Super Foods

Super foods are ‘in’. People are going mad for all sorts of things from gogi berries to maca powder and cacao nibs. However, I was really taken aback when someone said their diet club had told them that pasta is a super food; it is not.

So what makes something a super food? 2 things. Firstly, it will have an unusually high nutrient content; things like vitamins, minerals, enzymes or good fats. Secondly, the nutrients will be in a form that the body can easily absorb and use. This is called bio-availability.  I have some videos on different superfoods here (scroll down through top tips and testimonials to get to the superfood series).

Take the avocado, a true super food. This pear-shaped fruit is packed with amino acids, vitamins, minerals, enzymes and good fats. I base my breakfast smoothie on avocado. They’re also great as part of a salad. Contrast this with pasta which is just wheat starch. Like bread or Yorkshire pudding, it’s ‘padding’ with only a bit of protein, a few minerals, hardly any vitamins and no good fat. It will cause weight gain without boosting your health.

I’m quarter Italian and enjoy pasta as much as the next person but I eat no more than a handful in a meal. After all, in Italy pasta is not a main dish, it’s a starter. And what is this bizarre Cumbrian custom of serving lasagne with chips? That’s adding padding to more padding. Instead, have it with a large, mixed salad, dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The goodness has diminished drastically in our modern diet. Super foods can help to fill the gap and give you a boost but a few gogi berries won’t make up for a poor diet. Build a solid foundation and always aim to eat well.

Top tip – Use super foods to enhance a good diet.

Juicing Special

The Eat Well Gang got together in November for a special Jackie’s Gee Up, led by Paul Heslop, juicing enthusiast.  Since doing the Eat for a Better Life course, juicing has been a regular activity in the Heslop household and they’ve reaped the benefits in great health.  See Paul’s testimonial video here.

You can juice many fruits and vegetables.  For health, it’s best to concentrate on veg with just a little fruit to take away the bitter taste.  Wheatgrass featured prominently on our night and was combined with vegetables and fruits giving a range of flavours.  See Paul in action on the videos page under superfoods.

In the New Year, I’ll be challenging my readers to make green juices.  Christmas is coming soon, so if you don’t have a juicer perhaps some kind person might buy one for you as a present.

Feed Your Immune System

The long dark nights, wind and rain confirm that we are heading into winter. All around me, people are coming down with coughs and colds. In spite of their generosity in sharing – I don’t want one! Do you?

Did you know that most of your immune system is in your gut? Your susceptibility to disease can be affected by what you eat and drink. So when my husband came down with a cold, I reached for echinacea, wheatgrass and vegetable juices and coconut oil. Then I cooked up some of James Wong’s special chicken soup for colds including garlic, ginger, chillies. Effective and delicious.

To strengthen your immune system, eat more:

• Oily fish and eggs for vitamin D. Among its many health benefits, vitamin D primes our T cells. Your skin makes it for you in the summer sunshine but I live far too far north to make much at this time of year so I take it as a seasonal supplement.

• Vegetables – they give you lots of vitamins, minerals, enzymes and antioxidants plus fibre to feed the good bacteria in your gut.

• Coconut oil – has anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties.

• Live natural yoghurt and fermented vegetables repopulate your good bacteria.

Avoid:

• Sugar – it feeds bad bacteria, unbalancing your system.

• Processed food – you want your body to fight infection, not use all its energy fighting bad food.

• Alcohol.

Other tips:

• Eat right for your metabolic type (I can test if you don’t know)

• Get lots of sleep to make the powerful anti-oxidant melatonin.

• Exercise, especially out in the fresh air (but not vigorously once you have a cold).

• Give up smoking.

• Manage stress.

Top tip: Eat well to protect your health.

Soil – not just mud!

“We stand, in most places on earth, only 6 inches from desolation, for that is the thickness of the topsoil layer upon which the entire life of the planet depends.” (R Neil Sampson)

Usually the only magazines I buy are The Big Issue and a TV guide but recently I bought an issue of Country Life because HRH The Prince of Wales was guest editor. He has run Duchy Home Farm organically for 30 years and he understands farming.

One topic Prince Charles wrote about was soil. Research by University of Sheffield suggested that the nutrients in the soil will run out in 100 seasons if we carry on as we are. Other researchers think 60 years unless we start to reintroduce more sustainable practices now. Forty percent of the world’s agricultural soil is now classified as either degraded or seriously degraded (meaning that 70% of the topsoil is gone). Our soil is being lost at 10 to 40 times the rate it can be replenished. In some parts of the world over-intensive farming has created desert.

Growing plants use 60 minerals and trace minerals which they draw from the soil. Artificial fertilisers do not replace all these trace elements; they focus on three that make plants grow quickly and give high yield: nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Sadly this means that the mineral content of our food is reducing. Animals and people need diverse minerals. As the soil becomes depleted, we can suffer from deficiencies that affect our health.

We often see farmers muck-spreading in Cumbria; it gives the land ‘heart’. Don’t moan about the smell, rejoice in the goodness going back into the soil!

Top tips – support our good local farmers.

Liquid Gold

As you know by now, I’m keen for people to eat the way nature intended – of which more next month. But this time I’m going against that philosophy to tell you about something we were definitely not designed to eat. Why? The nutrient levels in our food have reduced and with the way that we live nowadays, it can be good to treat our bodies to a bit of a boost.

There are several ‘Super-foods’ we can eat to fill the nutritional gap and for me the king of them all is wheatgrass juice. I call it liquid gold (actually it isn’t gold, it’s bright green!) Full of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids and chlorophyll, each 2oz shot packs a mighty punch. When I drink it regularly, I feel more alive. It’s as if my brightness control has been turned up.

I haven’t come across any juice bars where I live, so how do you get some? I think it’s best fresh so I prefer to grow my own wheatgrass and juice it myself.

If you don’t fancy the faff of the DIY route, there are companies that sell it in different forms. Some supply the juice frozen in little pots, others sell it pressure treated in pouches which don’t need to be kept cold. There are also dried powders and pills but you’re unlikely to get the full enzyme benefit from these.

Is there any downside to this wonder drink? Sadly, it tastes awful! We don’t have the digestive machinery to eat grass so we naturally dislike the taste. Juicing is a cunning way to squeeze out the goodness and leave the cellulose behind in the pulp. I add other vegetables and fruits to the juice to make it more palatable.

If you want to know more, visit the wheatgrass page on this website and watch the video of Paul creating a delicious ‘salad in a glass’.

Top tip: Treat yourself to a super-food boost with wheatgrass juice.