9 Immune Boosting Foods

Do you know the immune system is your body’s defender against infections and harmful bacteria? It even helps in combating incoming attacks from bacteria and viruses and reduces the illness severity. That’s why it’s important to maintain the proper health of your immune system. For that, you need to consume healthy foods to build immunity.

Certain foods with the right nutrients are essential to maintain healthy immune functioning. But what are these foods? Check out the nine foods to include in your diet to boost immunity.

1. Leafy Green Vegetables

Leafy green vegetables, including Brussels sprouts, spinach and kale, are highly rich in vitamin C. This vitamin is important to boost your immune function. According to researchers, vitamin C helps prevent respiratory infections like pneumonia and the common cold. It even decreases the risk of getting attacked by systemic infection, such as influenza.

2. Nuts and Seeds

Certain nuts like peanuts, almonds and hazelnuts have high vitamin E. This vitamin is even found in sunflower seeds. Vitamin E is essential to play various roles in the human body, including boosting the immune system. This vitamin is also listed as one of the important foods to include in the diet of patients undergoing chemotherapy. Therefore, you must include vitamin E-rich foods in your diet to boost your immunity.

3. Foods with Carotenoids

Pumpkins, carrots, sweet potatoes and different colourful foods do much more for you than just brightening up your food plate. These are popularly known to boost your immune system due to the presence of carotenoids. When consumed, the carotenoids turn into vitamin A.

Vitamin A is well-known for its antioxidant effect, which helps in strengthening your immune system. Some other foods that include carotenoids are peaches, mangoes, apricots, watermelon, pink grapefruit and collard greens. It’s even found in beef liver.

4. Fatty Fish

Another essential vitamin to include in your diet is vitamin D. It’s also called the sunshine vitamin, as one can get it through enough sun exposure. However, you can consume vitamin D-rich food to build immunity. Some foods that contain a good amount of vitamin D are fatty fish like tuna, salmon, mackerel and sardines. This vitamin is also found in some commercially available products like orange juice, milk and certain cereals.

5. Seafood and Poultry

Other foods to include in your diet to boost immunity are the ones with the zinc content. It is because zinc is good for helping us fight off bacteria and viruses. Some foods that are rich in zinc are seafood, such as crabs and oysters. You can even find zinc in poultry and lean meats. Even chickpeas and beans are good sources of zinc.

6. Yoghurt

Adding whole-fat plain yoghurt to your diet can increase probiotics in your system. Since probiotics are the good bacteria that improve your gut health, you must add them to your daily diet. The good bacteria in your gut can ward off bad bacteria while promoting a healthier immune system. But if you don’t like yoghurt, you can have other probiotics-rich foods like kombucha, pickles, kefir, tempeh, sauerkraut, miso, kimchi and sourdough bread.

7. Dark Chocolate

Many chocolate lovers tend to like milk chocolate. But a healthier snacking option is dark chocolate. Dark chocolate is rich in antioxidants, which improve your immune system. You can combine dark chocolate with high-antioxidant fruits, such as goji berries, blueberries, raspberries and strawberries, for added benefits to your immune system.

8. Garlic

Garlic is one age-old food that’s known for its medicinal powers. It even helps in lowering blood pressure while preventing blood clots. While it is not proven through studies, most people claim garlic boost the immune system. It further helps you make less prone to catching common infections like cold or flu.

9. Broccoli

Broccoli is also rich in vitamin C and also contains beta-carotene and sulphur compounds. According to research, these compounds help boost the production of glutathione, which is an antioxidant compound. For immune support, glutathione works simply by attacking the free radicals in the system and further minimises any potential damage. This enables your immune system to concentrate on being healthy while repairing itself from any damage.

Conclusion

Your immune system is always working and acting as your daily defence against bacteria, viruses and germs. Therefore, you must include immunity-boosting foods in your diet. You can add the mentioned foods to your diet to boost your immune system. This way, you lead a healthy life while minimising the risks of infections. 

Also, Read this: What are Probiotics?