Cold Remedy

It's that time of year again - common cold season.  And, why is it that it sometimes takes so long to get rid of?  No one size fits all answer here, but from my experience, I offer a few remedies, and of course, some of these remedies revolve around food.

First off, I am getting over a cold right now.  Less than a week ago, I went to try on bridesmaid dresses, and the places was an ICEBOX.  Literally, it was freezing -- and lo and behold, the next day I woke up with a super sore throat.  Immediate things I typically do when this happens: gargle mouthwash or saltwater.  It kills whatever is harboring in my throat.  But, the real problem is my immune system.  It wasn't strong enough from the beginning to fight the germs already around.  So, my plan of attack when I am sick or getting sick is to boost the immune system and create an environment for my body to heal.

I used to load up on vitamin C.  I don't know if it really works, because most of the time for me, it doesn't help all that much.  It might offer a sliver of help, but I believe most of the help comes through other means.  Vitamin C might be more a marketing game than your answer.

Here are a few ideas:
1) Stay warm.  Western medicine does not emphasize this enough.  When your immune system is down or boost your immune system, take every effort to stay warm.  Wear an extra layer, scarf, hat, extra socks, heaters, hot water bath or hot water spa for feet, cover exposed skin, extra blankets at night.  Drink warm water, don't drink cold (your organs work extra hard to get the cold water to your body temp).  Don't have cold feet -- all your major blood veins run through your feet, this will keep your blood flow moving.

2) Drink hot soup.  The soup warms up the inside, and when you have a homemade chicken soup, it is highly nutritious for your blood.  Try to load up on garlic and onions in your soup or meal. Don't underestimate the power of broth or soup, and I typically strip the saturated fats from the soup.

3) Steep ginger and drink as tea.  Ginger is powerful for empowering your immune system.  Peel the ginger, cut in slices and put in 2 cups of water or so.  Try to make it more potent than diluted.  Boil for a few minutes, then steep.  It should open up sinuses and give you a "fire-y" feel.

4) Drink goji juice.  So, for this one, I am promoting a supplemental juice that my family started to buy a couple of years ago.  It's called NingXia Red - and is a blend of goji and other berries, but this stuff is AMAZING.  I took 2 shots of it the day my throat started to get sore, and the sore throat subsided - I probably would have been fully better by the third day but I went outside in the cold for a while the third day, which then caused me to wake up with stuffy sinuses and a runny nose since then.  I should listen to my own advice...Here's the link: http://www.youngliving.com/essential-nutrition/goji-juice

5) Don't eat junk.  It will cause your body to fight even harder.  And, please don't eat sugary anything, breads, cakes, cookies, candy, etc.  This reduces your immune system.

Inflammed?

Toxins inflame.  Obesity inflames.  Sugar inflames?  A ravaging beast of the 21st century: inflammation.  Inflammation is our bodily reaction to harmful stimuli, protecting our body by removing injurious stimuli and initiating healing (taken from the Wikipedia entry on inflammation).  Without inflammation, our wounds would not heal.  We need the response.  But longer term, chronic inflammation leads to unnecessary "bystander" damage to tissue when the initial "removal" response is no longer needed.  Why is this important?  Because what we eat can either propagate the occurrence of inflammation or what we eat can help fuel our anti-inflammatory body reaction.  Without an anti-inflammatory response, cellular destruction results, and disorders and disesases like cancer follow.  And, I read in an abstract (I pasted the link below) that obesity (read: extra fat) represents a state of chronic low-level inflammation.  Which explains why studies are linking obesity to major diseases.

I want more anti-inflammatories!  What should I eat? (btw, I made up that term anti-inflammatories)

A top contender on the anti-inflammatory list is turmeric.  It is the yellow powder used in curry.  Turmeric is a powerful anti-inflammatory, and has been used for generations in India.  Eat curry!  I make it in chicken, potatoes and carrots - yum - in a Chinese curry sauce.  Other anti-inflammatory foods include garlic, onion, cruciferous vegetables, fennel, ginger, raspberries, blueberries, goji berries just to name a few.

I typically saute the vegetables - eat them fresh and eat them often. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1783744/