Tag: culinary nutrition

5 Ways to Help Your Children Eat Their School Lunch

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With kids in school for most of the year, we want to make sure they are eating as much of their meals and snacks as possible. There are many reasons why your child may not eat well at lunchtime – maybe you have a chatterbox on your hands who just loves to catch up with friends and forgets to eat. Or perhaps your child will eat the snacks only and leave behind the main course. For younger children, perhaps the lack the motor skills and sheer strength to open their school lunch containers is a factor. Other children won’t tolerate the bright light of the cafeteria or the loud noise nearly as well as others.

The good news is there are many ways to help your child eat his or her school lunch. Here are the strategies I love to use that encourage kids to eat their school lunch.

5 Ways to Help Your Children Eat Their School Lunch

1. The Container and Lunchbox Must Pass the Open Test

One of the biggest challenges kids face at school is the amount of time they have to eat their lunch. In some schools, they allocate a mere 20 minutes while others are luckier with longer lunch times.

If your child can’t open their lunchbox or their containers and they have to rely on a teacher’s help, they are losing precious minutes holding their hand up and waiting to be seen and attended to. At worst, they can spend half their time waiting, leaving only 10 minutes to eat.

If your little one can’t open their container, return it and get a more kid-friendly lunchbox.

2. Don’t Use Too Many Individual Containers

It’s no accident that the bento-style lunch boxes became so popular. In terms of time savings, it’s huge. Kids literally just have to open one lid and all their food is ready to be eaten. Contrast that with the kid who is taking each container out of his or her lunchbox, opening each one individually, and figuring out which container is for snack time and which ones are for lunchtime. Not to mention they have to figure out what to do with the lids. The area of the table in front of them is a hot mess of containers and lids everywhere!

I found for my own pre-schooler, the sweet spot is to use 3 containers. Younger kids will have two snack times and one lunchtime. Two of the containers are dedicated for each one of the snack times, and one for lunch. All he has to worry about is to pull out the container dedicated to the meal he’s having. I love small containers that have a divider in the middle. You could even colour code containers or lids to designate the ones for snacks and the one for the main meal.

Don’t be afraid to ask your child for feedback. If they’re younger, they may not even know what’s bothering them about lunchtime.

Questions such as, “Was it easy to open your lunchbox/container?”, “Was it too messy?” and “Was it easy to get the food out of your container?” will all spark those conversations. You’ll be amazed how much useful information will come out of those conversations that will ultimately allow you to make meaningful changes.

3. Cut Everything Into Bite Sizes

For kids who love to chat with friends during lunchtime and “forget” to eat, this is my go-to tip. Cutting foods in a similar shape and size allows kids to chat away and still reach in their lunch container and grab a piece of food with little effort. These gluten-free and dairy-free bite-sized snacks will offer you some inspiration and can be modified if there are allergies.

I know it might seem like you are encouraging the chatting behaviour rather than eating, but this strategy is designed to encourage the volume of food they need as opposed to teaching them to focus. We have tip number 5 below to help with the focus part.

4. Protect Them From Sensory Overload

Eating is the only activity kids will do that requires them to coordinate all 8 senses. Eating in itself has a lot of information for the brain to sort through let alone when there are extra burdens placed on our sensory system.

That is the chaos of the cafeteria! They can be loud and bright. Visually, there are many distractions as well as lots of students, lots of movement, and the mess of scattered containers in front of them. Food smells meld together, which can be overpowering to some sensitive children. The easier we can make it on our kids from a sensory perspective, the easier it will be during lunchtime.

Making sure they can open their school lunch containers on their own, with minimal effort, sending fewer containers to open, and pre-opening any packaged foods are all helpful strategies to reduce the overload. If your child does not like bright environments, consider providing sunglasses. If your child is sensitive to loud noises, get them noise-reducing earmuffs.

Don’t be afraid to talk to your school and see if they can be placed in a quieter and less stimulating environment to eat if that’s what it takes.

5. Practice the School Lunch Routine at Home

Try practicing “lunchtime” at home right before school starts or after longer breaks like winter vacations or spring break. I also recommend doing this exercise whenever you feel that your little one needs to work on a particular skill.

Maybe they need to practice opening containers, tame their inner chatterbox, or simply need to work on eating around louder noises (in that case, turn up the radio during your practice lunch).

Pack dinner for everyone in a lunchbox and place your lunchboxes in a designated corner (this is a great way to practice your meal prep, too!). At dinnertime, ask everyone to go get their lunchboxes and come sit at the table. Each person is responsible for opening their own lunchbox and containers and eating as if it was at school. Set a timer for roughly how long children have to eat at school, and end the meal with everyone placing the containers back in the lunchbox. Next, have everyone place their lunchbox back in its designated spot.

You’re probably thinking that none of these tips have anything to do with kids doing any eating. That’s the next step. We first want to get kids in a place where they can focus on the food in front of them. If they are frustrated because it’s too hard to get the food out or they run out of time to eat, teaching them these skills will give them the foundation they need to move on and focus on the eating part.

Further Resources and Recipe Inspiration

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September 3, 2024
9 Immune-Supportive Foods To Cook With

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We tend to pay more attention to our immune system during cold and flu season when germs are swirling around like a tornado. However, it’s important to focus on practices that will support and strengthen immunity throughout the year. Pathogens are always around us – they don’t take vacations. This means incorporating cold-fighting foods into daily meals.

No matter the time of year, concentrate on these cold-fighting foods to keep your immune system healthy and humming. They’ll not only improve your health and help reduce the severity of symptoms if you’re hit with an infection but make you feel energized, too!

Here are 9 of our favourite cold-fighting foods! (And, if you want to dive in deeper, check out this post for 5 natural cold and flu remedies.)

how to support your immune system and 9 cold-fighting foods to cook with

Garlic

Why It’s Awesome

Garlic is a potent superfood with anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-viral properties. It’s been used throughout history to ward off infections, most recently in World War I and II, where garlic was applied to wounds to prevent infections and gangrene. But garlic isn’t just some folk-medicine remedy; there is modern scientific evidence that reveals it can protect us against the common cold.

In one study of 146 volunteers, the people who took a garlic supplement daily for three months were less likely to come down with colds than the placebo group. And, if the garlic group did contract a cold, they recovered much quicker than those taking the placebo. In another study, participants who swallowed aged garlic extract had fewer cold symptoms, missed fewer days of work, and improved faster than people who took the placebo. This led researchers to conclude that garlic enhances immune cell function and has an important role to play in diminishing the severity of colds and flus.

How to Enjoy

Garlic is one of our favourite cold-fighting foods because it can be used in so many dishes! Add it to your soups, stews, stir-fries, dips (like guacamole), or eat it straight-up raw if you feel a cold coming on. No one will want to kiss you (that garlic breath can be potent!), but if you’re sniffling and sneezing everyone’s likely giving you a wide berth anyway.

Onions

Photo: Alice Henneman

Why It’s Awesome

Like garlic, onion is an incredibly potent vegetable with cold-fighting properties. In addition to containing the anti-bacterial and anti-viral compound allicin (also found in garlic), onions have a flavanoid called quercetin, a potent antioxidant that protects our cells from damage and has been studied as a flu-fighter.

In one study of mice, researchers exercised the animals and then gave them quercetin or a placebo. The mice who received quercetin had a reduced risk of respiratory infections. Additional research on onion extracts given to rats showed that the onion boosted their immune system, raising their white blood cell count.

Onions are also high in Vitamin C, a well-known vitamin that supports immunity, as well as molecules called Onionin-A that reduce inflammation and help to modulate our immune defenses.

How to Enjoy

Onion can be used as one of the cold-fighting foods in a variety of soups, stews, stir-fries, breakfast casseroles, and omelettes, or eaten raw in salads.

Lemons

Why It’s Awesome

Lemons have earned their rightful place as one of the top cold-fighting foods because of their high content of Vitamin C. Vitamin C has become famous for its effect on the common cold, and it’s an important nutrient that supports and strengthens our immune system.

Vitamin C helps shorten the duration and severity of infections and can play a role in preventing them in the first place. It stimulates immunity – but prevents the immune system from getting out of hand – and helps to reduce inflammation as well. And, as an antioxidant, it protects us from cellular damage.

How to Enjoy

Lemons (and limes) are so easy to incorporate into your daily diet! Add a tablespoon of lemon juice to warm water in the morning (this also helps to kickstart digestion), incorporate it into green juices and smoothies, add it to your salad dressings, and use lemon to enhance the flavour of virtually any meal.

Butternut Squash (and all winter squashes)

Why It’s Awesome

Butternut squash are rich in cucurbitacins, highly anti-inflammatory compounds that lend the squash its anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties. At a deeper immune level, squashes have anti-cancer effects.

Additionally, squashes are high in Vitamin C (discussed above) and Vitamin A, which not only enhances immunity but also helps to modulate and support the two different arms of the immune system.

How to Enjoy

Wintertime is synonymous with butternut squash and winter squash, and they’re widely available at farmers’ markets and grocery stores. You can use them as you would any root vegetable: in soups, stews, and casseroles, but they can even be incorporated into smoothies, sliced and used as lasagna noodles in Paleo recipes, and puréed and then incorporated into sweet or savory baked goodies like these butternut squash muffins.

If you find yourself befuddled at all of the winter squash choices, check out our ultimate guide to winter squash that breaks down each variety and how to use them.

Ginger

Why It’s Awesome

Ginger has a delicious, spicy kick that is full to the brim with cold-fighting benefits. It settles the stomach and reduces nausea, making it an optimal food to consume when colds and flus leave you feeling nauseated.

This hardy root contains gingerols, which are powerful compounds that block inflammation, as well as anti-oxidants that reduce inflammation and have anti-cancer properties. Fresh ginger can also prevent viruses from attaching to our airways.

How to Enjoy

Ginger can be added to smoothies, soups (try this carrot ginger version), elixirs, stews, salad dressings, dips and spreads, and homemade crackers.

You can also grate ginger into hot water with some lemon and raw honey for immune and anti-microbial support. If you’re feeling brave, you can also try making fire cider!

Bone Broth

Why It’s Awesome

Research on chicken soup shows that it can reduce inflammation, ease cold symptoms, and shorten the amount of time we suffer from respiratory symptoms. Scientists also suggested that broth can rehydrate us, which is particularly helpful if you’ve been spending a lot of time hugging the toilet.

Bone broth is rich in a variety of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that help to nourish the intestinal tract, bones, joints, and teeth. One of bone broth’s superstar nutrients is gelatin, which provides nutrients that supports a variety of conditions including peptic ulcers, tuberculosis, diabetes, muscle diseases, infectious diseases, jaundice, and cancer. It’s especially helpful in supporting the healing of the digestive tract and facilitates digestion by attracting digestive juices to food in the gut.

Grab our full guide to making broths and stocks and start simmering.

How to Enjoy

You can ladle bone broth into a mug and sip away, or build a more substantial soup by adding onions, garlic, ginger, veggies, and dark leafy greens. Bone broth is also wonderful as the liquid for cooking grains or in sauces.

Sweet Potatoes

Why It’s Awesome

Sweet potatoes contain sky-high amounts of Vitamin A, which as we mentioned earlier, enhance and modulate immunity, as well as help to heal mucosal barriers that have been ravaged by infections. A single cup of sweet potatoes offers over 200% of your recommended daily value of Vitamin A!

But that’s not all – sweet potatoes are rich in the immune-supportive Vitamin C, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatory compounds that can help reduce the pain and swelling you might experience with a cold. You’ll also find a range of B-vitamins, which will help amp up your energy levels when dealing with a cold or flu and help you feel less stressed about it.

How to Enjoy

Sweet potatoes are a versatile cooking ingredient. Chop them up into chunks or wedges for sweet potato fries, roast them whole and then stuff them with beans and toppings, mash them with coconut oil and cinnamon, bake them into chips, use sweet potato purée in baked goods, grate them raw over salads, or spread them over your favourite shepherd’s pie instead of white potatoes.

Mushrooms

Why It’s Awesome

A variety of medicinal and culinary mushrooms are now available at the grocery store – we’re not merely stuck with white button mushrooms! All mushrooms have beta-glucans, which support the immune system and modulate it as needed as well as additional compounds that have anti-viral, antibiotic, and anti-inflammatory properties. They are also a great source of zinc, an important mineral that supports the immune system and keeps it in check.

How to Enjoy

Whole culinary mushrooms can be used in one-pot meals, savory breakfasts like eggs, omelettes and oatmeal, gluten-free flatbreads, stir-fries, and dairy-free soups. They also make great pizza toppings!

Discover more mushroom recipes in this guide to medicinal mushrooms.

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Eggs

Photo: Joseph Gonzalez on Unsplash

Why It’s Awesome

Eggs contain Vitamin D, which helps to modulate our immune system, reduce our risk of infections, and prevent autoimmune diseases. They’re a nutrient-dense source of protein, and protein helps us produce anti-bodies and ward off infections, as well as repair damaged tissue. Eggs are packed with anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats, Vitamin A for immunity, and B vitamins to help us sleep – something we could all use when we’re under the weather.

How to Enjoy

Eat eggs for breakfast in a variety of ways: scrambled, poached, over-easy, soft-boiled, or however you love your eggs. Make an omelette or quiche, use them to bind crackers or gluten-free bread, have a hard-boiled egg as a snack or atop salads, or crack an egg into your hot noodle dishes.

Immune System Lifestyle Tips

These additional handy tips can help further support healthy immunity.

Avoid sugar

Sugary foods inhibit our ability to destroy harmful bacteria, so it’s best to avoid sweet treats if you feel a cold or flu coming on and also while you’re sick (and that includes the natural sweeteners too). If you’re struggling with sugar cravings, these tips can help.

Reduce stress

You’ve probably heard that stress negatively impacts our health in a variety of ways. When it comes to the immune system and cold and flu season, stress inhibits our adrenal hormones – particularly cortisol, which helps to regulate inflammation. Prolonged stress not only leaves us vulnerable to infections but also may impact our ability to fight infections once they set in. (For a detailed summary of stress and immunity, check out this meta-analysis.)

Drink loads of water

Hydration is essential to flushing out toxins, supporting digestion, reducing pain and headaches, and transporting chemical messengers throughout the body. So drink up – we recommend the cleanest water source you can find, without chlorine and other chemicals. If plain water sounds boring, try jazzing it up, or consume green juice, smoothies, or herbal teas.

Make your own herbal tinctures and syrups using cold-fighting foods

Concocting herbal tinctures isn’t as difficult as you might expect – all you need is a clean mason jar, a few healthful ingredients, and time. We have a full tutorial on homemade tinctures for you to try. For immune system support, try making Fire Cider, a fiery mix of a number of immune-enhancing food such as ginger, garlic, onion, horseradish, raw honey, and apple cider vinegar, or homemade elderberry syrup.

Integrating these 9 cold-fighting foods into your regular dietary rotation can help you support the immune system, prevent those inconvenient colds and flus, and help you recover more quickly if you do happen to succumb to the sniffles.

Header Image: iStock/marilyna

Free Resource Library

Enjoy more than 40 downloadable guides, recipes, and resources.

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Academy of Culinary Nutrition

Source link

January 11, 2024
9 Immune-Supportive Foods To Cook With

[ad_1]

We tend to pay more attention to our immune system during cold and flu season when germs are swirling around like a tornado. However, it’s important to focus on practices that will support and strengthen immunity throughout the year. Pathogens are always around us – they don’t take vacations. This means incorporating cold-fighting foods into daily meals.

No matter the time of year, concentrate on these cold-fighting foods to keep your immune system healthy and humming. They’ll not only improve your health and help reduce the severity of symptoms if you’re hit with an infection but make you feel energized, too!

Here are 9 of our favourite cold-fighting foods! (And, if you want to dive in deeper, check out this post for 5 natural cold and flu remedies.)

how to support your immune system and 9 cold-fighting foods to cook with

Garlic

Why It’s Awesome

Garlic is a potent superfood with anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-viral properties. It’s been used throughout history to ward off infections, most recently in World War I and II, where garlic was applied to wounds to prevent infections and gangrene. But garlic isn’t just some folk-medicine remedy; there is modern scientific evidence that reveals it can protect us against the common cold.

In one study of 146 volunteers, the people who took a garlic supplement daily for three months were less likely to come down with colds than the placebo group. And, if the garlic group did contract a cold, they recovered much quicker than those taking the placebo. In another study, participants who swallowed aged garlic extract had fewer cold symptoms, missed fewer days of work, and improved faster than people who took the placebo. This led researchers to conclude that garlic enhances immune cell function and has an important role to play in diminishing the severity of colds and flus.

How to Enjoy

Garlic is one of our favourite cold-fighting foods because it can be used in so many dishes! Add it to your soups, stews, stir-fries, dips (like guacamole), or eat it straight-up raw if you feel a cold coming on. No one will want to kiss you (that garlic breath can be potent!), but if you’re sniffling and sneezing everyone’s likely giving you a wide berth anyway.

Onions

Photo: Alice Henneman

Why It’s Awesome

Like garlic, onion is an incredibly potent vegetable with cold-fighting properties. In addition to containing the anti-bacterial and anti-viral compound allicin (also found in garlic), onions have a flavanoid called quercetin, a potent antioxidant that protects our cells from damage and has been studied as a flu-fighter.

In one study of mice, researchers exercised the animals and then gave them quercetin or a placebo. The mice who received quercetin had a reduced risk of respiratory infections. Additional research on onion extracts given to rats showed that the onion boosted their immune system, raising their white blood cell count.

Onions are also high in Vitamin C, a well-known vitamin that supports immunity, as well as molecules called Onionin-A that reduce inflammation and help to modulate our immune defenses.

How to Enjoy

Onion can be used as one of the cold-fighting foods in a variety of soups, stews, stir-fries, breakfast casseroles, and omelettes, or eaten raw in salads.

Lemons

Why It’s Awesome

Lemons have earned their rightful place as one of the top cold-fighting foods because of their high content of Vitamin C. Vitamin C has become famous for its effect on the common cold, and it’s an important nutrient that supports and strengthens our immune system.

Vitamin C helps shorten the duration and severity of infections and can play a role in preventing them in the first place. It stimulates immunity – but prevents the immune system from getting out of hand – and helps to reduce inflammation as well. And, as an antioxidant, it protects us from cellular damage.

How to Enjoy

Lemons (and limes) are so easy to incorporate into your daily diet! Add a tablespoon of lemon juice to warm water in the morning (this also helps to kickstart digestion), incorporate it into green juices and smoothies, add it to your salad dressings, and use lemon to enhance the flavour of virtually any meal.

Butternut Squash (and all winter squashes)

Why It’s Awesome

Butternut squash are rich in cucurbitacins, highly anti-inflammatory compounds that lend the squash its anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties. At a deeper immune level, squashes have anti-cancer effects.

Additionally, squashes are high in Vitamin C (discussed above) and Vitamin A, which not only enhances immunity but also helps to modulate and support the two different arms of the immune system.

How to Enjoy

Wintertime is synonymous with butternut squash and winter squash, and they’re widely available at farmers’ markets and grocery stores. You can use them as you would any root vegetable: in soups, stews, and casseroles, but they can even be incorporated into smoothies, sliced and used as lasagna noodles in Paleo recipes, and puréed and then incorporated into sweet or savory baked goodies like these butternut squash muffins.

If you find yourself befuddled at all of the winter squash choices, check out our ultimate guide to winter squash that breaks down each variety and how to use them.

Ginger

Why It’s Awesome

Ginger has a delicious, spicy kick that is full to the brim with cold-fighting benefits. It settles the stomach and reduces nausea, making it an optimal food to consume when colds and flus leave you feeling nauseated.

This hardy root contains gingerols, which are powerful compounds that block inflammation, as well as anti-oxidants that reduce inflammation and have anti-cancer properties. Fresh ginger can also prevent viruses from attaching to our airways.

How to Enjoy

Ginger can be added to smoothies, soups (try this carrot ginger version), elixirs, stews, salad dressings, dips and spreads, and homemade crackers.

You can also grate ginger into hot water with some lemon and raw honey for immune and anti-microbial support. If you’re feeling brave, you can also try making fire cider!

Bone Broth

Why It’s Awesome

Research on chicken soup shows that it can reduce inflammation, ease cold symptoms, and shorten the amount of time we suffer from respiratory symptoms. Scientists also suggested that broth can rehydrate us, which is particularly helpful if you’ve been spending a lot of time hugging the toilet.

Bone broth is rich in a variety of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that help to nourish the intestinal tract, bones, joints, and teeth. One of bone broth’s superstar nutrients is gelatin, which provides nutrients that supports a variety of conditions including peptic ulcers, tuberculosis, diabetes, muscle diseases, infectious diseases, jaundice, and cancer. It’s especially helpful in supporting the healing of the digestive tract and facilitates digestion by attracting digestive juices to food in the gut.

Grab our full guide to making broths and stocks and start simmering.

How to Enjoy

You can ladle bone broth into a mug and sip away, or build a more substantial soup by adding onions, garlic, ginger, veggies, and dark leafy greens. Bone broth is also wonderful as the liquid for cooking grains or in sauces.

Sweet Potatoes

Why It’s Awesome

Sweet potatoes contain sky-high amounts of Vitamin A, which as we mentioned earlier, enhance and modulate immunity, as well as help to heal mucosal barriers that have been ravaged by infections. A single cup of sweet potatoes offers over 200% of your recommended daily value of Vitamin A!

But that’s not all – sweet potatoes are rich in the immune-supportive Vitamin C, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatory compounds that can help reduce the pain and swelling you might experience with a cold. You’ll also find a range of B-vitamins, which will help amp up your energy levels when dealing with a cold or flu and help you feel less stressed about it.

How to Enjoy

Sweet potatoes are a versatile cooking ingredient. Chop them up into chunks or wedges for sweet potato fries, roast them whole and then stuff them with beans and toppings, mash them with coconut oil and cinnamon, bake them into chips, use sweet potato purée in baked goods, grate them raw over salads, or spread them over your favourite shepherd’s pie instead of white potatoes.

Mushrooms

Why It’s Awesome

A variety of medicinal and culinary mushrooms are now available at the grocery store – we’re not merely stuck with white button mushrooms! All mushrooms have beta-glucans, which support the immune system and modulate it as needed as well as additional compounds that have anti-viral, antibiotic, and anti-inflammatory properties. They are also a great source of zinc, an important mineral that supports the immune system and keeps it in check.

How to Enjoy

Whole culinary mushrooms can be used in one-pot meals, savory breakfasts like eggs, omelettes and oatmeal, gluten-free flatbreads, stir-fries, and dairy-free soups. They also make great pizza toppings!

Discover more mushroom recipes in this guide to medicinal mushrooms.

[mz_kajabi_signup_form]

Eggs

Photo: Joseph Gonzalez on Unsplash

Why It’s Awesome

Eggs contain Vitamin D, which helps to modulate our immune system, reduce our risk of infections, and prevent autoimmune diseases. They’re a nutrient-dense source of protein, and protein helps us produce anti-bodies and ward off infections, as well as repair damaged tissue. Eggs are packed with anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats, Vitamin A for immunity, and B vitamins to help us sleep – something we could all use when we’re under the weather.

How to Enjoy

Eat eggs for breakfast in a variety of ways: scrambled, poached, over-easy, soft-boiled, or however you love your eggs. Make an omelette or quiche, use them to bind crackers or gluten-free bread, have a hard-boiled egg as a snack or atop salads, or crack an egg into your hot noodle dishes.

Immune System Lifestyle Tips

These additional handy tips can help further support healthy immunity.

Avoid sugar

Sugary foods inhibit our ability to destroy harmful bacteria, so it’s best to avoid sweet treats if you feel a cold or flu coming on and also while you’re sick (and that includes the natural sweeteners too). If you’re struggling with sugar cravings, these tips can help.

Reduce stress

You’ve probably heard that stress negatively impacts our health in a variety of ways. When it comes to the immune system and cold and flu season, stress inhibits our adrenal hormones – particularly cortisol, which helps to regulate inflammation. Prolonged stress not only leaves us vulnerable to infections but also may impact our ability to fight infections once they set in. (For a detailed summary of stress and immunity, check out this meta-analysis.)

Drink loads of water

Hydration is essential to flushing out toxins, supporting digestion, reducing pain and headaches, and transporting chemical messengers throughout the body. So drink up – we recommend the cleanest water source you can find, without chlorine and other chemicals. If plain water sounds boring, try jazzing it up, or consume green juice, smoothies, or herbal teas.

Make your own herbal tinctures and syrups using cold-fighting foods

Concocting herbal tinctures isn’t as difficult as you might expect – all you need is a clean mason jar, a few healthful ingredients, and time. We have a full tutorial on homemade tinctures for you to try. For immune system support, try making Fire Cider, a fiery mix of a number of immune-enhancing food such as ginger, garlic, onion, horseradish, raw honey, and apple cider vinegar, or homemade elderberry syrup.

Integrating these 9 cold-fighting foods into your regular dietary rotation can help you support the immune system, prevent those inconvenient colds and flus, and help you recover more quickly if you do happen to succumb to the sniffles.

Header Image: iStock/marilyna

Free Resource Library

Enjoy more than 40 downloadable guides, recipes, and resources.

[ad_2]

Academy of Culinary Nutrition

Source link

January 11, 2024
9 Immune-Supportive Foods To Cook With

[ad_1]

We tend to pay more attention to our immune system during cold and flu season when germs are swirling around like a tornado. However, it’s important to focus on practices that will support and strengthen immunity throughout the year. Pathogens are always around us – they don’t take vacations. This means incorporating cold-fighting foods into daily meals.

No matter the time of year, concentrate on these cold-fighting foods to keep your immune system healthy and humming. They’ll not only improve your health and help reduce the severity of symptoms if you’re hit with an infection but make you feel energized, too!

Here are 9 of our favourite cold-fighting foods! (And, if you want to dive in deeper, check out this post for 5 natural cold and flu remedies.)

how to support your immune system and 9 cold-fighting foods to cook with

Garlic

Why It’s Awesome

Garlic is a potent superfood with anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-viral properties. It’s been used throughout history to ward off infections, most recently in World War I and II, where garlic was applied to wounds to prevent infections and gangrene. But garlic isn’t just some folk-medicine remedy; there is modern scientific evidence that reveals it can protect us against the common cold.

In one study of 146 volunteers, the people who took a garlic supplement daily for three months were less likely to come down with colds than the placebo group. And, if the garlic group did contract a cold, they recovered much quicker than those taking the placebo. In another study, participants who swallowed aged garlic extract had fewer cold symptoms, missed fewer days of work, and improved faster than people who took the placebo. This led researchers to conclude that garlic enhances immune cell function and has an important role to play in diminishing the severity of colds and flus.

How to Enjoy

Garlic is one of our favourite cold-fighting foods because it can be used in so many dishes! Add it to your soups, stews, stir-fries, dips (like guacamole), or eat it straight-up raw if you feel a cold coming on. No one will want to kiss you (that garlic breath can be potent!), but if you’re sniffling and sneezing everyone’s likely giving you a wide berth anyway.

Onions

Photo: Alice Henneman

Why It’s Awesome

Like garlic, onion is an incredibly potent vegetable with cold-fighting properties. In addition to containing the anti-bacterial and anti-viral compound allicin (also found in garlic), onions have a flavanoid called quercetin, a potent antioxidant that protects our cells from damage and has been studied as a flu-fighter.

In one study of mice, researchers exercised the animals and then gave them quercetin or a placebo. The mice who received quercetin had a reduced risk of respiratory infections. Additional research on onion extracts given to rats showed that the onion boosted their immune system, raising their white blood cell count.

Onions are also high in Vitamin C, a well-known vitamin that supports immunity, as well as molecules called Onionin-A that reduce inflammation and help to modulate our immune defenses.

How to Enjoy

Onion can be used as one of the cold-fighting foods in a variety of soups, stews, stir-fries, breakfast casseroles, and omelettes, or eaten raw in salads.

Lemons

Why It’s Awesome

Lemons have earned their rightful place as one of the top cold-fighting foods because of their high content of Vitamin C. Vitamin C has become famous for its effect on the common cold, and it’s an important nutrient that supports and strengthens our immune system.

Vitamin C helps shorten the duration and severity of infections and can play a role in preventing them in the first place. It stimulates immunity – but prevents the immune system from getting out of hand – and helps to reduce inflammation as well. And, as an antioxidant, it protects us from cellular damage.

How to Enjoy

Lemons (and limes) are so easy to incorporate into your daily diet! Add a tablespoon of lemon juice to warm water in the morning (this also helps to kickstart digestion), incorporate it into green juices and smoothies, add it to your salad dressings, and use lemon to enhance the flavour of virtually any meal.

Butternut Squash (and all winter squashes)

Why It’s Awesome

Butternut squash are rich in cucurbitacins, highly anti-inflammatory compounds that lend the squash its anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties. At a deeper immune level, squashes have anti-cancer effects.

Additionally, squashes are high in Vitamin C (discussed above) and Vitamin A, which not only enhances immunity but also helps to modulate and support the two different arms of the immune system.

How to Enjoy

Wintertime is synonymous with butternut squash and winter squash, and they’re widely available at farmers’ markets and grocery stores. You can use them as you would any root vegetable: in soups, stews, and casseroles, but they can even be incorporated into smoothies, sliced and used as lasagna noodles in Paleo recipes, and puréed and then incorporated into sweet or savory baked goodies like these butternut squash muffins.

If you find yourself befuddled at all of the winter squash choices, check out our ultimate guide to winter squash that breaks down each variety and how to use them.

Ginger

Why It’s Awesome

Ginger has a delicious, spicy kick that is full to the brim with cold-fighting benefits. It settles the stomach and reduces nausea, making it an optimal food to consume when colds and flus leave you feeling nauseated.

This hardy root contains gingerols, which are powerful compounds that block inflammation, as well as anti-oxidants that reduce inflammation and have anti-cancer properties. Fresh ginger can also prevent viruses from attaching to our airways.

How to Enjoy

Ginger can be added to smoothies, soups (try this carrot ginger version), elixirs, stews, salad dressings, dips and spreads, and homemade crackers.

You can also grate ginger into hot water with some lemon and raw honey for immune and anti-microbial support. If you’re feeling brave, you can also try making fire cider!

Bone Broth

Why It’s Awesome

Research on chicken soup shows that it can reduce inflammation, ease cold symptoms, and shorten the amount of time we suffer from respiratory symptoms. Scientists also suggested that broth can rehydrate us, which is particularly helpful if you’ve been spending a lot of time hugging the toilet.

Bone broth is rich in a variety of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that help to nourish the intestinal tract, bones, joints, and teeth. One of bone broth’s superstar nutrients is gelatin, which provides nutrients that supports a variety of conditions including peptic ulcers, tuberculosis, diabetes, muscle diseases, infectious diseases, jaundice, and cancer. It’s especially helpful in supporting the healing of the digestive tract and facilitates digestion by attracting digestive juices to food in the gut.

Grab our full guide to making broths and stocks and start simmering.

How to Enjoy

You can ladle bone broth into a mug and sip away, or build a more substantial soup by adding onions, garlic, ginger, veggies, and dark leafy greens. Bone broth is also wonderful as the liquid for cooking grains or in sauces.

Sweet Potatoes

Why It’s Awesome

Sweet potatoes contain sky-high amounts of Vitamin A, which as we mentioned earlier, enhance and modulate immunity, as well as help to heal mucosal barriers that have been ravaged by infections. A single cup of sweet potatoes offers over 200% of your recommended daily value of Vitamin A!

But that’s not all – sweet potatoes are rich in the immune-supportive Vitamin C, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatory compounds that can help reduce the pain and swelling you might experience with a cold. You’ll also find a range of B-vitamins, which will help amp up your energy levels when dealing with a cold or flu and help you feel less stressed about it.

How to Enjoy

Sweet potatoes are a versatile cooking ingredient. Chop them up into chunks or wedges for sweet potato fries, roast them whole and then stuff them with beans and toppings, mash them with coconut oil and cinnamon, bake them into chips, use sweet potato purée in baked goods, grate them raw over salads, or spread them over your favourite shepherd’s pie instead of white potatoes.

Mushrooms

Why It’s Awesome

A variety of medicinal and culinary mushrooms are now available at the grocery store – we’re not merely stuck with white button mushrooms! All mushrooms have beta-glucans, which support the immune system and modulate it as needed as well as additional compounds that have anti-viral, antibiotic, and anti-inflammatory properties. They are also a great source of zinc, an important mineral that supports the immune system and keeps it in check.

How to Enjoy

Whole culinary mushrooms can be used in one-pot meals, savory breakfasts like eggs, omelettes and oatmeal, gluten-free flatbreads, stir-fries, and dairy-free soups. They also make great pizza toppings!

Discover more mushroom recipes in this guide to medicinal mushrooms.

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Eggs

Photo: Joseph Gonzalez on Unsplash

Why It’s Awesome

Eggs contain Vitamin D, which helps to modulate our immune system, reduce our risk of infections, and prevent autoimmune diseases. They’re a nutrient-dense source of protein, and protein helps us produce anti-bodies and ward off infections, as well as repair damaged tissue. Eggs are packed with anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats, Vitamin A for immunity, and B vitamins to help us sleep – something we could all use when we’re under the weather.

How to Enjoy

Eat eggs for breakfast in a variety of ways: scrambled, poached, over-easy, soft-boiled, or however you love your eggs. Make an omelette or quiche, use them to bind crackers or gluten-free bread, have a hard-boiled egg as a snack or atop salads, or crack an egg into your hot noodle dishes.

Immune System Lifestyle Tips

These additional handy tips can help further support healthy immunity.

Avoid sugar

Sugary foods inhibit our ability to destroy harmful bacteria, so it’s best to avoid sweet treats if you feel a cold or flu coming on and also while you’re sick (and that includes the natural sweeteners too). If you’re struggling with sugar cravings, these tips can help.

Reduce stress

You’ve probably heard that stress negatively impacts our health in a variety of ways. When it comes to the immune system and cold and flu season, stress inhibits our adrenal hormones – particularly cortisol, which helps to regulate inflammation. Prolonged stress not only leaves us vulnerable to infections but also may impact our ability to fight infections once they set in. (For a detailed summary of stress and immunity, check out this meta-analysis.)

Drink loads of water

Hydration is essential to flushing out toxins, supporting digestion, reducing pain and headaches, and transporting chemical messengers throughout the body. So drink up – we recommend the cleanest water source you can find, without chlorine and other chemicals. If plain water sounds boring, try jazzing it up, or consume green juice, smoothies, or herbal teas.

Make your own herbal tinctures and syrups using cold-fighting foods

Concocting herbal tinctures isn’t as difficult as you might expect – all you need is a clean mason jar, a few healthful ingredients, and time. We have a full tutorial on homemade tinctures for you to try. For immune system support, try making Fire Cider, a fiery mix of a number of immune-enhancing food such as ginger, garlic, onion, horseradish, raw honey, and apple cider vinegar, or homemade elderberry syrup.

Integrating these 9 cold-fighting foods into your regular dietary rotation can help you support the immune system, prevent those inconvenient colds and flus, and help you recover more quickly if you do happen to succumb to the sniffles.

Header Image: iStock/marilyna

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Academy of Culinary Nutrition

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January 11, 2024
How to Celebrate Healthy Holidays: Tips and Recipes

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This time of year can be challenging for those of us who maintain a healthful, whole foods diet throughout the year. It’s not that we are necessarily tempted by chocolates pumped full of refined sugar, but sometimes it can be difficult to find something to eat at holiday gatherings or politely refuse the fruitcake pressed upon us by well-intentioned relatives. With a few tips and tricks at the ready, it’s doable to celebrate healthy holidays and feel vibrant throughout.

Here in Canada (where you’ll find the HQ of the Academy of Culinary Nutrition), we kick the holiday season off the second week of October during Canadian Thanksgiving – and the intensity only increases after Halloween.

Unless you decide to forgo the holidays altogether, the reality is you might be confronted with some awkward or less than ideal food situations. Here are some of our best suggestions about how to celebrate healthy holidays this year.

how to celebrate healthy holidays

Host Gatherings at Your Home for Healthy Holidays

The obvious way to avoid foods that you know don’t support your health is to offer to host the meal at your home. Of course, we realize this is not always the easiest option, especially since whole food cooking involves making many things from scratch. However, if you’re accustomed to healthy cooking and love doing so, hosting the meal on your own turf is a beautiful way to share delicious, nourishing food with the people you care about.

If you’re cooking for those who are wary of healthy food, no fear – their taste buds won’t be able to tell the difference if you:

More Holiday Themed Recipes

20 Best Healthy Mocktails

25 Best Holiday Sides and Appetizers

30 Best Healthy Holiday Recipes

20 Amazing Healthy Holiday Desserts

Offer An Honest, but Diplomatic Explanation for Your Food Choices at Gatherings

Photo: Gabriel Gurrola via Unsplash

Sharing food is one of the ways we all like to express love and appreciation. When others perceive that you are rejecting their food, or judging the way that they eat, it can feel difficult or hurtful.

It’s helpful to explain that you are working on your health and that means there are certain foods that disagree with you. If you’re attending a meal with close family and friends, it’s likely that they already know a lot about you and the way that you eat, so this news won’t come as a surprise.

When you’re with people you don’t know very well, explain your situation clearly and diplomatically, but never criticize or preach to them. Just as you’d like people to respect your eating style, you can’t force kale on people unless they are ready to receive it.

If you are with family or friends who refuse to accept your lifestyle and criticize you for your ‘health nut’ ways, remember that their behaviour isn’t about you – it’s about them so try not to take their judgement or teasing personally. Don’t eat anything you don’t want to in order to diffuse a situation or make someone else feel better. If you feel awful or have to run to the toilet with diarrhea, that’s not actually helping anyone at all!

Call Ahead

Don’t show up at an aunt’s house and demand special treatment without warning. Call ahead and explain any dietary restrictions you have to your host and propose solutions you have to handle them. For example, you could offer to bring an entrée or dessert, or ask if elements such as dressings or sauces could be left on the side for guests to add to their own plates.

Bring a Delicious Dish to Share

Don’t isolate yourself with a specially prepared meal. Bring a huge casserole dish to share the healthy goodness with everyone else. For example, this shepherd’s pie is always a crowd-pleaser, and it’s hearty enough to serve as your entrée and a side for everyone else. It’s also difficult to turn down mashed sweet potatoes, or a plate of cookies.

Discover more about how to create a healthy potluck dish here.

Nourish Yourself Well During Non-Holiday Meals

Image: iStock/Kuvona

While it may seem like the holiday season is rolling 24/7, there are plenty of opportunities aside from festivities where you can focus on fueling yourself with foods you know support your health.

When we’re not celebrating, we like to focus on anti-inflammatory, immune-supportive and digestive-friendly items such as:

It may help to do some meal prep and menu planning so you have nutritious foods at the ready during those non-holiday meals.

Get your FREE Anti-Inflammatory Shopping List plus 35 more free resource guides!

Fill out the form below for instant access.

Free Resource Library

Enjoy more than 40 downloadable guides, recipes, and resources.

Add Movement to Your Day

Sure, it’s cozy to hunker down wrapped in blankets in front of a fire, yet we still want to keep that circulation flowing. Movement during our healthy holidays doesn’t need to be excessive or rigorous – a short walk, light stretching, or even some seated exercises can be a big help.

Don’t Forget to Stay Hydrated

Staying hydrated is key to health throughout the year and sometimes we don’t think about this as much during the cooler months or holiday season. Drink water throughout the day, setting a timer on your phone or whatever else you need as a reminder. Other hydrating drinks to help you have healthy holidays include:

Try Not to Stress Too Much

Try not to agonize about healthy holidays – stress inhibits digestion and isn’t helpful to our overall health. Do the best that you can, and maintain a positive attitude throughout your holiday meals. The point of this time of year is to relax with your family so don’t make it all about the food, and focus on other ways to enjoy the company of your loved ones.

Tell us what you think! How do you handle the holidays around your house?

Free Resource Library

Enjoy more than 40 downloadable guides, recipes, and resources.

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Academy of Culinary Nutrition

Source link

December 21, 2023
How to Celebrate Healthy Holidays: Tips and Recipes

[ad_1]

This time of year can be challenging for those of us who maintain a healthful, whole foods diet throughout the year. It’s not that we are necessarily tempted by chocolates pumped full of refined sugar, but sometimes it can be difficult to find something to eat at holiday gatherings or politely refuse the fruitcake pressed upon us by well-intentioned relatives. With a few tips and tricks at the ready, it’s doable to celebrate healthy holidays and feel vibrant throughout.

Here in Canada (where you’ll find the HQ of the Academy of Culinary Nutrition), we kick the holiday season off the second week of October during Canadian Thanksgiving – and the intensity only increases after Halloween.

Unless you decide to forgo the holidays altogether, the reality is you might be confronted with some awkward or less than ideal food situations. Here are some of our best suggestions about how to celebrate healthy holidays this year.

how to celebrate healthy holidays

Host Gatherings at Your Home for Healthy Holidays

The obvious way to avoid foods that you know don’t support your health is to offer to host the meal at your home. Of course, we realize this is not always the easiest option, especially since whole food cooking involves making many things from scratch. However, if you’re accustomed to healthy cooking and love doing so, hosting the meal on your own turf is a beautiful way to share delicious, nourishing food with the people you care about.

If you’re cooking for those who are wary of healthy food, no fear – their taste buds won’t be able to tell the difference if you:

More Holiday Themed Recipes

20 Best Healthy Mocktails

25 Best Holiday Sides and Appetizers

30 Best Healthy Holiday Recipes

20 Amazing Healthy Holiday Desserts

Offer An Honest, but Diplomatic Explanation for Your Food Choices at Gatherings

Photo: Gabriel Gurrola via Unsplash

Sharing food is one of the ways we all like to express love and appreciation. When others perceive that you are rejecting their food, or judging the way that they eat, it can feel difficult or hurtful.

It’s helpful to explain that you are working on your health and that means there are certain foods that disagree with you. If you’re attending a meal with close family and friends, it’s likely that they already know a lot about you and the way that you eat, so this news won’t come as a surprise.

When you’re with people you don’t know very well, explain your situation clearly and diplomatically, but never criticize or preach to them. Just as you’d like people to respect your eating style, you can’t force kale on people unless they are ready to receive it.

If you are with family or friends who refuse to accept your lifestyle and criticize you for your ‘health nut’ ways, remember that their behaviour isn’t about you – it’s about them so try not to take their judgement or teasing personally. Don’t eat anything you don’t want to in order to diffuse a situation or make someone else feel better. If you feel awful or have to run to the toilet with diarrhea, that’s not actually helping anyone at all!

Call Ahead

Don’t show up at an aunt’s house and demand special treatment without warning. Call ahead and explain any dietary restrictions you have to your host and propose solutions you have to handle them. For example, you could offer to bring an entrée or dessert, or ask if elements such as dressings or sauces could be left on the side for guests to add to their own plates.

Bring a Delicious Dish to Share

Don’t isolate yourself with a specially prepared meal. Bring a huge casserole dish to share the healthy goodness with everyone else. For example, this shepherd’s pie is always a crowd-pleaser, and it’s hearty enough to serve as your entrée and a side for everyone else. It’s also difficult to turn down mashed sweet potatoes, or a plate of cookies.

Discover more about how to create a healthy potluck dish here.

Nourish Yourself Well During Non-Holiday Meals

Image: iStock/Kuvona

While it may seem like the holiday season is rolling 24/7, there are plenty of opportunities aside from festivities where you can focus on fueling yourself with foods you know support your health.

When we’re not celebrating, we like to focus on anti-inflammatory, immune-supportive and digestive-friendly items such as:

It may help to do some meal prep and menu planning so you have nutritious foods at the ready during those non-holiday meals.

Get your FREE Anti-Inflammatory Shopping List plus 35 more free resource guides!

Fill out the form below for instant access.

Free Resource Library

Enjoy more than 40 downloadable guides, recipes, and resources.

Add Movement to Your Day

Sure, it’s cozy to hunker down wrapped in blankets in front of a fire, yet we still want to keep that circulation flowing. Movement during our healthy holidays doesn’t need to be excessive or rigorous – a short walk, light stretching, or even some seated exercises can be a big help.

Don’t Forget to Stay Hydrated

Staying hydrated is key to health throughout the year and sometimes we don’t think about this as much during the cooler months or holiday season. Drink water throughout the day, setting a timer on your phone or whatever else you need as a reminder. Other hydrating drinks to help you have healthy holidays include:

Try Not to Stress Too Much

Try not to agonize about healthy holidays – stress inhibits digestion and isn’t helpful to our overall health. Do the best that you can, and maintain a positive attitude throughout your holiday meals. The point of this time of year is to relax with your family so don’t make it all about the food, and focus on other ways to enjoy the company of your loved ones.

Tell us what you think! How do you handle the holidays around your house?

Free Resource Library

Enjoy more than 40 downloadable guides, recipes, and resources.

[ad_2]

Academy of Culinary Nutrition

Source link

December 21, 2023