What Foods Weaken Your Immune System?

What Is Food?

Food is the only source of energy for our body. When we consume food, it provides nutritional support to our body. Food contains essential nutrients like carbohydrates, Fats, Proteins, vitamins, and minerals that give us energy.

Human beings cannot prepare their own food like plants. People prepare different foods depending on their culture and practices. Each and every food contains fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. Avoiding foods that weaken the immune system and incorporate a healthy diet will boost immunity.

Fats

There are two different types of fats;

• Saturated and
• Unsaturated fats.

1. Unsaturated Fats

• These fats are liquid in the form at normal room temperature.
• They help us in maintaining blood cholesterol levels, stabilize heart rhythms, ease inflammation, and are good for health.
• Plants, vegetable oils, nuts, and seeds are a few of the sources of unsaturated fats.
• Olive, peanut, and canola oils, avocados, nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts, and pecans, seeds such as pumpkin and sesame seeds are rich sources of Monounsaturated Omega fats.
• Polyunsaturated fats are found in sunflower, corn, soybean, flax seeds, walnuts, and fish.
• Omega 3 type fats cannot be arranged in the body and so they are to be taken from the food we eat. Fish, flax seeds, walnuts, and soybean oil are good sources of Omega fats.
• Daily intake of 8 to 10% of polyunsaturated fats lowers heart disease risk and the higher the Omega fats, the lower is the premature death risk.

2. Saturated Fats

• Cheese, ice cream, coconut, coconut oil, palm oil, pizza, whole, and reduced-fat milk, butter and dairy desserts, meat products, and fast foods dishes. Limiting saturated fats to not more than 7 percent of calories does not harm our health.
• Cutting saturated fats in foods is good for health, if we replace saturated fat with polyunsaturated fats lowers bad LDL cholesterol and improves the ratio of good HDL cholesterol, it lowers the risk of heart disease.
• Replacing saturated fat with healthy fats can help diabetic patients to prevent insulin resistance.
• Saturates are not harmful but unsaturated fat is the healthiest fat.

Protein

• Many foods we consume daily consist of proteins.
• Protein is more important in our diet; it gives us energy and supports our body's cognitive function and mood.
• It is a nutrient required for building our body, maintaining our body, and repairing our body tissues, cells, organs.
• When we consume protein, it is broken into 20 amino acids which will help in building our body for growth and energy.
• Protein-rich in foods are meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy products that deliver all proteins that our body needs.
• Plants-bases protein sources foods are whole grains, beans, vegetables, and nuts. By eating these plant-based protein sources food our body gets the essential amino acids it needs.
• We should not consume too much protein; it is harmful to our bodies. We should eat the right amount of protein daily; it keeps our system functioning properly and maintains the heart and respiratory systems.
• Protein improves our mood and boosts our resistance to stress, anxiety, and depression.
• Above 19 years of age, a person needs 0.8 grams of protein for every kilogram of body weight. For example, if a person weight is 68 kgs he needs 55g of protein per day,

Carbohydrates

• Carbohydrates play several roles in living organisms and provide energy to the body.
• Carbohydrates are known as carbs, they provide energy for the body, each gram of carbs contains 4 calories.
• Our body breaks carbs into glucose which is the primary source of the brain and muscles.
• Whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and beans are the healthiest sources of Carbs and help in promoting good health by providing necessary vitamins, minerals, and important phytonutrients.
• Unhealthier sources of carbs include white bread, pastries, sodas, and refined foods. These items contain easily digested carbs and contribute to weight gain and promote diabetes and heart disease.

What Foods Weaken Your Immune System?

The list of foods that weaken the immune system are;

1. Processed Foods

A few of the processed foods include;

• Microwave meals
• Breakfast cereals
• Chips
• Cakes and cookies

People who eat processed food with sugars and fats lead an intake of many calories which leads to obesity. Obesity leads to inflammation. This inflammation leads to insulin resistance and liver failure.

2. Foods That Are High In Sugar

Foods that we frequently eat that are high in sugar are;

• Cookies, cakes
• Chocolates, sweats.
• Dairy products
• Cool drinks, soda
• Juices
• Sugary cereals

People with high sugar diets have a high risk of chronic conditions including heart disease and diabetes. Consuming a high sugar diet will weaken the immune system.

3. Refined Carbohydrates

Some food that contains refined carbohydrates are;

• White rice
• White bread
• Refined sugar

Carbohydrates will increase inflammation and oxidative stress which impact our immune system.

Tips To Improve The Immune System

Practicing a few habits and changing our lifestyle a bit will help a lot in improving our immune system. Here are a few tips to improve the immune system;

• Sleeping and immunity are very closely linked and any imbalance in one disturbs the other. Lack of sleep leads to loss of our immunity and thus falls ill very easily. Adults are supposed to sleep for more than 7 hours at night. Teenagers should sleep around 8 to 10 hours and younger children and infants should sleep for 12 to 14 hours a day.
• Eating whole plant foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and legumes are rich in nutrients and antioxidants that help us improve our immune system.
• Consuming healthy fats like olive oil and salmon boosts our immunity and decreases inflammation. Olive oil acts against the risk of chronic and heart diseases and as well helps the body to fight harmful diseases.
• Our diet should be sugar-free or sugar-less at least so as to avoid obesity conditions as obesity increases the risk of getting sick and other severe problems too.
• Avoid eating foods that weaken the immune system.
• Maintaining regular and moderate exercise reduces our body inflammation and helps the immune cells regenerate regularly. Brisk walking, jogging, steady bicycling, and swimming are a few of the moderate exercises that reduce inflammation thus maintain good health.
• Dehydration causes headaches and shows an impact on physical performance. To prevent dehydration, we should drink enough water.
• Lowering your stress levels through meditation, yoga, exercise will keep our immune system function properly.