Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping a healthy immune system has been everybody's priority. We have seen how important our immune system needs to be to combat illnesses. Diet is one of the major things which greatly affects immune health. The food that you eat can either help in providing nutrition to your immune system or weaken it.
Why do food ingredients matter?
The ingredients that go into making your food have the power to make it taste better. However, they may not always be good for your health. Foods that are highly processed, full of added sugars, unhealthy fats, and artificial additives are bad for your immune system. Excess sugar or fried foods for example, weakens the immune responses and makes the body more susceptible to infections. On the other hand, whole, natural ingredients provide essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that promote overall well-being.
Most unhealthy food ingredients for your immune system
Your immune system is your body’s first line of defense against infections, and the foods you eat play a significant role in keeping it strong. However, certain unhealthy food ingredients can weaken your immune system, making you more susceptible to illness.
- Added sugars
Foods like sugary drinks, candies, and baked goods are loaded with added sugars that can harm your immune health. Too much sugar intake has been considered one of the most harmful ingredients to your immunity. High sugar intake can suppress the immune system’s ability to fight off infections by reducing the effectiveness of white blood cells. In addition, sugar leads to inflammation throughout the body which compromises the functions of the immune system and leads to chronic health problems.
- Trans fats
Trans fats are generally used in fried foods, processed snacks, as well as baked goods that weaken the immune system. These unhealthy fats encourage inflammation along the body and this diminishes the efficiency of the immune response, aside from exposing an individual to chronic diseases such as heart diseases and diabetes. Foods with partially hydrogenated oils on the food labels must be avoided to protect your immune health.
- Refined carbohydrates
Refined carbohydrates are foods like white bread, pasta, and pastries that have fiber and nutrients removed. These foods spur serious elevations in blood sugar levels very quickly, as do added sugars, thus suppressing immune function and promoting inflammation. Refined carbs can also lead to weight gain, which can weaken the immune system.
- Artificial ingredients
Immunity can also be harmed by artificial additives such as preservatives, flavor enhancers, and colorings. These initiate an inflammatory response and can offset gut health, which is very closely related to immune function. Foods with high amounts of artificial additives are usually processed and completely devoid of nutrition, thus being entirely detrimental to your immunity.
- Excess salt
A high intake of salt weakens the immune system. High intake of salt may be derived from most processed food items such as chips, canned soups, and fast foods. High intake of salt can give rise to high blood pressure that causes inflammation in the body and therefore breaks down the activity of your immune system.
How EatRight
RightLife's EatRight Program provides the right steps towards a strengthened immune system through comprehensive support in meal planning, educational workshops, and the "food as medicine" approach. Here’s how it will help you:
- Meal planning
The personalized meal planning feature from EatRight creates balanced menus rich in nutrients, with an exclusion of harmful ingredients such as added sugars, trans fats, and excessive salt. In this way, the program focuses on whole foods to provide your body with all the necessary vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants for a robust immune system. Easy meal plans will guide you through each step to healthier choices, with minimal temptation for processed or otherwise bad foods.
- Workshops
EatRight offers interactive workshops conducted by nutrition professionals, where one gets to understand specific food ingredients that affect one's immune system. In these workshops, a lot of value is drawn on how to read food labels, understand the ingredient list contained therein, and thus make informative decisions on what one eats. From this workshop, one can gather knowledge and tools on how to avoid food that badly affects your immune system.
- Food as Medicine
It focuses on food as medicine and encourages you, through the EatRight program, to think of food not just as a source of nutrition but also as a strategy that can help in improving your health. That is all about incorporating into our diet those ingredients that are useful to keep the immune system healthy, such as anti-inflammatory foods, and avoiding those foods and beverages that are damaging to health. This leads to the idea of using food as medicine to create an optimal diet for immune health and overall wellness.
Join RightLife’s EatRight program today to take control of your health and build a stronger immune system. With personalized meal planning, expert-led workshops, and a focus on using food as medicine, EatRight provides everything you need to avoid unhealthy ingredients and make nutritious choices that support your immune system. Don’t leave your health to chance - start your journey to a healthier, more resilient you with RightLife now.
