Fighting COVID-19 With Food

If you are exposed to the Coronavirus, it doesn’t have to mean you will get COVID-19. In fact, there are millions of people who have been exposed and haven’t gotten it.

Some of those people (and I’m probably one of them) are resistant to infection because the virus finds to too difficult to get into any cells, for a myriad of reasons, but the main one is that person’s immune system is just too strong.

This is why some people rarely get sick. Healthy people with strong immune systems fight off most of the bugs that come and go. No one is immune to everything, including the Coronavirus, but some are virtually bulletproof to bugs like this and more.

How can you be one of those people? Well, some say regular exercise is the most important factor. Others claim good nutrition and reducing inflammation takes the top spot. Both are, of course, the best strategy, and that’s why I’m exercising three times more than usual and eating better than I ever have.

I’ve already talked about the importance of exercise. I’ve also offered my suggestions on some key supplements, so this post is about the top immune foods and reducing inflammation.

Eating low inflammatory foods is always a good idea, and I’ve written about it before, but it’s especially important now, with this particular virus because of the end-stage effects, often resulting in death, called the “cytokine storm,” where inflammation goes out of control. People who are most susceptible to this are living a high-inflammation lifestyle, eating highly inflammatory foods.

I recently offered a survey on social media of the best inflammation-fighting foods to see how many people were eating them. The chart here shows the results:

It was great to see people eating these foods and I hope more people do!

The list above is ranked based on how frequently the people surveyed ate those foods.

The list below is the same foods ranked in order of anti-inflammation potency and effectiveness.

  1. Fermented vegetables (i.e., sauerkraut kimchi, etc.)
  2. Turmeric
  3. Ginger
  4. Apple cider vinegar
  5. Alaskan fish (all Alaskan fish are wild because fish farms are illegal, plus, Alaska has cleaner waters than most areas of the world)
  6. Green vegetables (AKA non-starchy vegetables)
  7. Coconut products
  8. Organic extra virgin olive oil (if it’s verified pure)
  9. Avocado products
  10. Garlic
  11. Thyme
  12. Oregano
  13. Basil
  14. Green tea
  15. Bone broth
  16. Grass-fed or wild meat (high in omega-6 fats, like fish)
  17. Dark chocolate (especially sugar-free)
  18. Mushrooms
  19. Lemons and limes
  20. Peppers
  21. Berries (the lower sugar berries are best)

Now for the worst foods to eat that will be more likely to set you up for inflammation and the dreaded cytokine storm:

  1. Processed foods (including fast foods, fried foods, processed meat, and most “foods” that come in a bag or box)
  2. Vegetable oils (especially margarine/shortening, canola/rapeseed, soybean, corn, cottonseed, grapeseed, sunflower, safflower, rice bran, nut oils, etc.)
  3. Sugar (sucrose, fructose, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, and the other 80+ aliases for sugar)
  4. Starchy foods and ingredients (bread, pasta, potatoes, etc.)
  5. GMO foods
  6. Artificial ingredients and chemicals (especially any ingredient you see on a food label that you can’t pronounce or don’t know what it is)
  7. Alcohol

There you have it. Strengthen your immune system and fight COVID-19 with the top 21 foods above, or make yourself more vulnerable with the bottom 7. Now you know.

P.S. If fighting COVID, disease, and other sickness isn’t enough motivation to change which list you eat from, consider this additional point: The 21 anti-inflammation foods above also happen to make you leaner, while the inflammatory 7 make you fatter.