Healthy Lifestyle, Healthy Immune System—Choosing a Healthy Diet

During this time of pandemic, many of us are re-evaluating our life style and how best to stay healthy. This is a good outcome of the current difficult situation. This is a great time to begin new healthy habits and to determine to CONTINUE them into the future, even after this pandemic ends.

Many of us are searching for ways to boost our immune system. Although there are varied opinions about this topic, several things are generally agreed upon as important:
Healthy diet
Adequate sleep
Avoiding tobacco and alcohol
Reducing stress in our lives
Regular exercise
       
Let’s start at the top with a healthy diet. What you eat can definitely affect your health, including the robustness of your immune system.  If you Google “What is a healthy diet?” you will get wildly varying results. Some say to eat only raw foods, some say to eat a vegan diet, some say to eat paleo; some say to eat keto—and on and on. But we have no reason to be confused or to depend upon the wisdom of men to choose health-giving foods.  God had given us the directions for healthy eating. You will find them in Section 86 of the Doctrine and Covenants, known as the Word of Wisdom.

Just reading the opening verse of Section 86 should stir your heart and mind:  “Behold, verily thus saith the Lord unto you, In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation.”

Wow! Is there anyone who thinks this does not apply to our day? Please take a moment of time today to read or re-read this important direction from the Lord and pray about how you can implement it in your life.

Although there is some debate about interpretation of a few minor points of the Word of Wisdom, several key points are very clear: We are to avoid the use of tobacco and alcohol. (Notice this is also on the list of ways to have a strong immune system.) Hot drinks are not good for us. (Pray about what that means in your life!) We are to eat meat sparingly. (That eliminates the paleo and keto diets.) Grains are to be our staff of life and wheat is particularly for man.

Wheat is for man? Oh, my! What about gluten being evil?! I am not going to try to cover that topic again in this post.  Please read my November 2014 post, “In Defense of the Word of Wisdom: What About Gluten?” as well as my January 2016 post, “In Defense of the Word of Wisdom: Potential Problems with a Gluten-free Diet and Recent Research.”  These articles, although written a number of years ago, still address current questions about gluten and modern wheat.

The Word of Wisdom plainly says that grain is the staff of life. Maybe you are thinking that eating more whole grains is a good idea, but what does that have to do with a stronger immune system? Probably more than you realize. First of all, a diet rich in whole grains has been shown to improve gut health and there is a strong link between gut health and a robust immune system [1].

To fully enjoy the benefits of improved gut health from whole grains, one also needs to reduce the amount of refined grains and other refined foods in one’s diet. Consuming fermented foods also improves gut health. I make homemade kefir which we drink in smoothies, and my husband loves kimchi.

Here is a second way whole grains help immune functioning:  They contain important antioxidants which lower chronic (bad) inflammation in the body [2]. Chronic inflammation appears to be a factor in many diseases such as diabetes, cancer, asthma, and heart disease. These diseases, in turn, can compromise your immune system and make you more vulnerable to viral and bacterial infections.

One specific type of antioxidants in whole grain are called benzoxazinoids or BX. We have known about BX as a biochemical defense in plants since the 1950s, but their presence in whole grains and their potential benefits to human health was discovered by scientists from Aarhus University in 2010.   “Eating a diet rich in BX compounds made certain immune system cells react more strongly to some types of bacteria,” says Associate Professor Inge S. Fomsgaard from the Department of Agroecology at Aarhus University [3].

Whole grains also contain multiple other phytochemicals, vitamins, and minerals that improve immune functioning.  One example is Vitamin E, which has been shown to be a powerful antioxidant that helps your body fight off infection. Guess what is one of the highest sources of Vitamin E? Wheat germ, part of the whole wheat kernel! Because Vitamin E is found in the oil of the wheat germ and can easily go rancid, to get the full benefits of this vitamin from the wheat you eat, choose freshly milled flour or eat cooked wheat kernels whole.
(See my article, “Keeping the Word of Wisdom: The Truth about Commercial Wheat Products,” published May 2015.)

Are you spending more time at home these days? That makes this a great time to begin to try your hand at baking at home and other ways to include more whole grains in your family’s diet! Starting with quick breads is an easy step—whole grain muffins, corn bread, scones, pumpkin bread! The internet is full of recipes.  Just be sure to weed out the ones that are not 100% whole grain.  I recommend choosing recipes that use honey and maple syrup as sweeteners and butter, extra virgin olive oil, or unrefined coconut oil as the fat.  I am also glad to share some of my favorite recipes with you.  Some of my favorites are already on my blog, and I will be posting more in the future. For detailed information about choosing whole grain flours for your home baking, please read my article, “A Trip to the Store: Choosing Whole Grain Foods and Whole Grain Flour,” also published on this month blog.

When baking yeast bread at home for the first time, please realize it is a learned skill and you may have some failures along the way. When I first started baking bread at home, my loaves looked like door stops! I have learned a lot since then and I would be glad to share baking tips with you. I will be posting tips plus my personal bread recipe on my blog soon.

The Word of Wisdom also tells us that fruits and vegetables are part of a healthy diet:
“And again, verily I say unto you, All wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man, every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof. All these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving” (verse 2a). (The botanical definition of herb is any seed-producing annual, biennial, or perennial plant that does not develop persistent woody tissue but dies down at the end of a growing season, so would include pretty much every fruit and vegetable that does not grow on a bush or tree.)

During this pandemic, I have been choosing to consciously increase my intake of fresh fruits and vegetables which are high in nutrients know to boost our immune systems. Foods high in Vitamin C include berries, cherries, peppers, kiwis, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and of course citrus fruits like limes, lemons, and oranges. During this specific season, I am also choosing to take a daily Vitamin C supplement. (My choice is one that includes bioflavinoids.)

Foods high in carotenoids (which the body converts to Vitamin A) include carrots, apricots, sweet potatoes, papaya, mangoes, kale, spinach, and collards. There is some indications that carotenoids in vegetables such as carrots and greens and best absorbed when lightly cooked and eaten with some fat such as butter or olive oil. I choose not to take a Vitamin A supplement because it is fat-soluble and the body stores excess amounts, making over-supplementing a bigger risk than with water soluble vitamins such as C.

Another food I have chosen to increase in my diet is garlic. Garlic is an inexpensive powerhouse when it comes to boosting immunity and has many other health benefits to boot. You’ll get the most benefit from raw garlic. I know, I know. Eating raw garlic can cause bad breath, but since you are going to be six feet away from people, the smell doesn’t matter, right?

I highly recommend investing in an easy to clean garlic press. I love adding pressed garlic on top of salads (and the raw greens minimize the garlic smell on your breath). I also love to add some extra virgin olive oil to the pressed garlic and drizzle it over popcorn. (Popcorn is whole grain, but microwave popcorn is not a good choice.)

Perhaps the best of all, is making your own garlic and herb bread dip. Crush the garlic on a saucer and add extra virgin olive oil. Sprinkle in pinches of herbs such as basil, rosemary, oregano, or others of your choice. Tear a piece of whole wheat bread and dip away. Yum! You will be getting not only the immune boost of the garlic, but also of herbs and whole grains.

If you choose to cook your garlic, don’t heat it above 140°F. Higher temperatures kill the allicin (the main compound in garlic that makes it so healthy), so add garlic to your recipes when you’re almost done cooking.

Elderberry syrup has rightly established a place in the list of potent immune boosters. I choose to take elderberry almost every day as a preventive measure. Because of the way elderberry stimulates the immune system, there is debate about whether it might increase the risk of a cytokine storm reaction during a Covid-19 infection. To play it extra safe during this particular pandemic, it is recommended to take elderberry as a preventive, but to stop supplementing it if you show signs of an infection.

Zinc is another nutrient important to immune health. Whole grains contain zinc in the bran (outer coating).  Raw seeds and nuts are also a good source of zinc, as are mushrooms, kale, legumes, beef and chicken (eaten sparingly!), and sea food such as oysters, crabs, and lobsters.

Even though the Word of Wisdom does not directly address sugar and refined foods, I choose to strictly limit my intake of these on a daily basis (including refined oils). I feel this step is even more important in a time like today when our immune functioning is paramount. There is still debate about our sugar intake’s effect on our immune systems, but I feel it is pretty clear to everyone that sugar and other refined foods are not healthy food choices.

Have you read the promise the Lord gives us if we keep the commandments and the Word of Wisdom?  “And all Saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel, and marrow to their bones, and shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; and shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint; and I, the Lord, give unto them a promise that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them. Amen” (D&C 86:3c-d, emphasis added).

I am confident we would all like to receive these blessings, and the Lord has told us how to obtain them!

References:

1) Vanegas, Sally M. et al.  “Substituting whole grains for refined grains in a 6-wk randomized trial has a modest effect on gut microbiota and immune and inflammatory markers of healthy adults.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,  vol. 105, no. 3, 2017, pp. 635–650
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/105/3/635/4637852

2)  Xu, Yujie et al. “Whole grain diet reduces systemic inflammation: A meta-analysis of 9 randomized trials.” Medicine, vol. 97, no. 43, 2018
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6221555/

3) Aarhus University. "Wholesome wholegrain." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 February 2016. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160208124251.htm