4 Easy Ways to Boost Your Immunity

It’s the year of Covid and we’re entering flu season—double whammy. Here’s my favorite and most interesting ways to boost immunity:

Neti Pot & Gargling

The tried and true method of salt water is a great preventative. Many people are afraid to try the neti but once they do, they become converts. Salt water hydrates, soothes, heals, and maintains mucosa. It has antibacterial and antiviral properties. It’s also great at keeping your vocal cords supple.

Copper Zap

I promised interesting—a copper instrument that you stick into your nostrils. Back in 2016 I was updating my science classes at MCTC and my microbiology instructor talked about the research her team was conducting looking at copper’s ability to fight infections from bacteria. A year or two later I learned about the Copper Zap and decided to try it. Now it’s part fo my biweekly regimen. I also use it when I feel depleted or overtired. Here’s a study from another research team.

Wet Socks

I learned about this several years ago and started practicing it weekly during winters. Take a pair of wool socks and wet thoroughly with as cold water as you can. Put those on and cover with a pair of dry socks to prevent your bed from getting wet. In the morning you’ll wake with dry feet and a boosted immune system. Your body has to work a little harder to pump blood to dry and warm your feet (a little like a tiny fever), causing an immune boost. It’s an old home remedy that’s absolutely brilliant.

Fire Cider

I’ve written about this before because it’s such a nourishing way to keep healthy. Many cultures around the world use this tonic regularly. I make my fire cider every October and have the jars sitting in my kitchen on display for the winter season—they’re decorative and functional. Fill your jars with jalapeños, chilis, garlic, turmeric, tamarind, chives, ginger, lemon or lime peel, radish, horseradish, star anise, rosemary, thyme. I caution against using onions as they can make the resulting liquid sickly sweet. Pack the jars as full as you can with phytonutrients then pour Bragg’s apple cider vinegar over it, covering all the vegetables. It’s important that the veggies be completely covered so that they don’t mold. The apple cider vinegar needs to have the mother (the bacteria/yeast particles) on the bottom; filtered ACV won’t do. Place your jars on a shelf for a month. You’ll see the colors drain from the veggies as the vinegar leeches the nutrients. After a month, it’s ready for use. Most people take a teaspoon to a tablespoon several times a week in hot water or tea. If a cold is coming on, then take several times a day. Fire cider boosts immunity, aids and enhances digestion, promotes beneficial bacteria in the intestines, is anti-inflammatory, and shifts the pH balance a bit toward the acidic. All that in a teaspoon! You can have fun playing with the recipe (there are thousands of recipes all over the internet), making it up as you go. Just be sure to use fresh, organic produce.

Recipe for apple cider vinegar water

So many of us have systemic inflammation. It's an underlying factor in chronic pain, chronic stress, weight gain, and aging. If you have systemic inflammation use the vinegar water for a month or two to get your pH balanced and your gut restored. If you needed it, if you really had systemic inflammation, you'll feel a drastic difference in four or five days of drinking the concoction. Discontinue use when your symptoms are under control. Diet and lifestyle changes will keep those changes in place. There are powerful tools you have at home to battle this monster—sleep, exercise, cleaning up your diet, eating greens. None of these are to be underestimated.

Here's an amazing tool for short-term use:

6x/day
16 oz. water
1 Tbsp Bragg's apple cider vinegar (for the mother)
1 Tbsp lemon juice (not from concentrate)
1 pinch sea salt
1 pinch turmeric

The water is an important part of the recipe; you can't put all the other ingredients into a smaller amount of water and think that you will get the results you want. Water is needed for hydrating and flushing. It also dilutes the acids which is critical for your tooth enamel.

I put the question of eroding tooth enamel to my dentist, Dr. Joe Grayden, a professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus. He took the question to about a half dozen of his colleagues and here's the consensus:

  • The acidic level and its effects would land somewhere between drinking coffee with sugar (coffee without sugar is not very worrisome) and sipping on Coca Cola throughout the day.

  • While there's no research on vinegar water, there's a lot of research on caffeinated sodas and carbonated water. Sipping is worse than drinking it down faster. People who drink caffeinated pop tend to sip it throughout the day while people who drink non-carbonated pops tend to drink it down quickly. Those drinking the caffeinated pop have tooth enamel wear at a much greater rate than those drinking the non-caffeinated pops. Don't sip, drink it down quickly.

  • Your tooth enamel is most vulnerable the hour after eating/drinking. It takes a half hour before you start producing enzymes that will neutralize the acids and they take about two hours to do their job. Don't brush your teeth immediately after eating/drinking, especially acidic foods/drinks. Wait about an hour before brushing.

  • Using a straw does not mitigate the risk of erosion.

  • As a side: Dentists also see tooth enamel loss in bartenders who put slices of lemon in their mouths and in Gen Y-ers who grew up using electric toothbrushes but use them as though they are regular toothbrushes, placing pressure on the brush bristles against the teeth. An electric brush does all the work and there should never be pressure placed on the brush against the teeth.

Recipe: Quinoa three bean salad

This is my staple for picnics, potlucks and entertaining larger groups of guests. I think of this as a summer salad. I always get rave reveiws and I'm begged for the recipe. Here it is. You'll notice that the recipe is not exact as the salad has never been the same twice. I use what I have in the house and I use the amounts that make sense to me at the time. So this is more of a general guideline.

Quinoa is an ancient, high-protein seed that is used much like grains. It has a crunchy texture and a buttery taste. I cook it in the rice cooker because, as I always say, "The rice cooker knows." Because the rice cooker knows, I do not. I can't tell you how long to cook the quinoa. Put it in the rice cooker--it knows.

Ingredients:

quinoa

olive oil, Balsamic vinegar and other oils (sesame, flax, etc), enough to make the salad wet

beans: definitely garbanzo. I also like butter beans, kidney beans, navy or white beans.

vegetables: definitely cucumber (I like the combination of the garbanzo beans with the cucumber for a summer salad.) and onions (green & purple), sometimes summer squash, zucchini, green or red peppers, red or green cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, water cress, parsley, cilantro

seeds: black or white sesame, sunflower (really nice for the crunch)

nuts: walnuts, almonds

dried fruit: craberries, apricots

seasoning: sea salt, pepper, rosemary

Mix and go. When you get there, squeeze fresh lemon juice over it. Yum. Enjoy!