Why are we all so sick?

People get sick with colds and flus and instead of throwing out the chocolate chip cookies, bagels, and white sugar they’ve been consuming every day for months, they go buy some Dayquil. Now, I’m not going to knock Dayquil – it’s good for suppressing symptoms, but shouldn’t we suppress the source? No I’m not talking about the virus that caused your flu; you would’ve been exposed to that anyway. I’m talking about your own body’s defenses.

I haven’t missed a day of work since I was hired. That is going to change this coming year since the pandemic has made people more wary of anyone with even a small case of the sniffles. Some of my peers asked me if I ever get sick at all. I laugh and assure them that I most certainly do get sick. I probably get 2 or 3 colds a year, which is typical. However, I do something that most other people simply do not do even before the illness symptoms appear – I avoid foods that increase inflammation.

When I get sick, I usually purchase a gallon of spring water, lemons, yellow bell peppers, garlic, chicken breasts, blackberries, very fresh basil, mint, and sage. I already have One-A-Day multivitamin tablets even though I usually only consume two of those a week and even then, I break them in half and take a half tablet over 4 days. Things that I do not consume when ill include MILK (for the love of God, don’t drink this when sick), orange juice, and processed foods of any kind such as bread.

Any person with diabetes will tell you that the carbohydrates in bread are broken down to produce sugars, which can increase inflammation in a body already under attack. What’s good for decreasing inflammation? Antioxidants of course. I give a more detailed description of what they are in another writing but suffice it to say that people really don’t consume enough of them. Vitamin C is probably the most well-known antioxidant, but did you know that yellow bell peppers have more vitamin C per gram than oranges?! Lemons are lower in sugar than oranges, so I juice one and drink it down before my meal.

I throw the chicken breast into a pot with the garlic cloves and put it in the over at 350 degrees F. I eat the bell peppers and berries before eating the herb salad with NO DRESSING except for olive oil. After eating everything, I brush my teeth and sleep as much as I can. The body now has a huge cache of ammunition – proteins from the chicken to make antibodies, antioxidants from the herbs and berries to reduce inflammation, and enough water to hydrate the body for several hours. No chicken soup (not bad for you but takes longer to prepare), no guzzling orange juice, and no rushing to the doctor for antibiotics, which probably won’t help me recover any more quickly against a viral infection anyway.

People consume poisons every single day as if it's okay for them to do so and then wonder why their joints ache, why they cough up so much phlegm, or why their hair turns gray before age 45. We don’t usually think of things like bagels as bad for you. Cream cheese seems harmless to most of us and coffee with cream and sugar is just a tiny sin … that we enjoy every single day! The cumulative effect of these things over years can be devastating. Perhaps we should start thinking about these food as rare treats to be consumed on special occasions only like birthdays and holidays rather than our main sources of energy and sustenance.