Staying Strong During Cold & Flu Season

Transcript:

KARA: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition. Today's podcast is brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness. We are located in Minnesota. We're a local company that prides ourselves on educating and counseling people to better health and wellness. Our topic today is a very timely one, staying strong for the cold and flu season.

This time of year, which is back to school for us in Minnesota, it's the start of fall and the transition into winter seems to be the time of year when kids and adults are catching bugs that are going around. These bugs can range from mild and annoying like a cold to a more serious case of either influenza, possibly COVID or a virus called RSV.

And you see commercials on television and social media all the time promoting drugs and shots for COVID and RSV. RSV, if you're not familiar with that acronym, it stands for Respiratory Syncytial Virus. That's kind of a mouthful.

MELANIE: It really is.

KARA: And that affects the nose, throat and lungs. But did you know there are steps you can put in place today as a prevention plan for both mild and more severe cases of these illnesses? Our bodies, they're simply amazing, and they have the capability to protect us from many disease states. That is if we're supporting ourselves with the right nutrition.

I'm Kara Carper. I'm a Licensed Nutritionist and Board Certified Nutrition Specialist. I'm very pleased to be here today with Melanie Beasley, who's a Licensed and Registered Dietitian.

MELANIE: You know, Kara, I'm so glad that we are talking about this today because every fall I notice that more and more of my clients mention they are getting sick, or maybe they're canceling because they are sick, or maybe they have a close family member who's sick.

And of course it tends to affect everyone else in the household, especially when kids get sick and are unable to attend school or daycare. I mean, that affects everyone. Well, each year there tend to be different strains of illnesses with a variety of symptoms. And for 2024, the most common symptoms I'm hearing about in clinic are sore throat, cough, stuffy runny nose, fatigue, weakness, and fever, sometimes over a hundred degrees, you know, with those darn chills and body aches. So it's already begun.

KARA: It has. It has begun. From what I'm hearing and seeing, there's a wide range in both the symptoms and the severity of these different illnesses. In our show today, we will be talking about how you can take steps to either prevent yourself from getting sick or at least minimize how long you're down and out from being ill. Missing school or work for one or two days, not too big of a deal, but when you're at home in bed for two weeks, first of all, that's really miserable and also very disruptive to schedules and plans and everybody around you.

MELANIE: Sure. Yeah. Well, the good news is that our bodies want to fight pathogens. If you are armed with the right nutrition, your immune cells can kick in to do their job to protect you from viruses or bacteria that's going around. The body is designed to heal itself. And I think that's great that you mentioned that. Before we jump into our topic to talk about nutritional tips for warding off colds and flu, I do want to point out that it's completely normal and natural to occasionally get sick.

You know, even with a healthy immune system, let's just say you're exposed to a new virus or bacterium, you may get sick once in a while, one or two times per year. That's nothing to be concerned about. That's normal and natural.

MELANIE: It's natural. Getting sick occasionally allows your body to build up a good immune system that recognizes a new virus or bacteria remembers it for the future. It will be able to fight similar infections moving forward. Our immune system is miraculous and it works for us.

KARA: It truly does, but on the flip side, are you someone who tends to catch whatever is going around? So you're getting sick, you know, once a month, maybe even a couple times per month. Do you feel like you're susceptible to illness; to getting sick frequently? Well, that is a sign of a weakened immune system. And there are steps that you can take to build up and protect yourself. It just takes the correct nutrition and sometimes some additional supplements.

Lifestyle & nutrition tips for a strong immune system

MELANIE: Yeah. So Kara, we all have heard to wash our hands, practice good hygiene, if you have cold and flu symptoms, you know, cancel your appointments. We want to get enough sleep and drink enough water. What are some other lifestyle or nutritional tips that people might not be hearing or reading in the news or on social media for a strong immune system?

Tip #1: eat adequate protein

KARA: The first one that comes to my mind is to eat adequate protein, high quality animal protein that contains all nine essential amino acids and examples are eggs, meat, fish, and poultry. That protein works like magic on our immune systems. And Melanie, I sometimes think of you as the protein expert. I know that protein is a very important part of the meals that you eat, not only for immune support, but for bone health to maintain muscle mass. And I imagine for energy, moods, and metabolism. I would say a bonus for everyone listening is that protein supports tissue growth for hair, nails, and skin.

MELANIE: Yeah. The older we get, the more we were concerned about our skin.

KARA: I've learned a lot from you just about the quantity and the quality and the importance. In so many different areas of our bodies and brains.

MELANIE: Yeah. Protein rules. So, I'm a big fan of protein for everything, but it also helps our immune system and for our purposes today, I think it's important that we emphasize protein, and like you said, we want protein that has all the amino acids, and that's going to be from an animal source. That's your best. The other, you know, plant sources, they, they add to your sum total, but they're not as readily absorbed. So we want that animal protein.

KARA: Yeah. In fact, I just heard an interesting statistic about this; this was an example of a plant protein. I believe it was six cups of cooked quinoa was equivalent to a three ounce fillet of steak as far as quantity of protein.

MELANIE: You start adding up how much carbohydrates that is, and calorically. It's way too much fuel, way too much carbohydrates. It's going to give you a blood sugar rise like you wouldn't believe, which in turn affects your immune system when we have that blood sugar peaking.

KARA: Correct. I just thought that was interesting.

MELANIE: That is so interesting.

KARA: Nothing against quinoa. We love, you know, quinoa.

MELANIE: I love a little quinoa.

KARA: Maybe approximately a half of a cup of cooked quinoa to not overdo the carbohydrate content.

MELANIE: Yeah, it's funny you say that because lunch today I do homemade. I make my own tabbouleh, and I make it with quinoa instead of bulgur because I'm gluten free. So I measure out cooked quinoa and a half a cup in my little muffin tins and freeze it. I shouldn't say muffin tins. They're silicone, freeze it so I can pop out half cup discs so I can keep track of when I add that to something, how much quinoa am I actually getting?

KARA: That's a fantastic idea. So is a, the silicone muffin holders that you have, is that approximately like a half of a cup?

MELANIE: It's not. I use my half a cup measure and measure it into, I do that for quinoa. I do that for when I instant pot a bunch of beans

KARA: Great tip.

MELANIE: Then I throw in the mint and the parsley and all of that.

KARA: Fantastic, Melanie. All right. So all of you listeners, are you kind of wondering how does eating three to four ounces of grass fed steak or a piece of chicken, how is that going to support my immune system? Protein contains essential amino acids that we cannot make in our bodies. The National Institute of Health states that a deficiency of protein or amino acids has been known to impair immune function and increase the chances of getting an infectious disease. Melanie, can you please explain the “sciencey” version of how protein boosts the immune system?

MELANIE: Sure. The amino acids you're getting from beef, chicken, eggs, fish, lamb, animal products, whole milk, dairy products, they activate T lymphocytes, B lymphocytes, and natural killer cells and macrophages. And this is your immune system.

KARA: Yeah, great. Thank you. Those are all a part of our white blood cells. And the white blood cells make up a large part of our immune system. Their job is to help fight off infections. Another interesting fact is that people who have a diet low in meat often have a lower white and red blood cell count, which can make it harder to fight off and destroy viruses and bacteria.

MELANIE: Yeah, it's really interesting. And it makes a lot of sense, especially because we know that meat contains the minerals, iron, zinc, vitamins B6 and B12, which play a crucial role in warding off infections. So it stands to reason really, and I encourage my clients to do even more than four ounces at a meal.

KARA: Yeah. You've mentioned that before. Maybe it is a palm size a better indicator?

MELANIE: It depends on the palm. I mean, that's kind of an iffy. Some people's palm sizes are three ounces. I always encourage people, weigh it out, see what you're actually getting. I make sure I'm getting five ounces there at a meal; sometimes six. Sometimes even more than that. It really depends. Weigh it out, weigh out the cooked version and see how much you're actually eating because it could be to increase your immune system, it could be as simple as getting more protein.

KARA: Absolutely. And in the past, I think there was a myth that we could only utilize a certain quantity of protein at a given sitting or a meal.

MELANIE: Well, I think that applies more if you're looking at protein powders, you don't want more than 30 grams in a sitting of a powdered source. But the body's kind of amazing, you know, when it comes to meat, it can utilize it a lot better than we previously thought.

The importance of zinc for immune function & more

KARA: Yeah. I've been reading that research, you know, upwards of more than six ounces even in a serving. Well, I bet our listeners have heard about taking the mineral called zinc during cold and flu season. We need adequate levels of zinc for the development and function of immune cells. And you know, during this time of year, cold and flu season, it's even more important to have adequate levels. Did you know that 75 percent of Americans are deficient in zinc? What are some signs of having a zinc deficiency?

MELANIE: Well, common signs of not having enough zinc are going to be the low immune system, especially if someone tends to catch things going around that are respiratory. Have you ever had a cut or wound that seemed really slow to heal? Sometimes that's a sign of a zinc deficiency.

KARA: Also hair thinning and hair loss. Another one is white spots on the fingernails. I remember my mom teaching me that when I was a kid. I used to get white spots on my nails, like a lot of white spots. Sure enough, we would add in a zinc supplement and it took a while. It takes a while for those nails to kind of have regrowth, but the white spots would disappear.

MELANIE: That's great. I do ask my clients if they work a lot with their hands. Because if they're dinging and banging their hands a lot, you know that, but if they don't and I see those white lines and they say, I'm sick all the time, sometimes we just add in a zinc supplement and see if it improves.

But I really love food first, so I encourage them to start eating more protein, which is an excellent source of zinc. And here's a really interesting sign of being low in zinc as well: not having a great sense of taste or smell. People with low levels of zinc tend to have a lower appetite and as we age zinc levels decline and it's common for the elderly population to not have a big appetite, especially for protein.

So I encourage my caretakers of their parents to say if they have a low appetite, it could be a zinc deficiency. Sometimes adding zinc and suddenly their appetite improves, which means their nutritional status improves and overall they start doing a lot better.

KARA: I mean, that really is a vicious cycle because the elderly population, chances are they are low in zinc, which causes the poor appetite and then protein, especially meat, is one of those foods that's highest in zinc, especially grass fed meat. Other sources of zinc from food would be seafood and pumpkin seeds.

MELANIE: Those are high in zinc. Love some pumpkin seeds.

KARA: What do you recommend to your clients if they show signs of zinc deficiency? Some of the signs we just talked about. Maybe they just want to really get on top of their immune system and bump up their levels during a certain time of year, like the cold and flu season.

MELANIE: Well, I often recommend a supplement with a chelated absorbable zinc for anyone with symptoms of low zinc. So, anyone wanting to protect their immune system during this time of year are, I like the Nutrikey brand of zinc. It contains 54 milligrams of absorbable chelated zinc glycinate.

KARA: That's helpful to know because some forms of zinc tend to cause stomach issues like nausea, especially if zinc is taken on an empty stomach. So, make sure you're always taking zinc with food, just in case, and stick with an absorbable chelated zinc.

That might be glycinate or picolinate. 54 grams of zinc is fine to take daily during cold and flu season, but that dose of 54 grams of zinc is a bit high for daily use year round.

MELANIE: Yep. And then what I'll tell them to do is maybe take it twice a week. So for my clients who like to use zinc every day, we have a zinc, which is 15 grams, and it's important to keep that balanced ratio in your body of zinc to copper. So a higher dose of zinc, such as 54 milligrams really isn't recommended every single day, year round. But I do like them to titrate up if they're zinc deficient, and that's a really good supplement to get you where you need to be, and then we can scale down.

Vitamin C is supportive for immune function

KARA: There are many other important nutrients to support immune function and white blood cell production, and vitamin C has really been touted as an immune superstar. Whenever I hear about vitamin C, my mind jumps to Linus Pauling, if people have not heard about him.

MELANIE: You're such a nutrition nerd.

KARA: I know, I learned about him 20 years ago, and he wrote a book in 1970 called Vitamin C and the Common Cold.

MELANIE: Oh yeah!

KARA: He won a Nobel Peace Prize in the 50s for his work in chemistry. But he really became known for his work on vitamin C and it earned him the nickname “The Pope of Vitamin C”.

MELANIE: I remember this from college. Oh my gosh.

KARA: I know right? In his writings he recommended taking high doses of vitamin C to prevent colds and other illnesses.

MELANIE: Yeah, he was kind of a groundbreaker really, and I wonder if people are thinking, great, I can drink my glass of orange juice for breakfast to get my vitamin C for the immune system. Not so much, but we'll talk more about orange juice when we come back from our break.

KARA: You are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. Our topic today is staying strong for the cold and flu season. Today we've talked about several ways you can support and strengthen your immune system with the right foods. What if you're doing everything you can to avoid catching the latest bug going around, and you still wake up one day with a sore throat, achy body, and a slight fever?

There is a product that I discovered a few years ago, and it seems to work like magic. I try to not run out of this supplement, especially in the winter months. It's called Viracid. It has a combination of vitamins, minerals, and botanical nutrients that really help to boost your immune defenses. We'll talk more about this after break.

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MELANIE: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. I'm Melanie Beasley, a Licensed Dietitian here with Kara Carper, Licensed Nutritionist. Kara mentioned a supplement called Viracid that can be helpful in warding off viruses, but it works best if it's taken at the very first sign of illness and if you start taking it as soon as you notice you've got that sore throat or runny nose or you're popping a fever, will often prevent the virus from becoming full blown.

I have to say, my husband came home and he's exposed to people all day long and next day, started developing sore throat, cough, low grade fever. I did the instructions on the back of the Viracid, and within 24 hours, he was doing, it's magic.

KARA: It really is.

MELANIE: It's actually the first time I've used that one. There's another one that I use, but I'm a believer.

KARA: I am as well. And like you said, the instructions on the bottle do say to take two capsules. This supplement, it's a professional brand by a company called Ortho Molecular. That just means that it's really best to purchase it from a licensed practitioner.

MELANIE: Not Amazon.

KARA: Correct. I mean.

MELANIE: So much fraud. So much fraud.

KARA: A lot of low quality products. So just kind of wanted to throw that out there. But yes, just like Melanie said how her husband took it, the best way to take Viracid is at the very first sign of illness. But take two capsules upon every hour. And I know that sounds like a lot, but that is really how it has its efficacy.

Whenever my family and I use it properly this way, it works every time. And like you said, within about 24 hours, we are feeling healthy and back to normal. So really that key is just being willing and trusting that it's safe to take two capsules every hour. I've taken up to probably 14 capsules in a day.

MELANIE: It can sound alarming, but you have to remember, these are food extracts and herbs that are in there. You're not going to have any of the side effects of this pharmaceutical, but it does have to titrate up in your system to do what it's supposed to do.

KARA: Correct. And it's obviously being used that way short term.

MELANIE: Yeah. So back to vitamin C and orange juice. We were talking about getting enough vitamin C and so a lot of times people say, well, I start drinking orange juice. Well, I want to address that because vitamin C for the immune system, yes, is very helpful.

The problem with orange juice or any type of juice really is that it's very high in sugar. So this is counterproductive. In fact, ounce for ounce, juice has the same amount of sugar as soda and one ounce of juice and one ounce of soda contain four grams of sugar, which is one teaspoon.

KARA: Yikes. So if you go to a restaurant or you're at a hotel and you're having breakfast in the cafe and you grab an eight ounce glass of orange juice that contains 32 grams of sugar, which is the same as spooning eight teaspoons of sugar into your mouth, which you wouldn't do.

And Melanie, I remember you gave one of your classes, you gave the participants a challenge. You encouraged them to squeeze oranges into a glass to see how much juice it would take to get, you know, maybe eight ounces.

MELANIE: A typical restaurant glass is really 10 ounces. I know I had a client that said it was 14 oranges for her to get the glass that she typically gets. So that's a lot of sugar. We wouldn't sit down and eat 14 oranges at a sitting and sugar suppresses the immune system. So what are we doing?

KARA: Like you said, it's counterproductive.

MELANIE: It's counterproductive. So you would never eat that many oranges and nature knows best and you would only eat one orange at a time typically. It's enough. The actual orange contains fiber and enzymes and other properties that make you feel full and also help balance the blood sugar when you have that fiber. But it's not natural to drink eight ounces of orange juice. It's considered a highly processed food that raises blood sugar. It seems like it's natural, but it's not natural to eat 14 oranges. And there's none of the fiber.

KARA: Yeah. It's missing the good stuff really.

MELANIE: It's missing the good stuff.

KARA: So eaten as an entire fruit, the orange is a great source of vitamin C. Did you know, there are many other sources of vitamin C? Berries, especially strawberries, kiwi and other citrus fruits such as grapefruit, lemons and lime, cantaloupe, papaya, guava, you know, some of those more tropical fruits contain high levels of vitamin C. And let's not forget our vegetable sources.

MELANIE: Yes. These are my favorite sources of vitamin C.

KARA: I know, you're waiting for this. Broccoli, spinach, green peppers, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, kale, and cabbage. All those wonderful cruciferous vegetables that are also going to help us detoxify, you know, excess estrogens and other things that we want to be excreting in our bodies.

MELANIE: Keep in mind that the longer you cook something such as broccoli or sweet potatoes or cauliflower, if you're putting in your slow cooker and you're cooking it all day, it does destroy the vitamin C. So have a sweet pepper. Make our broccoli salad on our website, which is raw broccoli.

Green peppers are great, a great source. I love them raw. But you might be wondering how much vitamin C you get from these wonderful vegetables and fruit sources. Well, one cup of strawberries contains 85 milligrams of vitamin C. If you like red peppers, which I do, an entire pepper contains 150 milligrams of vitamin C.

So eating a diet rich in colorful vegetables and fruits is going to help you get a lot of this powerhouse nutrient and help your immune system. So I challenge you listeners, go to your refrigerator, open your doors. How many colorful fruits and vegetables do you see?

KARA: Cause it's so much more than oranges. They're great, but we just gave you a very extensive list of other food sources of vitamin C.

MELANIE: And variety is key for nutrition.

KARA: All the colors of the rainbow. As Linus Pauling discovered back in the 1970s, the higher doses of vitamin C are most beneficial for preventing colds, the flu, and other infections. Did you know that the original recommendations from the National Academy of Food and Nutrition board, they established what we call the RDA. The RDA stands for Recommended Dietary Allowance. It's a guideline on how much we need of certain vitamins. The problem with the RDA is that it's not updated regularly. It was originally based on preventing major diseases such as scurvy.

MELANIE: It's the minimum. It's the minimum to prevent disease. It's not the level for optimal health. So we have to keep that in mind. And scurvy was a disease that sailors would get when they were at sea for a length of time and didn't have access to fresh food.

So they acquired extreme vitamin C deficiency and this would cause awful pain, illness and death. Of course, we don't deal with that today, but the RDAs for vitamin C are currently not much higher than the amount needed to prevent scurvy. I have to say from college days, I remember the story of sailors and they were called “limeys” because they would bring limes on the ships with them because they would last a long time and they could get their vitamin C to prevent this disease.

KARA: That's once they discovered what was causing the illness. Interesting “limeys”.

MELANIE: Isn't that funny?

KARA: That's a good tidbit. Well, doesn't it make more sense to focus on how our health can be optimized versus just preventing diseases like scurvy? To prevent scurvy, 60 milligrams of vitamin C is needed from the diet each day. Research is pointing to increasing that amount quite a bit for optimal health. You know, that's when it comes to cancer prevention, heart health, and of course, preventing infections. And according to Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling, a daily supplement of a thousand milligrams of vitamin C can reduce the risk of colds by 40 percent.

MELANIE: I had a client and who was chronically ill. She said she just dreaded fall and winter because she would get sinus infections back to back to back, which translated to antibiotics back to back to back. So when she came to me, one of her primary goals was her gut health, which all the antibiotics had just wreaked havoc on.

But also she was sick and tired of being sick and tired. So we straightened out her gut health. She had the white lines on her fingers, so she wasn't eating any produce. So I really worked with her and we did vitamin C supplementation, zinc supplementation, good probiotic, and she went through the whole winter without one sinus infection, not a cold, not a, it's, you know, it really is helpful for your immune system. Food matters.

KARA: That is fantastic. I bet she was so pleased.

MELANIE: She was. And, she brought me a little bouquet of flowers. She was so happy. So I was too.

KARA: A huge improvement.

MELANIE: Huge. I mean, you just can't live your life. So an important point with vitamin C is getting the correct form. And for my clients, I like the Nutrikey Complete C 1,000 as a daily supplement. It's not hard on the digestion and it works really well to maintain immune function. So during cold and flu season, or if you feel like you're coming down with something, it's a good idea to boost the amount and it's safe to take 2,000 milligrams or more of complete C.

I also like the form of it because if you take straight ascorbic acid, it's in the name, it's acid. And so it can affect gut health.

KARA: That makes a lot of sense.

MELANIE: So you do want something that's a little buffered or has an ascorbate form.

KARA: So the quality is very important.

MELANIE: I think so. Especially if you've got someone with a tender tummy.

KARA: I also like our liquid vitamin C that comes in a dropper form. It's called Liposomal Vitamin C 1000. In my brain, I think of that as a pre-digested form of vitamin C. So instead of needing to go through the intestinal tract, to be absorbed, the liposomal form, it's already absorbable in a liquid dropper.

The intestinal health connection to the immune system

So that would be a great form for someone who may tend to either get loose stools or has problems absorbing things due to having poor intestinal health. So we're going to just kind of switch gears a bit, but on the topic of intestinal health, Melanie, can you explain how the health of our microbiome can affect our immune system?

MELANIE: Sure. Sure. It's, you know, it's so important that approximately 70 percent of our immune system is located in our intestinal tract. What does that mean? Well, if you have a history of being on antibiotics or anti-inflammatory medications, think Advil, naproxen, any of those, aspirin, or perhaps you ate a lot of processed foods, drank alcohol, soda in your earlier years, you probably have an intestinal tract that could use some healing.

KARA: If you're just learning about the connection between your intestinal health and your immune system for the first time, you can still take action right now to start healing your gut. Your gut or your intestinal tract is the starting point of your immune system, and you want to be protected from pathogens like bad bacterium or viruses that are going around.

Yeah. The first step is to clean up the gut by eating whole unprocessed foods and reducing foods like cereal, pasta, crackers, and the obvious culprits, fast food, pizza, soda, cookies, you know, they need to come from nature. It needs to be as close to nature as you find them.

And did you know that processed carbohydrates and too many carbohydrates in general can feed bad bacteria and pathogens in the digestive system? This unknowingly puts people at a higher risk of getting sick. So it comes full circle back to real food for both getting the nutrients you need for your immune system, but preventing the buildup and the feeding of bad bacteria and pathogens that make us sick.

KARA: When I was a kid, I remember getting a lot of ear infections and they were very painful. And I know I was given antibiotics almost every time that I had an ear infection. And we know that that is sometimes necessary, but it also kills off the good bacteria in the gut. So fast forward to current day, you know, over the span of my years, I've certainly dabbled in other things that may have killed off good bacteria. Like you had mentioned, ibuprofen occasionally.

MELANIE: Can't know what we didn't know.

KARA: Exactly. We'd only know what we know.

MELANIE: Diet soda.

KARA: Soda, diet soda, regular soda, alcohol, poor food choices here and there. All of those are disruptive to the delicate gut lining. It's difficult to avoid everything that can disrupt intestinal health. So personally I take a daily probiotic, which is good bacteria supplement to support my intestinal health, which in turn supports my immune system. So my husband, my daughter, and myself, we all take the Biotic 7, which is a probiotic supplement. We take that on a regular basis. Fortunately, we do tend to stay pretty healthy during cold and flu season, and that's just one of the factors.

MELANIE: Mm hmm. I think it's one of the factors. I mean, I know you eat really clean, too. There are a lot of ways to support intestinal health that can set you up for a robust immune system and I love a good cup of bone broth especially on a cool fall day, and bone broth is you know you like bone broth too.

KARA: I do. If you're not familiar with bone broth. It's been around for thousands of years. It's always been considered a healing food. If you think about it, people recommend eating chicken soup when you're sick, right? Well, the store bought canned chicken soup, that is not the same.

MELANIE: Not what we're talking about,

KARA: …as homemade or even store bought high quality…

MELANIE: Bone broth works to heal the lining of the gut because it seals what's called the tight junctions. If you've ever heard of the term leaky gut, leaky gut happens after years of poor eating or taking medications. One solution for healing leaky gut is bone broth. You can't keep doing the heavy hitter medications. You can't keep doing the processed food, but once we get you on a real food diet, one of the things I'll incorporate is bone broth because it contains collagen, gelatin, amino acids like glycine and glutamine, which help to seal the gut barrier. And this lowers inflammation, which is the root cause in all infections and disease.

KARA: I have yet to make a homemade bone broth, but I know many of the registered and licensed dietitians at Nutritional Weight & Wellness have inspired me; it's kind of on a bucket list of mine to find some good quality chicken feet at a local butcher.

MELANIE: Even if you don't want to do that. You know, if the chicken feet, it can be a little daunting, but chicken backs work. I just recently picked up a Cornish game hen, I put that in the Instant Pot.

What I do is every time I peel my vegetables or chop my celery or chop my onions, I save what's left that you normally would throw in the garbage or your compost and I freeze it in bags. So it's already been washed, freeze it in bags. Once I get a good bag of that and then I have, I used a Cornish game hen, but you can use a whole chicken.

You can use the chicken feet, you can use the chicken backs. It's really the gristly, you know, it's more of the gristly parts. Like wings work really nicely. Anyway, put it in there. I “insta potted” it for, I think it was 45 minutes. And I dumped all my frozen, stuff in there. So you take your chicken pieces and you put it in there, you fill it with water, tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, all of that, the scraps that I had frozen, cook it up.

And it's fabulous. You can put it in a crock pot and leave it for 24, 48 hours. You have this beautiful golden goodness. You strain everything out, throw it away. And then you've got this wonderful, and you know it's good when you put it in the refrigerator and it's cooled down if it's like gelatin. Then you've got a really good healing bone broth.

It's a great source of collagen. You know, it's a free source of collagen really. And gelatin. So it's fabulous. You heat it up. It's not gelatinous anymore. It's it, that really is what grandma made.

KARA: Yeah. I love those tips, especially the practical tip about using the remnants of the veggies when you're cutting up veggies.

MELANIE: So easy. Yeah. I mean, for what we pay for vegetables right now, why not use everything?

KARA: Yeah. That is such a great tip.

MELANIE: So, not to mention, most canned soups contain MSG, flavor enhancers, preservatives that can lead to migraines, inflammation, weight gain. You don't want canned soup.

KARA: And if we circle back to content from the beginning of the show today, we had talked about the importance of protein for immune function. You know, I've never found anything prepackaged, whether it came from a can, box, or a freezer, that contained that quality protein, in fact, contained enough protein, vegetable carbohydrates and healing fats.

Just as an example, when I was in college, before I got nutrition savvy, I used to buy a brand of, it was labeled organic frozen meals and burritos. I thought, oh, they're organic. It's a whole meal. What could be wrong?

MELANIE: Yes.

KARA: Well, they were very high carbohydrate, low in protein, low in fat and what fats were in there were refined processed oils.

MELANIE: So, unfortunately, the term organic, you still have to be a detective.

KARA: Correct.

MELANIE: Is it organic canola oil?

KARA: Correct. And, you know, there really were, they were lacking in vegetables. Most of the carbohydrate sources were coming from potatoes, rice, or tortillas, which turned into a lot of sugar in the body.

MELANIE: Which compromises your immune system.

KARA: Absolutely.

MELANIE: When you think about how much better your body would feel if your immune system was not compromised and you nourished it with adequate protein, healthy fats, fresh organic vegetables versus packaged foods that not only don't provide nutrients that we need but they also assault the body with chemicals like MSG and the chemical BPA. None of those will support your immune function. In fact, they're going to compromise your immune function.

High sugar/carbohydrate foods compromise immune function

KARA: And before we wrap up our show, I just want to make one last connection that is really important. We had mentioned that foods or beverages that contain high amounts of sugar or high carbohydrates that are converting into sugar in our bloodstream.

This is really fascinating how that affects our immune system. I recall reading from a book years back called Nutrition Made Simple by author and nutritionist Robert Crayhon. In his book, he stated that “sugar paralyzes the immune system for several hours.”

MELANIE: Paralyzes the immune system. I love that term. So that's the thought we will leave you with today. Sugar paralyzes your immune system. So if you're squeezing a ton of honey in your tea in the morning and then you're putting, you know, sugar over your grapefruit, it's sort of defeating the purpose. So real food. Kick the sugar to the curb. Our goal at Nutritional Weight & Wellness is to help each and every person experience better health through eating real food. It's a simple yet powerful message. Eating real food is life changing. Thank you for listening to Kara and I today.