What you should eat to stop falling ill all the time

"My grandmother insists that we eat raw onions with every meal. Really! Why is it necessary?" asked a friend when we met for lunch last week. "Oh yes, it is. Even more so in today's dengue infested times," I told her.

"Really, what's the connect?" she retorted.

Well, the connect is that onions are crammed with quercetin, which is a known platelet booster. So an onion a day per person is a good idea. Can't stomach raw onions? Have an onion soup, cooked on slow heat to maximise the benefits. Or slice them really thin (they cook faster this way), let them sit for a couple of minutes (enzymes and antioxidants become more available) and then cook covered with some vegetable stock (or water) for a few minutes till they become soft. Use as topping for any dish (dal, sabzi, stir fry, salad, rice). Frying till caramelised or even the way we make our curries is not the best way to get their benefits. With onions another tip is to peel lightly, as quercetin tends to be more concentrated in the outer layers of the flesh. Ditto with apple, which again is a high quercetin food, or better still have it with the peel. Red wine, prunes, tea are other options, I told her. Hearing this my friend of course quickly ordered a glass of red and started feeling pretty virtuous about her meal suddenly.

The fact is that if we carefully rework our diet, we can give our body a fighting chance against scary seasonal viruses. After all who catches the flu when someone in a movie hall sneezes is all a gameplay of immunity - those with sturdy immunity escape, while others succumb. In case you are wondering what exactly immunity is… Well, it is the constant and silent patrol inside our body, which keeps us safe from the onslaught of viruses and bacteria. Simply put it is the ability of our body to withstand the stresses of our daily life and protect itself from foreign invaders like viruses, disease and infection, which attack left, right and centre these days. Unfortunately there is no test yet to check its potency, but what we do know is that right foods can definitely beef it up and help us not just give the flu a miss, but also to recover faster just in case dengue does strike.

Let's talk fibre now. How much soluble fibre you consume has a strong say too. Till now you have been asked to increase your fibre intake for reasons varying from keeping constipation away to beating heart disease, and of course to keep your weight in check. There's another motivation actually. Research shows that loading up on soluble fibre can actually bring about a profound, positive change in our immunity status. Basically it leads to increased production of an anti-inflammatory protein called interleukin-4 that helps us recover faster from infection. So plating oats, beans, apples, nuts, seeds, strawberry, carrots, mango, orange, barley and flaxseeds, all high soluble fibre foods, is actually a good idea. It is important to understand here that while insoluble fibre (the other kind of fibre), found in whole wheat and whole-grain products, wheat bran, and green, leafy vegetables, is also good value for the body (as it provides bulk and satiety), to give a boost to the immune system you need to load up on soluble fibre.

Also as 30-40 per cent of our immune system is in our gastrointestinal system, steeling up the gut is a good idea too. Daily probiotics can help restore the natural state of health that a diet of excess sugar, meat, processed foods and prescription drugs have destroyed. Drinking freshly-squeezed lemon juice in water early morning works too as it helps restoring acid-alkali balance and thus helps maintain the body's internal "climate" at a pH which supports healthy bacteria instead of the viruses and harmful bacteria which thrive in an acidic environment.

Look out for the next post for more food ways to fight flu and dreaded dengue.