You can always tell that the seasons have shifted when you start hearing coughs and sniffles in the air. Whether it’s you, your partner or bubs, coming down with a cold or the flu can put a real dampener on things, especially when you’re trying to lose weight!
Getting sick means cutting back on the exercise and finding ways to eat quickly and easily as no-one feels like standing over a hot oven when they’re feeling feverish.
Vitamin C is one of nature’s natural cold and flu fighters. A potent antioxidant, it helps protect the body from free radicals which are responsible for causing illness and ageing in the body.
While the jury is out on the actual effectiveness of taking vitamin C to treat and lessen the severity of a cold, studies have found that, when consumed daily, vitamin C CAN shorten cold duration.
The key is making sure you have enough in your diet of a daily basis, as opposed to only dosing up with supplements and the like when an illness has already hit. The body can’t naturally produce Vitamin C, so it is up to our diet to make sure we get enough.
The best way to get your daily dose? Fresh fruit and veggies. These foods are packed full of the good stuff. Citrus fruits are especially high in vitamin C (one of the reasons we often drink orange juice or hot water with lemon when we feel unwell), though other fruits, like melon, also rank very highly.
Try adding one (or more) of these to your diet to ward off colds and flu this winter.
Vitamin C rich foods
Red Capsicum – Half a capsicum (or pepper as it is known in the UK) contains a whopping 87% of your daily vitamin C requirement! Try adding It to a salad or chopping into slices to eat with a tasty dip.
Kale – Leafy greens are one of the best sources of vegetable based vitamin C, with Kale ranking as number one in the cold and flu fighting stakes. Try adding shredded kale to your salads, leaves to your smoothies or baking bite sized bits in the oven to make crispy, kale chips (check out the recipe HERE). For the ultimate flu fighter, try making a dip with red capsicum and eating it with kale crisps!
Kiwi fruit – The humble kiwi fruit is actually a super flu fighter in disguise. A single serve of this sweetly tart fruit salad essential contains 137 mg of vitamin C. That’s more than both broccoli AND cauliflower! Try adding kiwi to a salad or pop a few slices in your Healthy Mummy smoothie.
Sweet Potato – We know sweet potato is better for us than regular potatoes, due to its low GI rating and high fibre content but did you know that it’s also high in vitamin C? The bright orange colour is a giveaway! Try adding a serving of roast sweet potato to your salad, or swapping your normal potato oven fries for sweet potato ones.
Strawberries – Fan of a handful of strawberries in your morning smoothie? Keep on throwing them in! A single serving has 86 mg of vitamin C, as well as being packed full of other potent anti-aging antioxidants.
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