B (10:36)

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A (10:54)

So there's an emphasis on Whole Foods in the OMS program. So this means using brown flour and brown bread over the white refined versions because this increases the nutrient content that you'll be getting. You'll be getting fibre, as I mentioned, is very important, but also other minerals that are contained within those whole grains, like zinc and iron, that can directly nourish the immune system. When we consume foods that are rich in sugars, we actually use up our own stores of valuable nutrients to digest those foods and turn them into energy. So when we eat foods that contain those vitamins and substances as well, then we're actually providing all the nutrients that we need to generate that energy from food. There's whole food diet, lots of plant food foods actually improve your mental well being and actually help you lift your mood. And by reducing sugars and refined carbohydrates, you may actually be able to ramp up the activity of your first line defender white blood cells against possible viruses that may attack. Because sugar, it was shown in a study a number of years ago, but still holds good sway today. That sugar may actually paralyze elements of the immune system. One of the sort of guiding principles of the OMS program is to have a very anti inflammatory approach to foods. But it's not just what we eat, it's also the way we cook our foods. So by not deep frying and spoiling and using harmful and damaged fats which are pro inflammatory and by controlling the temperature of the oven, we're also reducing inflammation from cooking methods. It doesn't matter if it's fresh fruit and vegetables or frozen fruit or vegetables, they all count. And a nice thing to do as well in order to increase variety would be try and include one new food a week. So it could be. Maybe you could choose red cabbage or red onions instead of brown onions and green cabbage. When you're shopping for foods, preparing vegetables and getting sort of stuck in a rut with sort of the same meals we're all spending, seems to be a lot more time in the kitchen. Cooking three meals a day for a full family household. Jazzing up the way you prepare salads might help to keep things interesting. You could try spiralizing or grating. We're blessed with some fabulous weather at the moment. Barbecuing is another nice way to to eat different vegetables. But try adding fresh herbs to make your usual salad taste a bit different. And zingy mint is great in summer salads. Or basil for a Mediterranean flavor. Or you could use fresh herbs in the dressing for the salad. Something like mustard and tarragon work very well together. Leafy greens are a great food to include in the diet because they are so potent in a wide variety of nutrients, but not always gratefully received by the family. It's very easy to do if you finely shred your greens and you can just stir them into pasta sauces, or you can just stir them into risottos or stews or lentil shepherd's pie. Those kind of meals, they wilt into almost nothing and yet the nutritional value is still there in the food. By introducing various coloured root veggies, we can get some of those lovely oranges into the D. So taking a tin of beans and blitzing it up maybe with some sort of drained sun dried tomatoes, chickpeas, a bit of basil as a kind of go to dip or spread for lunchtime, something like a tin of salmon mixed up with a tin of butter beans and some dill and sort of loosened with a little bit of soy yogurt is another way to kind of make quick and easy and interesting food that are just kind of hand to mouth ready, I guess, in the fridge. And we're used to the idea of snacking on nuts, but use nuts and seeds to also incorporate texture into salads or into stir fries to sort of jazz up the same sort of dishes that you might be in habit of repeating if you're going to be doing some home baking. And there are lots of amazing recipes on the OMS website and lots of other places that are OMS friendly. Maybe don't think about using a white flour and sugary base, think about using ground almonds or ground walnuts, maybe tahini, which is sesame paste. And there are some great recipes for incorporating a tin of black beans into a brownie recipe, for example. And so these kind of baked goods don't need to be such a sugar hit, which I mentioned before, is at risk of paralyzing these white blood cells. And if you are snacking, then it's quite handy to think of protein and produce as a good way to build a healthy snack. By that I would mean something like almond butter spread on apple or soy yogurt with a handful of colored berries, or maybe some hummus with some fresh pepper sticks or some nuts with some dried fruit. Because we've got more time at home, it might be a good idea to think about batch cooking. Tonight I've made a lovely pasta sauce and I doubled up. I made twice as much. And that's it. One night next week we'll have dinner ready made. And also menu planning is another great way to save money and also to save food. And I noticed that Overcoming Ms. Have got a great menu planning tool on their website this week which you can help, which you can use to kind of plot your weekly foods. And any veggies that are kind of past their prime starting to wilt in the bottom of the fridge, just boil them up into stocks or into soups and you can freeze them. If you make stocks out of them. You can use them to saute foods in just by keeping them in ice cube trays. It used to be that we thought maybe just the sort of constant grazing throughout the day was a good practice, but now actually we realize that having just three solid meals a day and allowing a rest time for the digestion in between is actually more beneficial. And another good way to kind of cut down on that evenings on the sofa, Netflix snacking time, maybe an extra glass of wine you didn't really need would be considering time restricted eating or an overnight fast. Of course, you can drink water and herbal tea during that time, just not consuming any calories. And that's been shown really beneficial in a number of ways to kind of balance cholesterol levels, balance insulin levels, and again help the microbiome actually flourish. And it's a good idea to make sure that you are drinking sufficient water between one and a half, two liters a day. And then I've mentioned something called beta glucans because this is an interesting area. It's a polysaccharide or a carbohydrate that foods like mushrooms, oats and barleys and also a nutritional yeast. And we do recommend using nutritional yeast on the OMS program because it's a good source. It's one of the only plant sources of vitamin B12. And it's also a nice substitute for cheesy flavour in foods and sources. And these foods are rich in these beta glucans, which are being studied at the moment for their effects on improving how our bodies respond to infection. So tea, particularly green tea, is probably the most immune busting tea. But black tea as well have antioxidant effects. It seems even just two cups of green tea could be helpful in protecting you from catching COVID 19 in the first place. And honey, which is a lovely analgesic to help soothe sore throats if you eat it raw. It also has antiviral and antibacterial properties as well. If you are following the OMS program without the seafood element and you've taken a completely vegan approach, then remember you'll need to take a B12 supplement as well. And if you've been identified as deficient. So if you know you have iron deficiency, anemia or your folate levels are low, then definitely be taking supplements to correct that. You can actually only absorb about 250mg of vitamin C from the gut at one time, so taking something like 500 milligrams of a couple of times a day will be absolutely sufficient. And some people like to take a zinc supplement because zinc has powerful effects on the formation of immune elements and also the expression of the immune system. And I would say look for a zinc cholinate supplement because that's the one that is most readily absorbed thank you.

B (20:26)

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