11 common diet mistakes to AVOID

Your diet plan should be designed in a way that you eat healthy at least 5 times a day, recommends Siddhant Bhargava.

We all enjoy witnessing the seamless climatic transitions from winter to summer to the much-awaited showers.

While these seasonal changes do amuse us in many ways than one, we do dread the impacts of the changing climate on our immunity.

Our physique tends to become all the more susceptible to contagions and allergic reactions throughout this time and that is one of many explanations why lots of people continue to fall prey to winter chills, cough, and the seasonal flu.

To guard our immunity from these seasonal intruders it is often advised to eat healthily along with following a healthy lifestyle, but little did we know about the diet mistakes that could further pose challenges for our immunity.

Having said that there is no avoiding it, we have to eat every day and with the climate change effects become gradually evident, the picks we make about what we have been eating and what to avoid becomes all the more significant.

With a little bit of ingredient swaps and tweaks to your consumption patterns, you can facilitate in making a more positive impact on your health as well as lend a helping hand towards earth conservation.

Here are some diet flaws that you may not realise you are making in a bid to avoid climatic impacts, that is not helping you in sustaining your immunity in any way:

1. Dehydration

During the winters and rains, you might not really feel as thirsty as you probably did during the peak of summers.

In spite of this, you must ensure to drink a sufficient amount of water throughout the day to facilitate your body to stay hydrated. This is mainly because dehydration can make you feel weak, thus taking a toll on your immunity.

For an instant immunity booster, ensure that you are drinking warm water completely evading chilled water.

Blending ingredients like ginger, lemongrass, and tulsi in your water or tea will help reinstate your immune levels.

2. Not cleaning veggies before cooking

In order to avert contamination, you must get habituated to clean your greens and meat well before you cook them.

Wash them multiple times to get rid of harmful chemicals, pesticides and bacteria. 

3. Eating uncooked meals

Eating uncooked or semi cooked meals will offer an instant entry to pathogens that will ultimately have a toll on your well-being.

While eating uncooked and raw veggies like carrots and cucumber is recommended, you must ensure that it does not represent nearly all of your eating regimen.

If meat and poultry are not cooked well, it could lead to food poisoning. 

4. Consuming a protein-deprived diet

Protein is typically referred to as the constructing block of your life. Unfortunately, most of us do not consume enough proteins on a daily basis.

Be sure to check your daily diet to include eggs, milk, almonds, yoghurt and broccoli.

Proteins are crucial nutrients to uphold one’s immunity.

5. Not consuming meals at regular time intervals

Your diet plan should be designed in a way that you eat healthy at least 5 times a day.

Starving yourself to shed kilos will not help you sustain your immunity. When you starve or deprive yourself, you will tend to over eat, which will further increase the perils of obesity.

You must never skip your meals during a climatic transition.

Doing so might have an extreme effect on your health which might additionally deteriorate your immunity in the long run. Instead, you must consider adding essential nutrients in your diet to stay healthy.

6. Increased intake of junk edibles

Feasting on junk meals might contribute to weight problems, which have an ability to trigger different metabolic issues.

You must keep edibles that have excessive trans-fats at bay.

7. Consuming a sugar-rich diet

Refined sugar is claimed to be one of many causes of health issues.

Sugar-rich edibles are likely to alter blood glucose ranges and only offer satiety for a transitory time interval.

They fail to provide the body with the necessary vitamins you need to stay healthy during a climate change.

A diet rich in sugars will slowly begin to affect your completely balanced immune system.

Instead switch to fruits that are high on water content and have natural sugar like watermelon, apples and pears.

8. Excessive intake of salt

Consuming too much salt can lead to health issues like hypertension and water retention which will result in declining immunity.

You must safeguard to keep yourself away from meals rich in sodium.

9. Spices

When consumed in a small quantity, spices can do wonders for boosting your immunity. However, if you go overboard, you might be doing extra bad than good.

10. Not eating a diet rich in vegetables

Vegetables are low-calorie, nutrient-dense substitutes to other edibles. Being super nutritious and wholesome, you must include them throughout all the seasons.

11. Increased intake of meat and dairy products

It has been researched that meat and dairy consumption tend to have an adverse impact on climate change and indirectly tend to affect our immunity.

Livestock is accountable for about 15 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions.

Cattle seem to be the biggest culprit.

Raised for milk consumption, cows tend to represent about sixty-five percent of the livestock sector's emissions, followed by pork (nine percent) buffalo milk (eight percent), and poultry and eggs (eight percent) respectively.

The livestock production is also liable for other greenhouse gas emissions, such as a nitrous oxide (N20) and carbon dioxide (CO2), mainly through their feed production, which often involves large applications of nitrogen-based fertilisers.

These when consumed can have undesirable health impacts.

A diet without meat products can condense the emissions of greenhouse gas by 49 percent. Hence it is recommended to go slow on meat and dairy consumption and instead up the intake of plant-based diets during climatic fluctuations.

We can end the impact of climatic fluctuations on our well-being but we can surely safeguard our immunity through correcting our eating habits.

Siddhant Bhargava, a fitness and nutritional scientist, is co-founder of Food Darzee.