Somewhere between summer ending and fall/winter beginning, and there on, I get deathly ill. For days and sometimes weeks at a time I am bed ridden, crawling on my hands and knees to get from the bed to the bathroom. It’s my own fault - I don’t keep myself in immune fighting mode. We all do things that make our immune systems weak. We drink alcohol, wear ourselves out with stress, and have poor diets.

What we eat plays a huge role in fighting off germs. The simple solution? Eat well. I’ve listed eight power foods to help you beat the bug.

1. Oranges!
Also known as the staple to any breakfast, one orange provides more than 100 percent of the daily value for vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant that helps to strengthen the immune system. Vitamin C helps boost immunity by stimulating growth of antibodies that fight off infections. It is a part of the chemical reactions that allow our bodies to synthesize proteins needed for antibodies. It also acts as an antihistamine by lowering blood levels of the histamines released by the immune system that make stuffiness and congestion worse. SO the more vitamin C the better!

2. Blueberries
The powerhouse of antioxidants - blueberries get the most votes as the immunity food. These little guys are a good source of vitamins C and E and when these two work together they produce the greatest antioxidant effects. C works as the water soluble antioxidant and E works as the fat soluble.

3. Tea
I’m not a big tea drinker but when I’m feeling a scratchy throat, it does the trick. It soothes the throat and relaxes your senses. Green tea - the least processed - contains the highest amount of nutrients. I am more fond of black tea, which is also full of health benefits. Compounds known as polyphenols, make up 30 percent of tea’s dry weight. This is important because our bodies are constantly overwhelmed with free radicals that steal electrons from our healthy cells and in turn damage their DNA. The polyphenols give up their own electrons to these unstable ones, rendering them harmless and eliminating threat.

4. Garlic
This potent remedy has antiviral, antifungal, and antibacterial properties. I know garlic has a pretty terrible smell, but it’s because of the allicin - a sulfurous chemical compound. Allicin inhibits the growth of bacterial and can even kill some germs on contact. In order to get the full effect of fighting off colds and the flu, you’re supposed to eat an entire bulb RAW every day. I don’t know if I can handle that, but eat any amount of garlic will give you some benefit.

5. Shiitake Mushrooms
These little guys help produce a type of white blood cell called “natural killer cells”, which help release a type of protein into infected cells that causes them to self destruct. Another effect of shiitake mushrooms is their lentinan. Similar to bateria, lentinan tricks your body into feeling threatened which then gets your immune system into butt kicking.

6. Sweet Potatoes
High in carotene, gives the orange color, sweet potatoes are key in fighting against infection. The liver converts carotene to vitamin A which fortifies your skin, the first germ defender. Our skin becomes less permeable making sure those nasty things don’t come in. Sweet P’s also contain 27 percent of the recommended daily vitamin C.

7. Spinach
Popeye’s favorite! For good reason of course. Spinach is packed full of nutrients and essential vitamin that are essential when it comes to the production of new cells. One of them is folate. Our immune system depends on folate to increase the supply of cells when our body is threatened and needs to produce more to target invaders. There are 13 different compounds in spinach that act as antioxidants, one called quercetin. This helps prevent viruses from multiplying. The recommended amount? Three cups!

8. Yogurt
I always hear that it’s “gross” that yogurt has bacteria. Well listen up, it has the “good” bacteria called probiotics that make an essential contribution to a healthy immune system. The stomach and intestinal tract contain 500+ varieties of bacteria, and probiotics helps maintain a balance between the good and bad by pushing out pathogens and preventing them to attach to gut walls. They also feed on non-digestible fibers which decrease acidity in the colon. The decrease in acidity makes the colon uninhabitable for infection causing pathogens. Probiotics also enhance the body’s immune system response by increasing levels of natural killer cells. Yogurt also helps the body build gamma interferon, a protein that helps the body develop white blood cells.

Well, I made my list for the grocery store. Hope you took notes!