Winters - Do You Think You Should Avoid These Foods?

Any beverage that contains copious amounts of caffeine tends to act like a diuretic. A diuretic is a substance that tends to cause excessive urination and thus may dehydrate your body. This problem becomes greater during the winters due to the lack of thirst and thus an already dehydrated body will lose water even more. This will result in the formation of thicker mucus, resulting in colds taking longer to heal.

While dark green leafy vegetables such as spinach and kale grow during the winters, other forms of lighter green vegetables are usually stocked from earlier and thus may undergo degradation in quality. It is thus best to buy organically grown fresh vegetables which are known to be grown during the winter season rather than buying vegetables which may have been stockpiled from earlier.

While soup can help soothe an aching throat or a blocked nose, cream soups can actually cause more trouble. Cream-based soups can thicken your mucus and exaggerate the cold and flu symptoms. Also, cream soups tend to have a much higher salt and saturated fat content which is detrimental to your health. The option in this regard is thus to have vegetable stews and soups without creams or other additives and lightly garnished with ingredients and spices such as salt and pepper.

While spicy foods do clear out sinuses, they are detrimental to the health of your stomach. If you have a cold or the flu, spicy foods will make it worse. Avoid red peppers and red chili powder especially, as these can exacerbate health problems during the dry winters.