Mothers Advice on Antioxidants Swine Flu and Carry On Luggage
As the holidays approach my ever loving and all knowing Mother starts giving me unsolicited tips, these involve everything from advice on packing for the weather on the east coast, to airports to avoid in winter, to diet and exercise advice. Most of these I listen to and promptly forget, but some of them have stood the test of time, and some are echoed by some of the top health experts in the world.
The first is gargling with salt water during flu season. She had told me this for years, and I have followed this advice just after brushing my teeth in the morning, and sure enough no flu for the past 3 years. Imagine my surprise when I received an email alert documenting research showing the salt water inhibits bacterial growth in the nose and throat, where most respiratory infections in the body start. This is also true for Swine Flu which does most of its damage in the pulmonary system.
Another piece of advice that has been echoed time and time again from the healthcare field is the importance of eating plenty of fruits and vegetables. This is something that I have attempted to follow, with varying degrees of success for years. The biggest problem that I have found is the difficulty of actually eating all those fruits and vegetables every day, sure some days I would have a fruit salad for breakfast, salad for lunch, and a dinner with a couple of vegetables, but when I went back and looked at my average ingestion I found I was way below that recommended by the medical experts, and my Mother.
So I began my quest to find a supplement to my “best intentions” diet that would provide healthy whole nutrition every day, not just the days I dropped 25 bucks at Whole Foods on fruits and vegetables. I am a big fan of acai, maybe that comes from nostalgia for my mis-adventures in Brazil, but I found it hard to maintain my morning smoothie when traveling or when working long hours. The need to keep the perishable acai frozen, and the mess I inevitably make when trying to make a smoothie were frustrating. What I needed was an easy to use, high potency antioxidant what would fit seamlessly into my lifestyle. I have found that the freeze dried coffee fruit powder from KonaRed Coffee Fruit company is the perfect travel companion. Its non-liquid so it goes right in my carry-on (Mother Tip #348-Don’t check luggage, most of the time it gets there, but when it really has to be there it inevitably gets lost). The coffee fruit powder goes well with tea for an afternoon pick me up, or with iced water and lemon for a post workout refresher.