Diet and Hay fever

Diet Tips for Hay Fever

Your diet may hold the key

There is evidence that your diet may hold the key to hay fever in considerably easing the symptoms.

Diet can have a huge effect on your body’s ability to combat and deal with hay fever.

Lets take a look at some of them :

Nutrition :

To reduce allergy symptoms, eat a moderately low-fat, high-complex-carbohydrate diet.

Include a lot of the following foods in the diet:

Dark green, leafy vegetables,
Deep yellow and orange vegetables,
Nettles, bamboo shoots, cabbage, beet tops, beets, carrots, yams
Onions, garlic, ginger, cayenne, horseradish,


Carotenoids and Vitamin A Carotenoids

The substances in plants that give them the wonderful red, orange and yellow colors, can be converted in your body to Vitamin A an essential nutrient for the health of the respiratory system.

They are also found in spinach, kale, and collard greens.

* Eat plenty of carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, apricots, mangoes and green leafy vegetables.

* Eat in abundance citrus fruits , first of all lemons.
You can make a lemonade

(squeezed lemon + water + honey) and drink in the morning first.

Or you can make the following lozenge: Chop up the peels and white inner rinds of organic lemons.

Place in a pot and barely cover with water, simmer covered for ten minutes.

Sweeten the mixture to taste with honey and eat one teaspoon 3 times a day.

* Eat plenty of onion, garlic, pineapple, horseradish and local honey. Season with turmeric.

* Drink in abundance lemon, orange and pineapple juice. Increase your fluid intake to maintain the water content of the mucus membranes.


Supplements

Bioflavonoids (e.g., quercetin, catechin, and hesperidin).

Bioflavonoids are natural antihistamines and strongly anti-allergenic. Bromelain and vitamin C can enhance the action of bioflavonoids. Combination products are available.

• Flaxseed oil.

Other tips

With hay fever, you need to reduce the tendency for the body to form histamine by boosting your diet with foods rich in calcium, magnesium and flavonoids.

Have loads of onions, cabbage, blackberries and apples, including their peel.

Large amounts of Vitamin C are useful - it's a natural anti-histamine, and quercetin [a yellow pigment found in plants] is helpful too.

Quercetin appears to reduce the release of histamine from cells and is also believed to stabilise cell membranes so they are less reactive to allergens such as pollen.


FOODS TO EAT

* Soya products (if you want to replace dairy).
* Fish: high in omega 3 fatty acids which have an anti-inflammatory effect.
* Vegetables
* Fruits
* Garlic and onion.
* Honey, maple syrup,
* brown rice syrup or barley malt as sweeteners if required.
* Beans,
* lentils and tofu.
* Herbal teas.