This super-easy meal is a must for anybody wanting good immune health. I will give you the recipe first and then the science bit afterwards.
Firstly, I must give complete credit to Mr Michael Ash, who is one of our gurus in nutritional gut immune research. He’s one of the experts behind the scenes of the BBC Series “Doctor in the House” presented by GP, Dr Rangan Chatterjee. Michael is an osteopath, Nutritionalist and faculty member of the Institute of Functional Medicine. This is his recipe and his research, I’m just sharing it with you now, because it’s a perfect time to be eating a bowl of this every day, to support your immune system.
If you’ve read my last blog on phytochemicals, you’ll now know that apples belong to the flavonoid group of phytochemicals. The meal is basically stewed apples with special immune-supporting ingredients added. I’ve made a 2-minute video for you on my New Dawn Health Facebook page here.
Ingredients to cook:
- 6 Bramley cooking apples
- ½ (120ml) cup of water
- ½ cup raisins or sultanas
- 2 tsp. cinnamon
Method
Peel and core the apples and chop them into thin slices. Pop them in a saucepan, along with all the other ingredients above and gently cook until the apple pieces are soft. The cinnamon will make it look brown, don’t worry. Once cooked, add these special ingredients to turn it into a perfect immune-supporting meal:
- A teaspoon of prebiotic larch arabinogalactans (more on this later)
- An opened capsule of saccharomyces boulardii
- A capsule or sprinkle of your favourite probiotic supplement
- A good dollop of live yoghurt (dairy, soy or coconut)
- Some blueberries and some almonds (skin on)
- A little Manuka honey, if desired
So what makes the combination of these ingredients into a perfect meal for your immune system?
Apples…
- have been shown to reduce rhinitis and asthma and act like an anti-histamine to decrease the likelihood of allergic and intolerant reactions
- are high in polyphenols and antioxidants
- reduce DNA damage and help your immune cells to mature properly
- protect your intestine from too much inflammation
- contain soluble fibre, which we can’t digest, but our beneficial gut bacteria love the fibre. They ferment it in the colon to make butyrate, which in turn strengthens our intestinal barrier and limits the movement of unwanted bacteria into our bloodstream
- support your “good” bacteria, particularly the species Bacteroidetes, which help to keep you at an optimum weight
- contain pectin which helps to keep your stool soft, yay!
Cinnamon…
- helps to mature dendritic white blood cells and calm them down a little, so they are less likely to raise the inflammatory alarm
- reduces your insulin response to the natural sugars in the apples, so this makes this meal good for diabetics and anybody else looking to keep their blood sugar levels steady (that should be all of us!)
- us anti-microbial, anti-oxidant, anti-tumour, cholesterol-lowering, cardiovascular and immune-system supporting – wow!
Live yoghurt…
- can lower inflammatory cytokine messages and of course, contains the beneficial bacteria for our immune system
Blueberries…
- when combined with yoghurt, have been shown to reduce colitis (inflammation of the colon), in 10 days, impressive!
Larch arabinogalactans…
- These are “prebiotics”, or food for your beneficial bacteria
- you can buy it here
Saccharomyces Boulardii…
- can help with diarrhoea, IBS and inflammation of the colon
- reduces inflammatory signals, reduces the toxic effects from clostridium difficile infections, reduces helicobacter pylori infections, yeasts and other gut infections
- improves your immune responses in many ways
- you can buy it and another good probiotic here
Manuka honey…
- has been used to help the treatment of antibiotic-resistant organisms in the gut, so if you know this may relate to you, please include
Almonds
- provide protein and beneficial fats to support balanced immune cell behaviour
Please enjoy, because now you know why an apple a day really does keep the doctor away!