Higher Veggie Consumption Decreases Covid Severity

Last Updated on April 27, 2022 by Colleen

Higher Veggie Consumption Decreases Covid Severity

Your mother told you – eat your veggies.

Well, now we have real-time data from a group of researchers at Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and Columbia to tell you that mom was right.

In their study, people who ate 40% more vegetables over the 12 months prior to getting Covid 19 were 72% less likely to have moderate to severe Covid symptoms.

If we got similar results by taking a medication, we’d all be taking it!

The study is referenced by Leo Galland, MD on Dr. Mark Hyman’s Nov. 3, 2021 People’s Farmacy podcast. It looked at a group of health professionals, mostly men, who had survived Covid and classified their symptoms by severity (scoot to the very end of the podcast to hear their discussion on this).

Now, of course, we need more studies like this and ones with women and youth in the data pool. But it’s not the fact that eating more vegetables leads to better health that we need more data on. It’s just how much impact eating more plant-based foods has, not just your long-term health, but also your immediate health.

The more direct and significant the lines can be drawn between food and health, the more we all will be inspired to focus on eating a variety of plants daily and dropping our consumption of processed foods. And that’s not just good for us, it’s good for our planet.

And it is good for all of us to hear again from Drs. Galland and Hyman about how critical Vitamin D is to your body’s ability to fight disease, in particular Covid. Since it’s winter, getting out in the sun isn’t enough because the rays aren’t very strong. The doctors recommend we all take vitamin D supplements because those with high vitamin D have been proven to fight off Covid more easily. And if you are older, you may want to find a D+K formula.

So, it comes down to this:

• Eat good food, mostly plants, and make sure they are free of toxins.
• If the food you are purchasing doesn’t have purity verification like ZEGO offers, choose organic when you can.
• If you can’t find or afford organic, get to know your farmers at your local market and find the ones that minimize toxins like pesticides on their farms.
• If you can’t shop at a farmers’ market, look for the smaller fruits and vegetables that don’t look perfect. Perfect looking product requires chemical farming, and shiny waxes can seal in pesticide residue.
• Some spots and nibbles from bugs can be a sign fewer chemicals were used to grow the produce.
• Get outside and exercise whenever you can.
• In the winter, be sure you are taking a vitamin D supplement.

Be well,
Colleen