Boost your immunity with food and humor

“You will know when you find the right woman. If her lips are burning hot when you kiss her; if her whole body trembles when you hold her in your arms – forget about her. She has the coronavirus.”

my Facebook post from February 29

We finally live in dire times. The times that most people alive today (and all of the people alive in a few months) have never seen. It’s the end of the world as we know it. We can only hope we survive this and get out of it stronger. Because hard times do make stronger people. Look at all those people who survived real wars like the Second WW, Vietnam, look at the people who survived the real economic crisis like the great depression… Look at them and say goodby while you can. Because maybe we are getting out of it stronger, but for sure we are getting out of it statistically younger.

Sorry if I offended someone. Its just a joke, I am not making fun of old people dying – I am warning everyone who still thinks its not a big deal. Because it is. It is bad and we are to blame for it. We had it too good for too long. Those old people who are in danger now have created a good nice world for us to live in. And, as the saying goes, good times make soft people, and soft people, sooner or later, make bad times again. It makes me so mad when I hear people say: “Its much less dangerous then the flu” or “they are reporting how many are getting sick and dying but not how many are getting better”. It is 20 times deadlier than the flu and 2.2 times more contagious. It is at this point deadlier than the Spanish flu of 1918 (2% in 1918 and 3.4% in 2020).

The hospitals are not ready, the government is not ready, everything – medicines and masks and gloves – is made in China, and China is not bringing it to us right now. There is only 46.000 ICU beds in the whole USA. And only 176.000 breathing units. As a good friend of mine (who believed in reincarnation) said to me once: “Oh, in this life, we are fucked.”

But I dont want to just be one of those screaming panic-inducing media people. I want to actually give some advice, maybe help someone. I dont know anything about viruses, epidemics, but I do know about food and cooking. So, here are some helpful tips I found.

I turned to ancient wisdom of the internet and asked how to bust my immunity. The first thing, the number one advice on all the sites was:

1. Reduce your stress levels.

Thank you, internet. It’s the armageddon outside, my business is closed, my shares have tumbled, my parents think it is nothing to worry about and still go outside, people are fighting over toilet paper in stores, my wifes 80 year old mother wants to hug me and kiss me 3 times polish style, kids have no school and just hang around in a house all day and that is my wifes excuse for no intimacy, my insurance says they do not cover loss of business over “viral outbreaks”, Tom Hanks is infected, dogs can get the virus, I can’t fall asleep for hours and hours, they changed the clock to wake me up 1 hour earlier, I have to shave my beard because it does not fit under my mask, its chaos, the end, cats and dogs living together, total breakdown of the system… And internet says the best method to boost your immunity is to be calm and stress-free!

Advice number 2,3,4:

2. Sleep more

3. Have more sex

4. Stop drinking alcohol

At that point I jumped to number 7 – Eat these foods:

1. Food rich in Zinc. Lucky for you and me, The foods richest in Zinc content are: Red Meat, Dairy, Eggs, Shellfish, Potatoes (that list there is what I mostly eat), Beans and Seeds. Now if you are a vegan, you can pretend to be a bird and just eat seeds all day, or you can stop being vegan and turn at least vegetarian. Have some of the Pierogi we have ready for you in our store: the cheese&potato ones. Now, someone told me you can eat beans cooked without bacon – but why would you? Come get the baked beans (bacon-infused) at our Smoke BBQ. Trust me. Its healthy. It has Zinc. But not only: protein from beans and animal meat generate faster renewal of existing cells and new ones.
2. Chicken Broth (Jewish people call this soup Penicillin). Now, chicken broth is, funny enough, the only food on this list whose healing effects on flu have been proven in a clinical study. What I am saying – other foods here do help in creating more white cells and other immunity boosts, but they were not used on actually sick people.
3. Bone Broth – working on the same principle as the chicken soup, this broth has been used to boost immunity for thousands of years – and old folk remedies are mostly right. We at the Smoke Polish BBQ in our Enfield Kitchen laboratory have prepared for our clients the strongest and tastiest 24h cooked bone broth with aromatic vegetables.
4. Vitamin D. It used to be C. Now D is the big one. Scientists were not able to link the C to the immunity (it does help when you are already sick) but they did for D. Have more big D in your life! Best source for D? The vitamin: Costco, Walgreens, Stop-shop… Just buy the supplement. Otherwise – eat unholy amounts of Wild Salmon, Tuna, Sardines, Cod liver oil, Beef liver… Well, eggs and yogurt are OK too, but nowhere near the fatty fish or yellow translucent capsules.
5. And while you are there buying the D3, get some turmeric too. It does help.
6. Probiotics have only a temporary, short term boosting effect on your gut bacteria (that is where 70% of your immunity comes from). Prolonged exposure – zero effect. But if there was a time to have a short boost of healthy gut bacteria, it is now.
7. Shitake mushrooms: rich in both Zinc and vitamin D. Broccoli too, plus it helps your gut bacteria, And mixes well with garlic!
8. Garlic!
9. Oats and barley. No, really. Have Oatmeal for breakfast and 6 barley beers for lunch. They are all full of beta-glucan, a type of fiber with antimicrobial and antioxidant capabilities more potent than Echinacea. And, I’ve been told, beer helps with stress too.
10. Citrus fruit. It just feels like it should be helping. Just like honey.

You are welcome. Wash your hands and stay healthy!