Worried about your immune system? This guide is going to make sure it’s as tough as steel!

When it comes to your immune system, it’s sometimes hard to know what you can eat in order to maintain it in great shape. After all, we can take supplements, but we can also make sure that an appropriate diet is going to help us give our bodies the needed nutrients and vitamins it needs to function properly.

This is why you should give the food color wheel a try! According to all the colors here, the named fruits and vegetables are going to give your immune system the nutrients it needs, along with other antioxidants and anti-inflammatory elements, to be kept healthy.

We have gathered some of the most important foods for each color and presented them to you here, so you can have an easy start getting on the food color wheel. What’s more, you can easily add other fruits and veggies that are not on the list, as long as you do so in moderation and you try to eat something from each category!

Let us know if you’re ready to give the wheel a try in the comments down below!

Blue

Starting with blue, this type of color should be easy to guess. It’s everyone’s favorite topping for smoothies and oatmeal—the blueberries. They are full of good nutrients and vitamins, including the key component that everyone loves, quercetin.

Quercetin is known as a natural chemical that can be found in fruits, plants, and vegetables, which makes it very sought-after for its immune system-boosting properties. It has antiviral characteristics, as in it blocks viruses from being able to attack healthy body cells; it aids in the prevention of infection, and it’s a great ally for the respiratory system as it keeps away congestion.

Another very good blue food is elderberry, which is best consumed in its syrup form. It’s best taken when you or a loved one are experiencing the first few signs of an oncoming cold or flu.

Other blue foods that aid your immune system are Concord grapes, blue-green algae, and blue plums!

Orange

Orange might be the easiest color to trust your intuition for, and that is because the best fruit to eat that comes in this color shares its name with it! As fruits, oranges are an amazing source of vitamin C, especially if you drink a glass of freshly squeezed juice in the morning during the cold season.

This can easily replace that vitamin C supplement you were taking, as a glass of orange juice will give you 125 mg out of the 500 mg you would be getting on a daily basis. So just add other vitamin C food items to your diet, and then you can no longer rely on having to take pills for the health of your immune system.

If you’re looking for other orange foods that are yummy and healthy, you should give yams, pumpkins, carrots, persimmons, apricots, and orange blossom honey a try!

Yellow

Did someone say turmeric? These yellow foods are associated with the sun and the nutrients of the soil, so you know that there is a close connection between health and your immune system when it comes to these foods.

A lot of them are full of vitamin D, which you generally get from being exposed to the sun as much as possible. This is why sun exposure is important, especially for children and older adults, as this is a great way to assimilate Vitamin D (with the correct sun protection as well). You do not need more than 20 minutes a day in order to absorb as much as your body needs, so never pass on those relaxing morning walks!

However, during the cold months, if you live in a state that gets gloomy winter weather, vitamin D absorption gets harder to do just from sun exposure. This is where our yellow foods come into play, and they are as important as ever. The most important one we have to mention is tumeric, which is a known anti-inflammatory food that is full of antioxidants and a good immunity booster.

What’s more, you can easily look up recipes for turmeric lattes (to get a change from those frequent chai lattes) and even golden milk! Believe us, if you drink any of these with a spoon of honey before bed, you will sleep like a baby!

Other yellow immunity boosters that will keep your immune system in tip-top shape are lemons, bananas, ginger, winter squash, and yellow onions!

White

You probably didn’t think that white would be included in the immune system color wheel, but here we are! not to mention that it is one of the most important ones, too, as white is known to protect. The color is associated with shields and protection, and this is exactly what white foods do as well.

You must be familiar with the immunity booster that is garlic already, as well as things like white onions. While they are stinky, they are also high in nutrients and have been shown to keep colds at bay! Even better, they are great at keeping germs and viruses away from you, so they are essential to your immune system protection pack!

Other white foods you should include in your diet include parsnips, Greek yogurt, and cauliflower!

Purple

If your immune system needs a fighter in its corner, or even if you need to just make sure your immune system is ready for any attack on its integrity, you should look no further than purple coneflower, more commonly known as Echinacea. It is a popular herbal remedy that has been used in traditional medicine for centuries.

In particular, Native Americans used to make malaria and syphilis medicine with it, but nowadays, it seems to only be commonly used to combat the flu and various colds. This is why you have probably seen it in various tea variations as well as in supplements.

Another purple food that you should look out for is purple cabbage sauerkraut (or pickled cabbage). It is a fermented food that has recently become very popular for its health properties. Fermented foods help the body create good bacteria that fight against toxins in your body. What’s more, purple cabbage by itself is full of nutrients, much more than normal green cabbage, including an immune booster like Vitamin C!

You should also give these purple foods a chance when you can: purple carrots, wild rice, blackberries, acai berries, and red bor kale!

Red for your immune system!

Look no further than the nourishing and grounding red root foods for a boost to your immune system! Red beets are amazing when it comes to immunity boosters, as they are high in nutrients and vitamins, such as copper, vitamins A and C, and zinc!

What’s more, they are known to help with the production of white blood cells and are a great way to make sure all the cells in your body are in top shape to keep you safe! And they also help with cleaning your liver cells, which will just keep your immune system on top of things easily!

You can easily just add some raw beets to your smoothies for a delicious earthy punch, or you can grate them in your salads or eat them steamed or baked as sides or ingredients in other types of salads! You just have to keep an open mind because there are tons of opportunities to use them in recipes!

Another amazing red food that you can use is pomegranate seeds! Their anti-inflammatory properties, combined with their high vitamin C content, make them the ideal food to turn to when a sore throat threatens. They also make for amazing freshly squeezed juices, and you can easily add a few seeds to your yogurt or salads for a tangy, sweet taste.

Other red foods to keep an eye out for are raspberries, red cabbage, cinnamon, cranberries, and red chard.

Green

If you are into the yoga scene or the meditation scene, you know all about those vibrational frequencies. And the one color that best resonates with your heart center is green!

For the rest of us who aren’t into yoga, meditation, or aren’t as knowledgeable about frequencies, this means that because the heart center and this color are associated, leafy greens are the ones that will give us the best health boost and aid our immune system in ways you haven’t seen before!

Not to mention that the earth is green, and following the “we are made from earth and to earth we shall return” idea, we should also strive to eat as many green foods as possible.

Jokes aside, many leafy greens and green foods, in general, are high in nutrients and vitamins that will benefit your immune system and overall health. So incorporating them into our diets is always a good idea.

Foods like chicory, chard, and even spinach make for delicious sides, or you can even introduce them raw to your smoothies. In raw form, they are full of prebiotics and will aid your gut health and microbiome! What’s more, thyme helps with any respiratory problems you may have, while mint is a great help when it comes to digestive problems (mint tea is great for settling an upset stomach).

So give them a try! Other green foods that definitely need to be on your list include all the leafy greens, spirulina, chlorella, matcha tea, and wheatgrass. most of which will do wonders if you add them to your morning smoothie!

However, not all fruits and veggies are created equally! Some of them, for as good as they are to your health, may actually be just as bad if not deadly! Read all about those you need to be careful about and why, here!