Natural Way Health Blog

Hayfever

Keep healthy, even when the pollen count is high! Nip hayfever in the bud

YOU MAY GENERALLY ASSOCIATE HAYFEVER WITH THE SPRING, but in fact it can occur during Spring, Summer and Autumn, depending on exactly the source of your allergy. From March to May, pollens from trees are the most common cause of hay fever.

From May to July grass and flowers are in pollen, making these the most common cause of hay fever. Some people do get hay fever into the autumn months. However this is rare and is usually caused by weeds such as nettles and docks, late flowering plants, and mould spores.

The symptoms are the same no matter when you experience them and include a runny nose, itchy, watery, bloodshot eyes and repeated sneezing attacks. As with all allergies, the symptoms happen as a result of your immune system overreacting to a normally harmless substance in this case, pollen. When the body comes into contact with pollen, cells in the lining of your nose, mouth and eyes release a chemical called histamine that triggers the symptoms of an allergic reaction.

Starting on an anti-hayfever programme ahead of when the pollen is in the air, makes a lot of sense. Fortunately, nature has provided some of its own remedies…

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Red – Means Go

Tomato-y Treats That Are Truly Tops

Whether it’s revving up our veggie burgers or toning down our barbecue sauces, ketchup is one condiment few people could live without.

So squeeze more out of it by going organic. Organic ketchup packs three times more lycopene than the regular stuff and almost twice the level of flavonoids. Here’s what all that extra nutrition means for your body. Lycopene gives fruits (like tomatoes!) and veggies a rich red color, and it may give your body a leg up on loads of diseases — from cancer to clogged arteries.

Here are a few more tricks for getting more lycopene from your tomatoes with less effort:

1. Slice, dice, or puree them. Processing tomatoes helps unleash the lycopene.

2. Eat them with a bit of fat. Lycopene must latch on to fat (so you might as well make it healthy, like olive oil) to be absorbed by the intestinal wall.

3. Heat ’em up. Heat converts the lycopene in red tomatoes into a form that’s easier for your body to absorb.

And what about that superfood synergy we were talking about creating…

Well, here is an easy way to boost the power of another favorite tomato-y food: salsa. Just because good things are in your salsa doesn’t mean you’re getting all the good out of it. If you toss some avocado chunks into the spicy red stuff, you’ll absorb 400 percent more lycopene from the tomatoes.