To build and maintain a healthy immune system, we must start with food. Unfortunately, most of the food marketed to us in the U.S. is designed to appeal to our taste buds alone, emphasizing refined sugars, salt and unhealthy fats instead of the fresh natural foods that our bodies know how to digest and utilize in order to maintain healthy cells, blood, tissues and organs.
I suggest that you try ignoring the seductive advertising campaigns, and instead seek out unadulterated foods, avoiding overly processed and refined products that offer very little nutritional value. If you read the tiny print on the labels of these imitation foods, you will find a list of lab chemicals, including high fructose corn syrup, that are not found in Nature and are known to be harmful to us. Food manufacturers use high-fructose corn syrup in condiments such as ketchup and in many beverages because it is cheap, but it is a time bomb for Type 2 Diabetes, obesity and other health problems.
There is good news! Healthier versions of some store-bought processed foods are becoming more widely available. I purchase Primal Kitchen Unsweetened Ketchup and their Classic Unsweetened BBQ Sauce when I do not have time to make my own, and they are fine. Tomatoes are naturally sweet, they are technically a fruit!
It is possible to nourish your body to optimal health by choosing wisely the food you ingest every day. Deprivation is harmful; don't do it. Instead, celebrate Life every day by consuming only the most nutritious, delicious food that you can find.