4 Friday, April 24, 2020brooklintowncrier.com Plant-Based Eating by Sheree Nicholson Filtering the good advice My bet is your inbox is like mine, inundated with messages about preventing COVID-19. As I wrote in my last column, some are using the pandemic to sell their products, so filtering out what's good advice from the fake stuff is essential. Immunity is a major topic in my vegan world where many claim it's preventive medicine. This is not true. Vegans are not superhuman; we get sick and catch viruses like anyone else. There are so many factors that contribute to good immune health that to say one thing or the other is the answer is too simplistic. For instance, can beng plant-based help? The answer is yes, but the key is to increase your intake of vegetables and fruits whether you're plant- based or not. Taking care of the gut We know that 70% of our immune systems are in our gut walls. We also know that eating a wide variety of plants is vital to a healthy gut microbiome. Your body holds about the same number of bacteria as cells (around 30 to 50 trillion) with the gut microbiota hosting the most. The good bacteria in your gut have numerous roles. One is to aid the immune system to prevent pathogen invasion while another is to metabolize nutrients. However, other factors affect your immune system's overall health. These include stress, sugar, lack of sleep, too much exercise, and too little exercise. It's important to note that immune health is personal to you and your lifestyle. You could eat kale at every meal, but if you live in chronic stress, then reducing continued on page 5