IMMUNE RESILIENCE
Immune resilience refers to your body’s ability to effectively fight off pathogens and disease, and return to a balanced state of high immune function and low inflammation.
And I swear by herbs and spices and eating healthy fibre-rich food to help keep my immune system strong and resilient.
It’s the reason I’m writing this blog in January 2026.
A lot of people in Australia caught respiratory viruses in December, and spent their Christmas holiday in bed sick, their plans ruined.
Flu cases surged high as a new strain of influenza hit Australia.
And what a horrible time to get sick.
Australians love to gather outdoors and celebrate in sunshine, not get struck down with a virus.
I had just returned from our holiday break this year, and had been busy helping people recover from virus infections.
As I was walking past our reception area, a lady grabbed my arm and wanted to share her good news.
She said, “You know your orange peel recipe,
I made that recipe for my daughter.
Every winter she would get sick with a bad whooping like cough.
She has the orange puree, and this winter she didn’t get sick.
I have shared your recipe with five other people I know.”
Her good news made my day.
The reason we write our blogs is to build a strong, vibrant community of people who share our tips and recipes to help each other stay healthy.
My motto is, prevention is always the best cure for sickness and disease.
And, the food we eat can be our medicine too.
Eating nutrient dense foods and building your immune strength are essential for staying healthy and resistant to virus infections.
So this month, I want to revisit our immune boosting blogs and recipes for rebuilding and maintaining immune resilience.
I’m collating them all in one place for you in this blog.
And I also want to share a new spiced ginger honey recipe for adults and children.
NOURISH PREVENTION
My clients know that I continually emphasise the importance of gut health.
Immune strength begins in your gut and the billions of microorganisms that live there.
The healthier your beneficial gut microorganisms are, the stronger your immune system will be.
And it’s up to you to feed them what they need to stay alive and flourishing.
I cover all the information and dietary guidelines you need to improve your gut health in my Nourish blog and How To Create A Strong Immune System.
As a practitioner, I work with sick people every day so immune protection is essential.
Nourish prebiotic powder is a part of my daily routine in my breakfast drink.
My breakfast drink recipes vary, but during those times virus infections are rampant I make sure my daily drink contains Nourish, elderberry tincture, freshly squeezed lemon with lemon zest, and pomegranate or mulberry juice (more in winter).
I drink organic pomegranate or mulberry juice almost every day because they are anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, and immune protective.
I even add a dash of pomegranate juice in water to take my supplements.
I share the same breakfast immune drink I have in my blog, Quercetin Recipes – Virus and Flu.
WE REAP WHAT WE EAT
In my blogs, I share the action and benefits of different foods and how powerfully immune-protective they can be.
I also highlight the importance of ditching a diet high in refined foods, trans fats, sugar, and synthetic chemicals.
To put it bluntly, we all need to wake up to ourselves and what we do to our bodies when we don’t pay attention to our daily diet.
There are too many profit-driven manufacturers that don’t care enough about what’s in your food.
You have to care.
You have to protect your diet because no-one else is going to do it for you.
My advice is always eat food that is as close as nature created it as possible, and eat lots of vegetables.
Start with the Mediterranean diet if you don’t know what to eat.
I also share inspiring food chefs you can explore in our blog, Healthy Eating Directory.
You can boost your immune system with every meal you eat in our Spices That Heal blog.
And you can download our free e-book, Nutrition Therapy – Vegetables that includes delicious dressing recipes too.
Meals should be delicious or it doesn’t inspire anyone to eat healthy food.
And there are many ways you can make healthy food mouth-wateringly good to eat.
It’s so important to change your relationship with the food you buy and eat so you can heal and stay strong and thrive.
GINGER SPICED HONEY RECIPE
I love fresh herbs and spices for flavouring food and their powerful health benefits.
Last winter, virus infections were widespread, so I began having spiced raw honey in hot drinks.
Raw honey is a natural antibiotic food, and the spices I use in this recipe are anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and antiviral.
You can have 1-2 teaspoons of spiced honey per day for virus prevention.
I simply add a teaspoon of spiced ginger honey to herbal teas or hot chocolate.
If you get sick with a cold, flu or respiratory virus, you can have 2-4 teaspoons of spiced honey spread throughout the day.
Also, never use boiling water with honey.
Adding honey to boiling water can change the enzymes and reduce its benefits.
If you are making a hot drink, wait until it cools enough that you can comfortably hold your drink in your mouth without burning your tongue – then add honey.
ADULTS RECIPE
GINGER & HONEY BASE
You will need 1 large, whole fresh ginger root – grated or ground in a spice grinder.
I fill three-quarters of a large glass jar with the fresh ginger.
Pour raw local honey over the ginger and stir together until well combined.
Then, add the following spices and stir them through the honey.
I usually make up a large jar of spiced honey and use 2 cups of honey to one large ginger root.
Because I’m using fresh ginger, I store my spiced honey in the fridge.
Following are the spice measurements I use per cup of honey.
I use Australian metric teaspoons and cups to measure.
1/4 teaspoon = 1.25ml.
1/2 teaspoon = 2.5ml.
1 teaspoon = 5ml.
1 tablespoon = 20ml
1 cup = 250ml
SPICES PER CUP OF RAW HONEY ADULTS
1 tsp organic True (Ceylon) Cinnamon powder.
1/2 tsp organic ground Cardamom powder.
1/2 tsp organic ground Allspice (pimento) powder.
1/4 tsp organic ground Cloves powder.
For colds and flu add:
1/4 tsp organic ground Cayenne powder (optional but great for clearing congestion).
KIDS RECIPE
You can also make a milder spiced ginger honey suitable for children.
Fill a quarter of a glass jar with fresh grated or ground ginger.
Pour over one cup of raw local honey.
Add the following spices and stir them through the honey, and store in the fridge.
SPICES PER CUP OF RAW HONEY CHILDREN
1 tsp organic True Cinnamon powder.
1 tsp organic Vanilla essence (non-alcohol) or use pure Vanilla powder.
1/2 tsp organic Cardamom powder.
1/2 tsp organic Allspice (pimento) powder.
During the day, add 1 teaspoon of spiced honey to half a glass of organic pomegranate or blueberry juice and whisk the honey into the juice.
Both juices are good for children due to their antioxidant, antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties.
Only use organic juice if you can to avoid pesticides and chemicals used in mainstream agricultural practices.
And add hot water to the juice to loosen mucous congestion if required.
At night, make a cup of raw cacao hot chocolate using activated almond or Bonsoy soy milk, and add one heaped teaspoon of spiced honey.
Raw cacao can help soothe night time coughing.
You can find our recipes for hot cacao drinks in our blog, Cacao Power Recipes.
And you can download and print out our Spiced Ginger Honey RECIPE by clicking on the highlighted link.
LEMON BALM TEA
Lemon balm tea can also help to soothe coughing.
Lemon balm is calming and antiviral, has an ability to help cut through phlegm, soothe the respiratory tract, and ease anxiety.
Make a cup of lemon balm tea and add 1 heaped teaspoon of ginger spiced honey.
You can also add the juice of half a lemon and 1/2 a teaspoon of lemon zest to your tea.
Enjoy a cup a day for prevention, or drink 3 cups per day to aid recovery.
STRESS & IMMUNE FUNCTION
Before I sign off, I want to bring stress to the table for discussion and self reflection.
It’s been my experience as a practitioner that chronic stress undermines immune function as much as an unhealthy diet (if not more).
Pressured lifestyles, unreasonable home and work loads, financial pressures, relationship issues, unresolved trauma, low self-esteem, not knowing how to communicate needs, not letting go of the past, fear and negative self talk all contribute to chronic stress in our lives.
Unresolved stress impacts your gut microbiome causing inflammation and dysbiosis, which undermines immune function and results in eventual sickness and disease.
But here’s what I want us all to think about – stress is a reaction – and you can heal and change how you react.
From the time we are born, what we live shapes us and how we react and respond to people and events in our lives.
Our blog, Healing Stress – The Ultimate Freedom takes you on a journey that helps you understand stress and the many ways we can transform our health and wellbeing.
Healing stress helps us to let go of everything that undermines us, and frees us to live a healthy, resilient life.
And because health is holistic, healing your relationship with yourself is also worth exploring in our blog, Healing With Intention & Sound.
I’ve left a list of related blogs below that can help you discover your innate potential to heal and rebuild immune strength and resilience.
Nurturing your health is worth your time – explore and learn all you can about yourself and health.
Because you are your greatest asset.
More valuable than anything you could ever attain or own.
Take care of your health because you know (through experience) that health is invaluable.
Value yourself beyond the daily life you live in the outer world.
Treasure you.
Much Love,
Lisa Rieniets ND.
RELATED BLOGS
IMMUNE HEALTH BLOGS
Spices That Heal
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/spices-that-heal/
Immune Boosting Orange Puree Recipe
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/immune-boosting-orange-peel-puree/
Quercetin Recipes – Virus and Flu
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/quercetin-recipes-virus-flu/
Recovery Recipes – Coughs, Colds, Virus, & Flu
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/recovery-recipes/
Nourish Prebiotic Breakfast Drink
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/nourish-prebiotic-breakfast-drink/
How To Create A Strong Immune System
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/how-to-have-a-strong-immune-system/
Nutrition For Immune System Recovery
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/nutrition-for-immune-system-recovery/
Immune Recovery Tonic – Recipe
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/immune-recovery-tonic-recipe/
Cacao Power Recipes
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/cacao-power-recipes/
Healthy Eating Directory
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/healthy-eating-directory/
Nutrition Therapy – Vegetables
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/free-e-books-health-healing/
HOLISTIC HEALTH BLOGS
Healing Stress – The Ultimate Freedom
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/healing-stress-the-ultimate-freedom/
Healing With Intention & Sound
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/healing-with-intention-sound/
What Matters
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/what-matters/
What Self-Love Truly Means
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/understanding-self-love/
How To Live A Life You Love
https://www.renerhealthclinics.com.au/how-to-live-a-life-you-love/
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Watanabe K, Rahmasari R, Matsunaga A, Haruyama T, Kobayashi N. Anti-influenza viral effects of honey in vitro: potent high activity of manuka honey. Arch Med Res. 2014 Jul;45(5):359-65. doi: 10.1016/j.arcmed.2014.05.006. Epub 2014 May 29. Erratum in: Arch Med Res. 2014 Aug;45(6):516. PMID: 24880005.