It's not easy to eat when we’re fighting a cold. Our body tells us to back off, but family and friends are telling us we have to eat, to keep our strength up. If you work on the assumption that you “starve a fever and feed a cold," you won't go far wrong.

The idea is not to force yourself if you're really not feeling up to eating, but drink plenty of fluid. Water is a good choice to help flush out the toxins, but keep sugared drinks to a minimum. Increase your intake of ginger, garlic and onions, which are both natural antibiotics. Miso or chicken soup are also good cold fighting foods. Broths and herbal teas also help with digestion, particularly Ginger and Camomile tea.

Hot honey and lemon is what I used to take as a child. It not only soothes the throat and chest, but also prevents a build up of mucus and encourages the body to sweat the virus out.

Continue to take out all refined sugars for the duration of the illness. Sugar brings down the number of white blood cells the body normally produces and suppresses the immune system. Although fruit juice contains vitamin C, it contains more sugar, so provides little benefit to drinking it whilst fighting a cold.

It's also a good idea to limit the amount of dairy and milk products you consume. Because they encourage mucus production, they can make you feel worse.