I am not a health professional. I am happy to share here information that I have found on the internet & my own layperson conclusions; these may save you some time in your own research efforts.
I am a believer that the better the food/nutrition quality, the better the health benefits might be. My frugal side watches for premium foods on sale; usually if I am patient, I find them. I also continue to find great food buys these days at my local Costco.
In colder weather my mind turns to the comforts of homemade hot soups & hot drinks, ingredients to include honey & spices. I also really like mocha (coffee with chocolate added). Though I am motivated these days to check further on chocolate purity after some of the recent news (e.g. “lead and cadmium are the two heavy metals that CR’s [Consumer Reports’] tests have found to be the most problematic in chocolate” – in some of the chocolate products they tested). Am restricting myself to just little bits of chocolate until I know more.
Recently I was lucky to find some quite wonderful honey on sale in one of my local stores. I bought the honey brand’s mixture of blackseed flower honey with cinnamon & turmeric added. It tastes delicious to me, & their informative website claims its health benefits. The honey brand has apparently won prizes at the International Honey Awards. And I would believe that there are many other high quality honey brands in the stores.
I have read recently that “spices are universally anti-inflammatory” (per an inflammation researcher). Also, e.g. according to a science paper published online in 2017: “Many spices—such as clove, oregano, thyme, cinnamon, and cumin—possessed significant antibacterial and antifungal activities”. Sounds useful to me, & perhaps might be especially helpful for many of us to be including some of these spices in our cooking during cold weather &/or if the body is otherwise under extra stress. One of the many wonderful ways to add some spices to the diet may be to drink some Chai tea. This Winter I plan to try adding some of the Chai tea spices into my mocha coffee, & to look for recipe instructions to try adding some Chai tea spices into mulled red wine.
The weather gets colder, & I start wanting mocha coffee in the morning. Some of the ways I have made it: a) kept a tin of fair trade cocoa powder on my desk & stirred a spoonful of this into my coffee; b) have dropped a square of chocolate bar into my cup of hot coffee; soon the chocolate melts & then I stir; & currently c) I buy ultra-filtered (higher protein) chocolate milk & add some of it to my coffee.
O yeah, & not to forget: flannel sheets (bought on sale) on the bed; these can be a great comfort around these parts when the coldest nights of Winter set in.