What Foods To Eat When You Are Sick and Want to Get Better
August 5, 2009Love Your Health Money Family & Relationship
You might have wondered what food you should eat when you feel sick and not doing anything. Most common illness is common cold and that can be easily treated if healthy foods are eaten on a daily basis. When you are sick, you don’t feel like eating and it is no fun. In such cases, you have to choose the best food that will make you better since you can only eat very little. Here are the foods that you should eat when you feel sick:
Chicken soup has cysteine, an amino acid that’s released by cooked chicken. It’s chemically similar to a bronchitis drug, acetylcysteine, and it works with other soup ingredients to reduce inflammation. Salty broth also helps thin mucus.
Yogurt with active cultures, that are also know as probiotics or live healthy bacteria, can help fight colds in the first place. One, Lactobacillus reuteri (found in Stonyfield Farm yogurt) are very good.
Drink hot tea: It can fight virus, and acts as a inflammation-relieving antioxidants. Drinking five cups of black tea a day for two weeks can help produce 10 times more interferon, the proteins that fight viruses, than drinking an instant coffee.
Dark honey has a lot of protective antioxidants. And a big squeeze of lemon in every mugful adds a little extra vitamin C to your virus-fighting kit, plus the tartness stimulates saliva, which makes swallowing easier.
Oatmeal and many other whole-grain cereals delivers three nutrients known to support your immune system: selenium, zinc, and beta-glucan.
As you might have noticed, most of the foods that we listed above are not solid ones. This is because hard and solid foods are harder to digest. Although these are the best foods to eat when sick, it might be better to eat wide ranges of food when you get healthier because then you get all kinds of nutrients. Most important food or drink when feeling sick is water.
Topics: Food, Health | 6 Comments »
August 5th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
There are many different kinds of foods that you should eat when sick, but the best tip I found is that don’t indulge in heavy foods. Food that are light and simple such as rice and vegetables are helpful in alleviating the illnesses. But if you can’t resist eating meat, go for chicken, fish or turkey since they help with immune system, especially make new white blood cells.
I also agree with the author that tea is good for you when you are sick; they have herbal benefits, especially ginger, licorice and thymine. Drink them with very few added sugar, if at all.
All the natural fruit drinks are good when you got cold. Chicken soup might be the best, but also try orange, apple, cranberry and tomato juices.
August 10th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
What do you eat when you are sick as hell – I mean you feel like sh#t and you know you have to eat to get better, but then you got sore throat and all those cold flu-like symptoms?
How about some soup such as chicken noodle? It would be probably easy to swallow for you. The cold symptoms usually happen when you immune system is weekened, so you have to try eating as healthy as you can to boost and strengthen them – foods that should help include fruits and vegetables, especially oranges and green leafs that provide essential multi-vitamins that our body need on a daily basis.
August 11th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
When you are sick, you are supposed to be eating light meals, especially go on a clear liquid diet – plain water to be accurate; and no milk. The reason why you eat less during illness is because you don’t want to worn your digestive and other internal systems of your body eating heavy foods. If you crave for sweet foods, go for oranges, mangoes, apples, etc. Ginger, garlic, rice, bread, beets and celery are some of the best options I can think of this time.
December 18th, 2009 at 10:30 am
If you got flu, try having ginger ale with dry toast. And if it is just a common cold go for a ginger ale and chicken broth soup. An easy way to remember the top foods while sick is BRAT.
B for bread, R for rice, Apple for apple and T for toast. It can’t get any better. I also know that garlic is pretty good like most natural herbs we use such as tea.
December 30th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
The best food if you are feeling ill should be the one that builds up your immune system. And if are having problem swallowing foods, then definitely go for soup or honey thickened liquid diets. The main thing to keep in mind is that you have to eat to be better. And if possible consider eating healthy foods from your local grocery store, not the ones from local fast foods restaurants. My 2 cents on input for you guys.
January 27th, 2010 at 7:13 am
Gargeling with salt water helps with soar throats fyi it will usualy clear it up in a few doses. Pour about a half a tbl spn into a cup of warm water. Swish it around in your mouth like mouth wash for about 30 secounds. and then spit it out its gross but works like a charm.