It can be challenging to get up an appetite when you’re unwell. When sick, it is highly crucial to take in nourishment and drink enough water. Consuming enough water and healthy foods may aid recovery from the flu by replenishing lost nutrients and hydration.
Best Foods
1. Chicken Soup
Since time immemorial, unwell people have turned to chicken soup as a remedy. It’s a convenient way to get the vitamins, minerals, calories, and protein your body may require in more significant amounts when you recover from an illness. Dehydration can be caused by excessive diarrhea, vomiting, sweating, or fever, and chicken soup can help restore your body’s fluid and electrolyte balance.
2. Hot Tea
When feeling under the weather, many people turn to tea to help relieve their cold and flu symptoms. Tea should be hot to help reduce congestion, but not so hot that it irritates the throat. Even though caffeine is included in some teas, drinking tea does not appear to induce dehydration or increased water loss. Therefore, drinking tea throughout the day is a superb method to keep hydrated and clear your sinuses.
3. Vegetable Juice
Give low-sodium vegetable juice a shot if you’re recovering from the flu and don’t feel like cooking and eating a salad. Antioxidants, the body’s natural defence mechanism against pathogens, will be in the entire supply.
4. Garlic
Garlic is a great way to add flavor to things like soup if you can handle it. Some evidence suggests that it can help strengthen the immune system, meaning you’ll catch fewer colds. However, more extensive and high-quality research is required to confirm these findings.
5. Ginger
It could help ease the pain in your stomach and nausea you’re feeling. According to the findings of several researches, it may also reduce inflammation. You may incorporate it into other foods by either grating it or using it in powder form.
6. Bananas
When you’re feeling under the weather, eat some bananas. They have a mild flavor and texture, but their high nutritional and quick-acting carb content more than makes up for that. Bananas’ soluble fiber is a significant bonus. When combined with water, soluble fiber forms a gel that absorbs excess fluid and stops diarrhea.
7. Broth
The broth is a great way to keep hydrated and replenish your body’s natural supply of nutrients and antioxidants. It’s warm and comforting, so it can also ease a sore throat and open a congested nose. If you’re reading this before you get sick, you might want to make some homemade broth (vegetarian or bone, whatever you prefer) to keep in the freezer in case you get sick.
8. Oatmeal
Oatmeal has the benefits of being filling, simple to prepare, and high in fiber. The oats’ prebiotic fiber can support good gut microbes. Considering that a person with the flu may lose electrolytes through sweating, diarrhea, and vomiting, this treatment may be beneficial.
9. Probiotic-Rich Foods
While there is some evidence that probiotics can help with digestion and immunity, such evidence is scant regarding the flu. Probiotics have been demonstrated to improve immune function during influenza, but these studies have primarily been conducted on animals.
10. Bland Foods
Nausea and vomiting are common side effects of the flu, but bland foods can help alleviate them. We define bland foods as those that are poor in fiber and flavor. These foods provide your body with the carbs it needs for energy while being readily digested and accepted.
Avoid Foods
1. Strawberries
Strawberries, being a histamine releaser, can aggravate stuffiness. If you’re feeling a bit under the weather, it’s probably best to avoid eating berries until you’ve recovered from the nasal and sinus pain that histamine-fueled mucus can cause.
2. Spicy Foods
Although spicy foods are known for causing nasal and ocular irritation, research has shown that they can help relieve congestion. Congestion can be alleviated by ingesting chilli peppers, wasabi, or horseradish.
3. Ice Cream
Most ice creams are manufactured with full-fat dairy, so they include a lot of inflammatory saturated fat. Furthermore, sugar is abundant in the sweet stuff, a component known to cause inflammation. This is a double no if you want your immune system to work at peak performance.
4. Papayas
This exotic fruit is another food that can release a significant amount of histamine. Histamine tends to cause swelling in the nasal passages, which can contribute to a sensation of stuffiness and congestion in the chest and head.
5. Fried Foods
Fried meals are high in unhealthy fats like Tran’s fats and saturated fats, which contribute to inflammation in the body. An impediment to recovery is anything that the body’s detoxification system needs to process when the immune system is down.
6. Avocado
If your stomach is upset, the high-fat content might be complex for you to digest. Not to add, eating a lot of this fatty fruit may aggravate your congestion because it is high in histamines.
7. Caffeine
Congestion is made worse by the fact that caffeine can promote dehydration. Tea and coffee, for example, contain antioxidants that might help enhance the immune system, so consuming them in moderation may be beneficial.
8. Alcohol
Consuming alcoholic beverages lowers the body’s defences, making it more challenging to combat influenza. To learn how alcohol affects the flu virus, more studies must be conducted on humans. Avoiding alcohol is recommended since it might increase the frequency of urination, which can lead to dehydration.
9. Sugar
If you already have the flu, don’t exacerbate your body’s battle against inflammation by eating sugar. When you’re sick, you might think drinking vitamin C-rich fruit juices is the best thing to do. However, many of these liquids are nutritionally deficient and may even aggravate your illness.
10. Dairy
One of the components of dairy products that might be challenging to digest is lactose. Dairy products should be avoided for the duration of the illness by anyone who, after consuming them, has nausea or an increase in the amount of mucus their body produces.
