When you have a cold, the most important thing is to "eat according to your constitution and the stage of the illness." Dietary therapy should change with the course of the illness. Some foods are suitable for daily conditioning, but when you have inflammation or have caught the flu, it's best to avoid them.
Early Prevention
To prevent a cold, the following dietary advice will be more beneficial:
1. Choose easily digestible liquid foods, such as vegetable soup, congee, egg soup, custard, and milk.
2. The diet should be light and low in fat to meet nutritional needs while stimulating the appetite. You can choose white rice congee, millet congee, or red bean congee, paired with light side dishes like sweet pickled mustard, turnip, pickled mustard tuber, or fermented bean curd, focusing on being light and refreshing.
Red Date and Millet Congee
3. Ensure adequate fluid intake. You can drink more acidic fruit juices, such as hawthorn juice, kiwi juice, red date juice, fresh orange juice, and watermelon juice, to promote gastric juice secretion and increase appetite.
4. Eat more foods rich in Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and red-colored foods, such as tomatoes, apples, grapes, jujubes, strawberries, beets, oranges, watermelon, as well as milk and eggs.
Radish has anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and diuretic effects, making it a great natural anti-inflammatory agent. In daily life, drinking raw radish juice with a little honey can relieve a sore throat. A study abroad also found that people who drink five cups of black or green tea daily for two weeks will greatly enhance their body's immune ability. Compared to non-tea drinkers, they can expel more than 10 times the amount of cold and flu viruses.
Early Stage of a Cold
The gingerol and zingerone in ginger can induce sweating, expelling the accumulated heat in the body. Old ginger, which has less water, is even more effective at promoting blood circulation. Adding brown sugar can supplement calories. However, ginger soup is only suitable for colds caused by external wind-cold; it is not suitable for those with "heat-cold" (a type of cold with heat symptoms). Also, ginger promotes blood circulation, so it should not be eaten if there is inflammation or bleeding.
Inflammation or Flu Infection
When general inflammatory reactions occur, such as a sore throat, runny nose, thick yellow phlegm, or high fever, it is not advisable to take tonics such as ginseng, angelica, astragalus, or sesame oil, as this can "add fuel to the fire" and worsen the condition. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that cold-natured fruits like watermelon and pear have a heat-clearing effect and can be used to "extinguish the fire." In addition, the Cong Chi Tang (Scallion and fermented black bean soup) recorded in ancient Chinese texts can relieve headaches and nasal congestion and is also helpful for those with a fever. The method is to take the white part of a green scallion and cook it with fermented black beans. The scallion white induces sweating; its malic acid and phosphate stimulate blood circulation, making the sweating effect faster than ginger soup. The fermented black beans can supplement the body's protein.
If you have the flu, special attention is required. Patients often experience a greater fear of cold and more severe fever than with a common cold, and the course of the illness is long, potentially leading to complications in severe cases. When children have the flu, in addition to taking children's cold granules, they should also take oral liquids for clearing heat and detoxifying.
Red-tree rice porridge