Best foods to beat the common cold: While catching a little case of the sniffles is, frankly, no big deal, it can be incredibly inconvenient. We all have busy lifestyles these days, which means that finding the time to take a few days to recover can be mission impossible. After all, no one particularly likes having to just lay around and do nothing. Not when there are far more exciting things that they could be getting on with in the meantime. When you get that first hint of a cold – whether it’s a sore throat or a headache – you know just what’s coming.
There are no two ways about it… You’re going to feel pretty darn awful for the next week or so. While bed rest and plenty of fluids are absolutely always advisable when you have a cold, there are some other things that you may want to try as well. You see, what you eat actually plays a rather major role in your overall recovery. If you’re hoping to speed up the process, changing your diet ever-so-slightly could be the answer you’ve been looking for.
So, what should you be eating? When you’re generally feeling a tad under the weather, it may be tempting to reach for the chips and chocolate to take your mind off things. Don’t do that. What you really need right now is all the right vitamins and minerals, which are certain to help you fight this cold off once and for all. If you’re not sure where to start, you’ve come to the right place.
We’ve put together a handy list of the five best foods to beat the common cold. Start eating these things, and you should feel better in no time at all:
1. Sweet potato
Sweet potato is not just a delicious alternative to the standard baking potato; it can actually have some rather incredible health benefits as well. The reason is because these things are packed full of a little something called Vitamin A. That particular vitamin plays a huge part in keeping your mucosal surfaces, i.e. the inside of your nose and your skin, healthy.
What that means is that when you eat sweet potato, you’re boosting your intake of the vitamins you need to fight off your cold in a very real way. Try baking or frying these beauties for a tasty (and more importantly) healthy snack. You won’t regret it at all!
2. Garlic
When you’re all bunged up with a cold, the very last thing you’re going to want to do is going around kissing a bunch of people. That’s probably pretty handy really since you’re going to need to stock up on a whole load of garlic. We know all know that garlic is something of a wonder bulb.
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It’s well worth eating on a regular basis anyway since it’s surprisingly good for you. In fact, there have even been studies that show that taking garlic supplement can help you ward off the common cold. Simply including a clove of the stuff in your daily meals could be enough to make a serious impact on your health.
3. Chicken soup
Your mom was right – chicken soup is very good for you when you’re sick. It’s by far one of the best foods to beat the common cold. There are actually a few different reasons that this stuff is great for you when you happen to have a rather nasty cold. For one thing, drinking soup means that you’re boosting your intake of liquid; a well-known way to get rid of a cold.
The heat from the soup will also help to loosen your mucus (gross!) and raise the general temperature of your body. Both of these things will help you to cure your cold before you know it. Plus, chicken soup is so darn tasty, there’s no reason not to love it.
4. Salmon
Part of the reason that we end up getting colds during the colder, darker months is because we lack the Vitamin D that we usually get from sunlight. You absolutely need to make sure that you replenish this loss if you want to avoid getting too many colds. Luckily, there’s a strikingly simple. In truth, (wild-caught) salmon is one of the best foods to beat the common cold. For the healthiest results, it’s well worth grilling or roasting your salmon rather than frying it, and it can’t hurt to throw in some avocado (learn how to ripen avocados faster!) too!
5. Ginger
Finally, it’s one of the spices that we all love the best. Eating this stuff as part of your daily balanced diet will help you to overcome your cold in no time. Spices like this one actually help you to sweat out the infection and unclog your pores. It really is that simple. Get yourself some ginger extract or even an entire root of the stuff and just go wild. Doing so is certain to give you the very best chance to warding off your illness!
These common foods are also easy to incorporate into most diets. In fact, the immune sytem-boosting vitamins and minerals in these foods can keep you from catching a cold in the first place, so don’t wait until you get sick to start eating them!
Written by Charlotte Cassidy
- more: best and worst foods to eat when you are sick – health.com
