Chicken soup, honey, ginger, and other bland but nutrient-rich foods genuinely help your body fight illness and recover faster. The best choices depend on your symptoms: warm broths and soups for respiratory infections, gentle starches and lean protein for stomach bugs, and ginger for nausea. Here’s what the evidence says about each one and why it works.
Chicken Soup for Colds and Flu
Chicken soup isn’t just comfort food. Lab research published in the journal Chest found that chicken soup significantly inhibited the movement of white blood cells called neutrophils in a concentration-dependent manner. When neutrophils flood your airways during a cold, they drive the inflammation that causes congestion, sore throat, and that overall miserable feeling. By slowing that process, chicken soup acts as a mild anti-inflammatory, easing upper respiratory symptoms at their source.
Both the chicken and the vegetables in the soup showed this effect individually, and the complete soup had no toxic activity on cells. The warm broth also keeps you hydrated, loosens mucus, and delivers calories when you don’t feel like eating much else. Homemade versions with carrots, celery, onion, and garlic give you the broadest benefit, but even store-bought versions help.
Ginger for Nausea and Vomiting
Ginger is one of the most studied natural remedies for nausea. Clinical trials have tested it against pregnancy-related nausea, chemotherapy side effects, motion sickness, and post-surgical vomiting, with positive results across the board. Most studies recommend about 1,000 mg of ginger per day as an effective and safe dose, though trials have used anywhere from 600 to 2,500 mg daily.
You don’t need capsules to get this amount. A thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger root weighs roughly 6 to 8 grams, and steeping thin slices in hot water makes a strong tea. Ginger chews, ginger ale made with real ginger (check the label), and crystallized ginger are other options. If you’re dealing with a stomach virus and can barely keep anything down, sipping ginger tea between small bites of bland food is a practical starting point.
Honey for Coughs
Honey performs as well as the common over-the-counter cough suppressant dextromethorphan at reducing cough frequency, and it significantly outperforms no treatment at all. It coats the throat, soothes irritation, and has mild antimicrobial properties. A spoonful straight, stirred into warm water, or mixed into tea all work.
One firm rule: never give honey to children under one year old. Infants lack immunity against the bacteria that can cause botulism, and honey occasionally carries spores.
What to Eat With a Stomach Bug
You may have heard of the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) for diarrhea and vomiting. It’s no longer recommended as a strict protocol. The American Academy of Pediatrics considers it too restrictive, lacking calcium, vitamin B12, protein, and fiber. Following it for more than 24 hours can actually slow recovery by depriving your gut of the nutrients it needs to heal.
Instead, start with gentle foods while your stomach is at its worst: brothy soups, plain oatmeal, boiled potatoes, saltine crackers, and dry cereal. As you start feeling better, add foods that are still soft but more nutritious: scrambled eggs, skinless chicken or turkey, and cooked vegetables. The goal is to reintroduce a wider variety of nutrients as quickly as your stomach allows rather than restricting yourself to four bland foods for days.
Staying Hydrated During Illness
Dehydration is the most immediate threat from vomiting, diarrhea, fever, and even heavy congestion (mouth breathing dries you out faster than you’d expect). Water alone helps, but when you’re losing fluids rapidly, your body absorbs liquid faster when it contains a small amount of sugar and sodium together. That’s the principle behind oral rehydration solutions like Pedialyte, which contain a precise balance of electrolytes and about 2% to 3% carbohydrates.
For mild illness, you don’t necessarily need a commercial product. Broth-based soups naturally deliver sodium and potassium. Coconut water provides electrolytes. Diluted fruit juice offers some sugar to aid absorption. The key is sipping small amounts frequently rather than gulping large volumes, especially if nausea is a factor. If you’re vomiting repeatedly, take tiny sips every few minutes rather than waiting until you’re desperately thirsty.
Garlic for Prevention
Garlic is better at preventing colds than treating them once you’re already sick. In one 12-week trial of 146 people, the group taking a daily garlic supplement experienced only 24 colds compared to 65 in the placebo group, and their total sick days dropped from 366 to 111. Recovery time from each individual cold, however, was similar in both groups (about 4.5 versus 5.5 days).
If you’re already under the weather, garlic won’t dramatically shorten your illness. But cooking with it regularly during cold season, or adding raw garlic to soups and stir-fries, may help you get sick less often in the first place.
Zinc Lozenges in the First 24 Hours
Zinc lozenges can shorten a cold, but timing matters. The benefit appears strongest when you start within 24 hours of your first symptoms. A meta-analysis of trials using zinc acetate lozenges at doses of about 80 mg per day found meaningful reductions in cold duration with only minor side effects. After that first-day window, the evidence for zinc drops off considerably. If you feel that familiar throat tickle, that’s the moment to start.
Foods to Limit While You’re Sick
Large amounts of sugar can temporarily suppress your immune function. A study found that consuming 100 grams of simple carbohydrates from glucose, fructose, sucrose, honey, or orange juice significantly reduced the ability of white blood cells to engulf and destroy bacteria. The effect peaked one to two hours after eating but remained measurable for at least five hours. That’s 100 grams, roughly the amount in two cans of regular soda or a large glass of juice plus a few cookies.
This doesn’t mean you need to avoid all sugar. The small amount of honey in your tea or the natural sugars in a piece of fruit won’t cause problems. But downing sugary drinks, ice cream, and candy while you’re fighting an infection works against your immune system at exactly the wrong time. Dairy is fine for most people with colds (it doesn’t increase mucus production despite the persistent myth), but rich, greasy, or heavily spiced foods can aggravate nausea and digestive symptoms.
Putting It All Together
For a cold or flu, lean on chicken soup, warm liquids, honey for coughs, and zinc lozenges if you catch it early. For a stomach bug, start with broth and simple starches, then expand to eggs, lean protein, and cooked vegetables as soon as you can tolerate them. For nausea from any cause, ginger tea or ginger chews at roughly 1,000 mg per day is well supported. Across all types of illness, steady hydration with electrolyte-containing fluids matters more than any single food. Keep sugar intake moderate, eat what you can tolerate, and prioritize nutrient density over restriction.