When you’re sick, your body burns more calories fighting infection, loses fluids faster than normal, and often refuses the foods you’d usually reach for. The right choices depend on what kind of sick you are: a respiratory illness like a cold or flu calls for different foods than a stomach bug. But across the board, staying hydrated and getting enough calories to fuel your immune system matters more than any single “superfood.”
Fluids Come First
Fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and even heavy breathing from congestion all pull water out of your body faster than usual. A fever raises your metabolic rate, which means you’re burning through energy and fluids at an accelerated pace with every degree your temperature climbs. If you’re not replacing what you lose, dehydration sets in and makes everything feel worse: headaches intensify, fatigue deepens, and mucus thickens.
Water is the obvious starting point, but it’s not the only option, and variety helps when plain water sounds unappealing. Broth, herbal tea, diluted juice, and oral rehydration solutions all count. Broth has a particular edge because it delivers sodium and other minerals you lose through sweat and vomiting. If you’re dealing with diarrhea or throwing up, drinks with electrolytes (like coconut water or a rehydration solution) are more useful than water alone, since they help your body actually retain the fluid instead of passing it straight through.
Sip steadily rather than forcing down large amounts at once, especially if your stomach is unsettled. Small, frequent sips are easier to keep down and absorb.
Chicken Soup Actually Works
Chicken soup’s reputation as a cold remedy isn’t just folklore. Lab research published in the journal Chest found that chicken soup slowed the movement of white blood cells called neutrophils in a concentration-dependent way. Neutrophils rush to infected tissue and trigger the inflammation responsible for congestion, sore throat, and that heavy, swollen feeling in your sinuses. By gently reducing that inflammatory response, chicken soup may ease upper respiratory symptoms at the source, not just by warming you up.
Both the chicken and the vegetables in the soup showed this anti-inflammatory activity individually, and the combined soup performed well without damaging cells. So a homemade version with plenty of vegetables and chicken is ideal, but even a store-bought variety delivers warm broth, salt, and soft protein, which are all things your body needs when you’re fighting a respiratory infection. The steam also loosens congestion in your nasal passages, giving you a few minutes of easier breathing with every bowl.
Honey for a Stubborn Cough
If a cough is keeping you up at night, honey is worth trying before reaching for cough medicine. Research reviewed by the Mayo Clinic suggests honey works about as well as the active ingredient in many over-the-counter cough suppressants. Half a teaspoon to one teaspoon (roughly 2.5 to 5 milliliters) is the dose studied in children, and adults can take a full tablespoon straight or stirred into warm tea or water.
Honey coats and soothes an irritated throat, and its thick texture may help suppress the cough reflex. One important exception: never give honey to a child under one year old due to the risk of infant botulism.
What to Eat With a Stomach Bug
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. It’s a reasonable starting point for the first day or two of stomach flu, food poisoning, or traveler’s diarrhea, but nutrition experts at Harvard Health point out there’s no reason to limit yourself to just those four foods. They’re bland and easy to digest, but they’re also low in protein, fat, and many vitamins your immune system needs to recover.
Other gentle options that digest just as easily include:
- Brothy soups (which also replace fluids and sodium)
- Oatmeal (soft, calorie-dense, and easy on the stomach)
- Boiled or baked potatoes without heavy toppings
- Plain crackers or unsweetened dry cereal
Once your stomach starts to settle, usually within a day or two, begin adding back more nutrient-dense foods. Cooked squash, carrots, sweet potatoes without skin, avocado, skinless chicken or turkey, fish, and eggs are all bland enough to be tolerable but provide the protein and vitamins your body is hungry for. The goal is to move beyond the bare-minimum BRAT foods as soon as you can handle it, not to stay on them for days.
Ginger for Nausea
Ginger is one of the most studied natural remedies for nausea, and the evidence is solid. Clinical trials have used doses ranging from about 500 mg to 1 gram per day (split into two or three servings) and found meaningful reductions in nausea severity. A dose of 1 gram daily performed just as well as 2 grams, so more isn’t necessarily better.
In practical terms, 1 gram of ginger is roughly a half-inch piece of fresh ginger root. You can grate it into hot water for tea, chew on crystallized ginger, or use ginger powder. If fresh ginger is too intense on a sensitive stomach, ginger tea or flat ginger ale (let the carbonation go flat first) are gentler ways to get the benefit. Start with a small amount 30 minutes before eating or taking medication, and see how your stomach responds.
You Can Skip the Dairy Guilt
A persistent belief holds that milk and dairy products increase mucus production when you’re congested. Research doesn’t support this. The Mayo Clinic notes that drinking milk does not cause the body to make more phlegm. Studies going back decades, including one that directly measured mucus in people who drank milk versus those who didn’t, found no difference.
What likely fuels the myth is a sensory trick: milk and saliva mix together in your mouth to form a slightly thick coating that lingers on the tongue and throat. That feeling can be mistaken for extra mucus, but it isn’t. If yogurt, warm milk, or a smoothie sounds good when you’re sick, there’s no medical reason to avoid them. Yogurt in particular provides protein, calories, and probiotics that may support gut health, especially after a stomach illness.
Vitamin C and Zinc
Both vitamin C and zinc are commonly recommended for fighting colds, but the evidence is more modest than supplement marketing suggests. Zinc may shorten a cold’s duration if taken early, though researchers still haven’t pinpointed the ideal dose or form. The upper safe limit for adults is 40 mg per day. Zinc lozenges are the most studied form for colds, and they need to be started within the first 24 hours of symptoms to have much effect.
Vitamin C doesn’t reliably prevent colds in most people, but regular intake may slightly reduce how long symptoms last. You don’t necessarily need a supplement to get enough. Oranges, strawberries, bell peppers, kiwi, and broccoli are all rich sources, and eating them as part of your recovery diet checks the same box without the risk of the stomach upset that high-dose supplements sometimes cause.
Don’t Force Yourself, but Don’t Starve Either
The old advice to “starve a fever” is wrong. Fever increases your metabolic rate, meaning your body is burning through more calories than usual just to maintain its immune response. Skipping meals when you’re already running a deficit slows recovery. If you have no appetite, focus on calorie-dense liquids like smoothies, broth with added rice or noodles, or warm milk with honey. Even small amounts of food give your immune system fuel it wouldn’t otherwise have.
When your appetite does return, lean toward soft, protein-rich foods. Scrambled eggs, mashed avocado on toast, and shredded chicken are all easy to prepare when you don’t have the energy to cook. The priority is getting enough calories and protein to support healing, not eating perfectly. Whatever sounds tolerable and goes down easily is the right choice.