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| Chicken noodle soup / source |
There are soups that have both cold and flu-fighting ingredients that can help you feel better. Getting a cold or the flu is just miserable, but there are studies showing these wonderful soups can help. This is a list of the soups that have helped me get over a cold or flu.
A cold and the flu are upper respiratory infections and can be miserable with stuffy noses, coughing, sore throats and a tight chest. These cold and flu-fighting soups are more than comfort foods; they can actually help you feel better.
Chicken Soup for Colds and Flu
Chicken soup has been called Jewish penicillin and can help you feel better when you get a cold or the flu. There are actually scientific studies that show chicken soup can help you get over acold or flu.A study conducted by Dr. Stephan Rennard at the University of Nebraska Medical Center found that chicken soup helped alleviate the symptoms of colds and flu [1].
In scientific terms, the chicken soup stopped the movement of neutrophils, a type of white blood cells, that when produced in excess during a cold or flu can cause mucous. The excess mucus causes the stuffy or runny nose, tight chest and coughing.
There is still not a complete understanding of what exactly is in chicken noodle soup that helps with cold and the flu. The University of Maryland reports that chicken noodle soup might have an amino acid that is comparable to drugs that are used to treat symptoms of colds and flu or upper respiratory infections.
The ingredients of the chicken soup in this study included chicken stock, carrots, sweet potato, parsnips, onion, turnips, celery and parsley.
The test soup also included matzo balls instead of noodles. The study also tested numerous commercial brands of chicken soup and many of them also had health benefits, but they did not report on the brand names. If you do buy commercial chicken soup, look for a lower sodium soup since many commercial soups can have very high amounts of sodium. Homemade is always the best though.
Try this homemade chicken soup recipe to soothe your sore throat and cough.
Avgolemono Soup from Greece
Avgolemono also has chicken which could account for its cold and flu-fighting benefits, though some recipes call for lamb or just chicken broth. The other ingredients are lemon, eggs and either orzo or rice. My mom being Greek, I had avgolemono soup many times when I had a cold or flu and I can confirm that avgolemono soup has cold and flu-fighting benefits.
Just the smell and steam of this lemony soup can make you feel better, especially if you love lemons. Lemons have the health benefits of being high in vitamin C, vitamin B6, potassium and include many other minerals including magnesium, calcium, folic acid and zinc. With zinc being a known cold and flu-fighting mineral and can boost the immune system fighting off colds and flu.
Here is a great Avgolemono soup recipe that will make you feel good all over.
Hot and Sour Soup from China
This great soup is hot and spicy and will clear your sinuses, soothe a sore throat and loosen that tight chest when you have a cold or flu. There are many healthy ingredients in hot and sour soup including garlic, ginger, Shitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, carrots, bok choy and red chili oil or chili sauce. The ginger can also help if you have nausea from the flu. And once again, chicken broth of chicken is used in many recipes for hot and sour soup.
Here is a hot and sour soup recipe to clear your sinuses.
Tom Yum Gung Soup from Thailand
Tom Yum Gung soup is similar to hot and sour with many ingredients and is also known as Thai hot and sour soup. Ingredients can include hot chili peppers, lemon, cilantro, mushrooms, and lemon grass and shrimp although some recipes use chicken stock. Tom Yum soup is known for its cold and flu-fighting benefits and also an anti-cancer soup.
A joint study at the Kasetsar University in Thailand and Kinki University in Japan found that the ingredients in Tom Yum soup are 100 times effective at fighting cancerous tumors than other foods.
You can try this Tom Yum soup recipe that will warm you up.
Miso Soup from Japan
I have had a cup of miso almost every day for the past 21 years starting when I first learned about macrobiotics and has certainly helped prevent getting many colds or the flu.
The health benefits from miso soup most likely are from the fact it is a fermented food, fermented soybeans with miso. Fermented foods are known to create a healthy digestive system and a healthy digestive system is important to a healthy immune system.
For most some,
There are different types of miso soups with some being milder. You can just have plain miso soup or you can add wakame and or tofu.
Vegetarian Vegetable Soup
Another soup I believe in as a healthy cold and flu-fighting soup that can be vegan with vegetable broth or non-vegan with chicken broth in it.
This vegetable soup cleanses the body and the blood of all kinds of illnesses. The soup is simple with carrots, Daikon, onions and either udon noodles or pearl barley. The vegetables are blood cleansing and the barley is good for cleansing the liver and kidney.
You can use chicken or vegetable stock or broth which will help alleviate congestion of the sinuses and lungs.
For a complete recipe of this soup, please read Low Sodium Vegetable Soup Recipe.
Cold and Flu Fighting Recipes Conclusion
All of these healthy soups will help you feel better and relieve symptoms of colds and the flu. You can make your own or order from a restaurant. When ordering or buying some of these soups, watch for high sodium and the hot and sour soups could also have MSG.
About the Author
Sam Montana is a certified Food Over Medicine instructor from the Wellness Forum Health Center and certified in optimal nutrition from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
References:
[1] University of Nebraska Medical Center
