For each disease, in addition to the medical treatment prescribed by a doctor, additional means are often prescribed and used to help the treatment. Food plays an important role in combating various health problems, including respiratory.
Especially important for them is the release of the collected secretions, through which the body disposes of waste products from the body's fight against the disease.
It is therefore important to take expectorants to facilitate this process. Along with medications prescribed by your doctor, you can alleviate and encourage secretions by including certain foods in your diet.
What foods help with expectoration?
Ginger + honey + lemon
It is recommended to drink herbal teas for and when expectorating phlegm. Be sure to use one of the following: honey, ginger, lemon. And the combination of grated ginger, honey and lemon is one of the most commonly used and proven remedies for respiratory diseases.
Honey is one of the mandatory components in most expectorant recipes from folk medicine - it can be combined with virtually all other expectorant foods. Honey, in combination with olive oil, will also serve the purpose. Mix 1:1 olive oil and honey. Heat the mixture in a water bath and take 1 teaspoon 3-4 times a day.
Onions and garlic and spicy foods
Eat more onions and garlic: in addition to being natural antibiotics, they relieve coughs and secretions.
Moderate consumption of spicy foods also helps to liquefy them and make coughing easier. Horseradish (or mustard), hot peppers, spicy turnips, etc. are most often used in folk medicine.
Recipe for expectoration with black radish
Probably everyone knows the recipe with black radish and honey against cough (or sugar), but let's remind you of it: A hole is dug in the turnip, in which honey is poured and left aside. The juice that is produced is a tested cough medicine. You can also squeeze the juice from the radish with a juicer or by hand and mix it with honey. Also, the juices of most root vegetables (carrots, beets, etc.) mixed with honey are considered a good expectorant.
Recipe for expectoration with onions
A healing recipe with onions. Finely chop one onion, add 2-3 tbsp. of sugar or honey and leave it overnight. Use a tablespoon of the finished syrup, if necessary during the day. Repeat the procedure until improvement. You can also combine garlic and honey.
Tangerines
Tangerines turn out to be the perfect expectorant food. They contain essential oils, lemon and other beneficial substances that help increase the amount of secretions from the respiratory mucosa and play an ideal role in eliminating sputum and stopping coughing. In addition, the vitamins in tangerines have anti-inflammatory action.
Apricots
In traditional Chinese medicine, apricot relieves cough, dissolves phlegm, warms the lungs, and soothes shortness of breath; all this is due to the substance contained in it - amygdalin. Heat treatment does not destroy the useful ingredients in this case, so compote, nectar and even apricot jam will do a perfect job.
Oat broth
Oat broth is a universal medicine, it is also effective in the long-term course of respiratory diseases. To prepare the broth, pour 200-250 g of oats with five glasses of water and boil over low heat for 1 hour. Cool the broth and drink it for a day, by repeating the procedure until improvement.
Milk and butter
Milk has almost always been used as an expectorant in folk medicine. Nowadays, this function is disputed, claiming that it forms additional mucus in the body and it interferes with curing respiratory problems. However, in folk medicine it has the ability to liquefy secretions and help them to separate more easily. Some recipes for expectoration are still popular, such as a glass of warm milk with a teaspoon of butter. Butter is also considered a very good expectorant. Also for this purpose a glass of warm milk with the addition of a pinch of soda, honey, egg yolk, etc. is used.
Recipe for expectoration with milk and figs
A tasty medicine can be prepared to effectively combat wet cough. Add 2-3 figs to the milk and keep it on low heat for 20 minutes. The resulting product is consumed warm or hot 2-3 times a day after meals. Whether you will use milk as an expectorant food, judge for yourself, however, it affects everyone differently.
Hot drinks
All kinds of hot drinks will be useful for expectoration - from dried fruit, through herbal tea to hot soups and broths. Popular folk recipes for cough include decoctions of quinces, pears or apples, others recommend hot chicken soup against the flu or beef soup. In fact, the intake of warm liquids is one of the most important moments for the liquefaction of secretions.
The right foods for eliminating mucus
There is a large loss of protein during expectoration of secretions; if they are not replenished, then protein deficiency may develop. Therefore, you should eat protein-rich foods:
- food of animal origin: lean meat, fish (preferably fatty, omega-3 will will relieve sore throat and facilitate expectoration), black cod liver, not sour milk products;
- foods of plant origin: legumes, sprouted wheat, pumpkin seeds, sunflower, sesame (and oils), olives and olive oil, cereals (rice, oats, buckwheat, wheat), vegetables, tomatoes, carrots, any cabbage, beets, onions, garlic, pumpkin, turnips), fruit (bananas, citrus fruit, strawberries, raspberries, ginger, melon (watermelon), papaya, peaches, avocados, blackcurrants, apples, figs, grapes), herbs.
Some foods can adversely affect the condition of the body and worsen the process of removing secretions from the bronchi, making them thicker. It is not recommended to eat fried and fatty foods, yogurt, fatty meats, foods that cause allergies. It is also advisable to stop drinking coffee and alcohol, which dehydrate and thicken secretions.
If you stick to all points of treatment, you can quickly get rid of secretions. The main thing is to pay attention to nutrition, humidity in the room, judicious use of medicines and folk remedies, as well as to consume more fluids.
And to be of great use to you, we suggest you help yourself with this remedy for bronchitis and cough or Coca-Cola and cough drops syrup.
