What should I eat if I have a cough and phlegm during confinement?

During the confinement period, you may catch a cold and have symptoms of coughing, and sometimes even phlegm. However, it is best not to take any medication during the confinement period, because the medication will be passed to the baby through breast milk. If the situation is not too serious, you can choose diet therapy, such as roasted oranges, white radishes, and rock sugar pears, which all have the effect of relieving cough and reducing phlegm.

(1) Pear stewed with rock sugar:

Wash the pears, peel them, cut off the tops to use as lids, and remove the core. Put rock sugar in the middle, cover with lid, put the processed pears in a deep plate or bowl, and finally steam them in a steamer for 1 hour until the pears are completely softened.

(2) Baking oranges:

Use chopsticks to make a hole in the center of the bottom of the orange, stuff some salt in it, wrap it with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Take it out, peel the orange peel and eat it while it's hot. Or you can dry the orange peel into dried tangerine peel, add water to make tea, and drink it in big gulps. It has amazing effects.

(3) White radish candy:

Cut the white radish into 1 cm dices, put them into a dry, clean container, fill it with honey, cover it tightly, and soak it for about 3 days. The water will seep out and mix with the honey. Store it in the refrigerator. Scoop out a little each time and add warm water to drink. It has a very good cough-relieving effect. If you want to drink it suddenly and don’t have time to soak it, you can grind the white radish, add 1/3 amount of honey, mix well, and then add warm water to drink.

Avoid eating cold foods when coughing and having phlegm

Cold foods must be avoided when you have a cough and phlegm, such as cold drinks or frozen drinks. These foods should be avoided. Chinese medicine believes that once the human body is exposed to cold, the lungs will be damaged, and coughs are mostly caused by lung diseases. If you eat some cold food at this time, it will cause blockage of lung qi, which will not only aggravate the condition but also prolong the duration of the disease. Children's cough and phlegm are mostly related to the spleen. The spleen is the foundation of our body and is responsible for the digestion and absorption of food. If you eat too much cold food, it will damage your spleen and stomach, causing the spleen's function to decline and moisture to accumulate and produce phlegm.

Cool foods: such as cold drinks, frozen drinks, millet, wheat, mushrooms, winter melon, etc.

Avoid eating fatty and sweet foods when you have a cough and phlegm

Autumn colds, coughs and phlegm are mostly caused by lung heat. Eating more fatty and greasy foods in your daily diet will produce internal heat and aggravate the cough. Eating these foods at this time will also cause the phlegm to increase and become thicker, making it difficult to cough up. Especially for some people with asthma, eating too much fatty and greasy food can block the respiratory tract, aggravate asthma, and make it difficult to cure the disease. Therefore, everyone should pay attention to eating more light foods during a cold, and be careful not to eat fried foods to avoid aggravating gastrointestinal health.

Fatty, sweet and greasy foods include: braised pork and other greasy foods, spicy foods such as chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns.

Avoid eating fish, shrimps and crabs if you have a cough and phlegm

Fishy foods should never be eaten when you are coughing, as they will aggravate the cold and cough. This is due to an allergy to the protein in fishy foods. The fishy smell can also irritate the respiratory tract, thereby aggravating the cough.

Fishy and craby: mainly marine fish, crabs, shrimps and the like.