Don’t let that pesky cold get the best of you. From healthy comfort food to spicy chiles, these tried-and-true food remedies may help manage your symptoms.

By Cooking Light
February 20, 2018
Photo: Hector Manuel Sanchez

When you catch a cold, standard over-the-counter remedies can relieve a runny nose or a persistent headache—but the effects are only temporary. There’s yet to be a miracle medicine that can prevent a cold entirely or shorten its duration.

Antibiotics won’t help either. While they can treat bacterial infections, they’re ineffective―even detrimental―in treating the flu or cold virus (of which there are more than 200 strands). Antibiotics eliminate all bacteria, yes, but they also wipe out the “good” bacteria. This can actually interfere with your body's efforts to battle a virus.

There may not be an exact cure for the common cold, but this doesn’t mean to you have be miserable. As it turns out, the fastest and easiest relief may actually come from what you’re eating. Time-honored, food-based folk remedies such as chicken soup, raw garlic, and chile peppers may offer sound nutritional strategies for battling a cold. How?

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Think about it. Few foods top the soul-soothing qualities of chicken soup. Or take fiery chile peppers, which have long been associated with easing sinus problems. Below, we dig into the history behind five long-standing food remedies—and why they may actually help you beat a stuffy nose or persistent headache. 

1. Chicken Soup

Photo: Hector Manuel Sanchez

Steamy and comforting, chicken soup boasts a long history as a doctor-approved remedy. In a.d. 60, Pedacius Dioscorides, physician during the Roman emperor Nero, recommended chicken soup for respiratory illness. A 12th-century rabbi and physician named Moses Maimonides also prescribed chicken soup when Sultan Saladin, the Muslim military leader he served, complained of a cold.


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Still, Rennard has not yet identified the beneficial compounds causing this neutrophil response. "Additional ingredients in the soup besides the chicken may have been helpful," he says. "Vegetables, for instance, have lots of potentially medicinally active compounds, like vitamins and antioxidants." And so his research continues, but the basic conclusion remains: Chicken soup does indeed help. If you’re feeling under the weather, our Immunity-Boosting Chicken Soup recipe is sure to warm you all the way through.

2. Vitamin C

Photo: Brian Woodcock

A natural antihistamine, vitamin C can also relieve cold symptoms such as watery eyes as well as nasal and chest congestion. It’s also a powerful antioxidant that can help prevent further cell damage when viruses or bacteria attack the immune system. Specifically, vitamin C stimulates the release of interferon, a protein substance that increases resistance to viruses, and strengthens the movement of microbe-killing white blood cells called phagocytes.

Vitamin C's popularity as a cold remedy began in 1970, when two-time Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, Ph.D., published Vitamin C and the Common Cold and claimed that high doses could protect against this scourge. Since then, mounting scientific evidence indicates that although vitamin C does not prevent colds, taking supplements (with high doses of 1,000 milligrams or more) at the earliest onset of an infection can halt its progression or lessen symptoms.

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Longtime vitamin C researcher Harri Hemilä, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Helsinki in Finland, has reviewed 21 studies conducted during the past 30 years that used 1,000 milligrams or more of vitamin C to treat colds. He found that higher amounts of vitamin C (taken in divided doses throughout the day) produced the best results. Study subjects given 1,000 milligrams daily showed a 19 percent decrease in severity of cold symptoms. While not as potent as supplements, citrus fruits, kale, butternut squash, bell peppers, and kiwis pack a healthy punch of vitamin C in every serving. If you’re looking for a vitamin C boost, our Kale, Jicama, and Orange Salad is the perfect nutrient-packed salad.

3. Chile Peppers


"It's a self-cleansing process that helps eliminate the virus by breaking up congestion, flushing out sinuses, and washing away irritants," says Irwin Ziment, M.D., professor emeritus at the UCLA School of Medicine.


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4. Hot Toddy

Photo: Rachel Johnson

To get a good night's sleep and to clear a stuffed-up nose, try an old English remedy—the hot toddy (try this tasty Buckwheat-Honey Hot Toddy). This hot water- or tea-based tonic flavored with liquor (typically whiskey or brandy), lemon juice, and honey may ease cold symptoms, says Ara DerMarderosian, Ph.D., professor of pharmacognosy (the study of natural products in medicine) and medicinal chemistry at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.

"Alcohol has some antimicrobial properties, thins the mucus, and has sedative qualities," says DerMarderosian. "Lemon provides vitamin C and citric acid, which loosens phlegm. And honey coats and soothes the mucus membranes."

But avoid tippling too much, especially when the cold is at its peak. A moderate amount of alcohol in a toddy is considered relatively safe. Too much can interfere with your sleep, cause dehydration, and hinder immune function, prolonging your cold.

5. Garlic


Crushing, slicing, or mincing garlic releases a substance known as allicin, which rapidly oxidizes and forms more than 100 biologically active, infection-fighting sulfur compounds. Though researchers once attributed the medicinal punch of garlic solely to allicin, research now points to other therapeutic substances. A 1999 laboratory-based study published in the International Journal of Immunopharmacology suggests that another garlic derivative, alliin, also boosts immunity by improving the production of certain white blood cells.

RELATED: Health Benefits of Raw Garlic



And while upping your garlic intake certainly won’t hurt you, experts counsel that food-based cold-care strategies should not be used in lieu of proper medical attention. If you’re feeling sick, make sure you’re drinking plenty of fluids, as extra amounts of water, fruit juice, tea, and carbonated drinks ease symptoms. But the old-fashioned standbys continue to prevail. Their effectiveness in fighting the common cold makes going on the nutritional defensive a comforting—and tasty—prescription.