Flu food and products I recommend

Of course your taste buds are all out of whack when you're sick -- you're miserable, and why would you be able to enjoy food to make your misery a little less horrible?

You can follow all the advice on the Internet about what to eat, and I did. But knowing which brand and type of product can be key. All of these foods below can be made or gathered when you are barely able to walk, can't see straight and can't commit to any amount of time to do anything because you'll have to run to the bathroom. My recommendations:

1) Mom's chicken noodle soup (pictured). Find my mom, and have her make you some soup.
2) Don't have my mom? I purchased four canned chicken noodle soups, only to be revolted by each: no matter the brand, they all had a metallic taste, and the noodles were fake. Don't fear: you can buy my mom's backup to her chicken noodle soup, Lipton Chicken Noodle that's dehydrated and sold in a box. Sounds disgusting, but I promise you, it's a million times better tasting than the canned stuff. All you do is add water.
2) You're supposed to eat rice when you can't hold anything down. The easiest and best tasting I found out is Success boil-in-a-bag rice. They say it's foolproof, and considering the condition I was in when I made it, they are telling the truth.
3) Apple sauce -- with cinnamon. This stuff is loaded with sugar -- when I'm healthy I opt for the natural, unsweetened stuff -- but you're sick, you need the calories, and you deserve it.
4) White bread. Like the apple sauce, I generally avoid white bread and opt for wheat when I'm healthy, but I wasn't. And the stomach likes white bread a ton more than digesting wheat.
5) Hot water with honey. I like to drink this healthy, too.


I don't recommend the bananas, per the BRAT diet you're supposed to follow (bananas, rice, apple sauce and toast). The consistency and varied taste turned me off, but that's just me.

I also owe a lot of gratitude to the following products:

• Gatorade
• Colgate toothpaste, to get all the sugar from the Gatorade off my teeth
• Disinfectant wipes
• Charmin Mega Roll soft toilet paper
• Mucinex DM
• Chloraseptic sore throat spray. Warning: It's addictive.
• Kleenex anti-viral tissues. Expensive, soft, and purportedly anti-viral. I'm sold. 

When you're sick, certain comforts can make ya feel at least a little better. At least I've found a few to count on.