My husband has been sick for the past week. He got hit with the flu and then while still recovering from that he caught some sort of stomach bug. He's had a hard time eating much of anything. I've been trying to feed him nourishing foods but he doesn't always find them appetizing. So, I offered to make him cinnamon toast which is what my mom always made us when we were sick growing up.
This got me thinking about the tradition of giving certain foods while sick. When someone is sick we tend to feed them chicken soup, ginger ale, and cinnamon toast. Your list may be different but these were all things I remember being fed when I was a child and became sick. These were probably things that were traditionally given to sick people but while the tradition has remained we seem to have lost the the nutritional reason for giving these foods. For example, traditionally this would have been sourdough bread which is easier to digest and contains beneficial yeast and bacteria. Slather that with vitamin D rich raw pastured butter and top with antioxidant rich cinnamon and raw honey loaded with antiviral properties. Compare that to today's processed bread slathered with conventional pasteurized butter and refined sugar mixed with cinnamon. Totally different picture right? Then you have homemade chicken soup made from mineral rich homemade stock compared to today's Campbell soup...and the ginger ale? Well the idea is great since ginger is wonderful for stomach upset but today's ginger ale is simply refined sugar with a little ginger if any at all. Are you beginning to get the picture?
I think the tradition of these of foods can be a wonderful source of healing if done right!
