Soups and juices enable faster healing and recovery because they don’t require as much energy as solid foods to digest. As they require less energy, your body has more energy available to use for healing and recovery. I am surprised at how many people don’t realise this, not that I can talk, because it took me a while to figure it out.
Anyway, I spoke to a close relative today, and he sounded terrible, coughing and spluttering as he tried to talk over the phone. My first instinct was empathy. I don’t like to see people I love suffering. He mentioned he’d been run down and sick for weeks, but had such a busy schedule he had to keep going. Have you been having lots of Vitamin C’, I asked. ‘Yes’, he replied. I asked how much. ‘One or two tablets a day and maybe a juice’, he replied. I suggested he might need quite a bit more. He’d been eating on the run, but the usual solid foods. ‘You need more rest’ I informed him. But of course he was well aware of that. However, work and commitments didn’t allow it. I frowned as he coughed and choked through his reply. ‘Okay’, I said, ‘even if you have a busy schedule, at least give your digestive system a break so your body has more energy for healing’. He had no clue what I was talking about.
‘Okay’, I told him. ‘What you need to do, is swap out your solid foods for good quality vegetable soups, clear chicken soups and vegetable and fruit juices. This will ram more nutrients into your system faster and take the load off your digestive system.’ He was interested, so I continued my explanation. ‘The digestive system has to work harder to break down and process solid foods than it does liquids such as soups and juices, and this takes more effort and energy. This is energy that could be better spent by your body to help itself get better faster. Take the load off your digestive system and give your body increased capacity for healing and recovery.’
It was as though a light bulb went off in his head. ‘Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, that’s logical, yeah, yeah’.
We often do not stop to think about how food can help or hamper our healing and recovery. Some of us automatically reach for clear chicken soup, orange juice or fasting instinctively when unwell because our bodies know they are overloaded and need to work hard to recover. It is simply instinctual, even though at the time we don’t stop to think why we are taking such actions. I cringe whenever I hear someone say juices are bad for you. Okay, massive glasses of pure fruit juices are not exactly ideal with such a high sugar content, but what about a small glass of orange juice or a large vegetable juice with just one apple in it? I wish people would qualify their sweeping statements more often. Not all juices and soups are created equal. Size, and what is in them matters. As my relative discovered, they can be a wonderful source of nutrients and take the load off your digestive system for quicker recovery, particularly when you may be run down and unwell. There are many reasons why soups and juices may facilitate faster healing and recovery, and this is just one of them.
I would love to hear other peoples stories. Please comment on what you eat when you are unwell.
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