Chicken pox is one of the most common childhood illnesses that people experience. While there is a vaccine that prevents chicken pox, there are still a number of children who have been infected by chicken pox at some point, and this will continue to happen unless chicken pox is completely eradicated, just as smallpox was. With that being said, seeing your child go through chicken pox is not the most pleasant experience and you will often want to do anything you can to help your child get better. Thankfully, there are a few dietary changes you can make to help your children out.
Food & Nutrition Diet (Meal Plan) for Chicken Pox
#1 Recommended Breakfast Diet for Chicken Pox
Generally, you will want to feed your child a normal diet when he or she develops chicken pox. However, when he or she begins to develop sores around the mouth, this option becomes difficult. What you should do is prepare cold, soft, and bland foods for your child to eat. Chances are that he or she isn’t going to have much of an appetite, but it is crucial to keep your child eating, even if he or she doesn’t want to. For instance, yogurt is a wonderful breakfast food. Not only is it chilled, it can also be whatever flavor your child wants to eat. With as many different yogurts as there are, there will surely be one that your child enjoys.
#2 Recommended Lunch Diet for Chicken Pox
Because you will want to look for cold and bland foods that your child can easily swallow, you might want to think about fish or a cold pasta. Eggs are also a good solution, although having cold eggs isn’t always the most appetizing meal. Cold soups are also a wonderful option, as they are easy to find and there are a variety of flavors for a sick and picky child to choose from. Looking for soups might be a task that takes some time, but it will be well worth it in the end to see that your child is eating food and getting the nutrients that he or she needs to fight off the chicken pox virus.
#3 Recommended Dinner Diet for Chicken Pox
For dinner, you can go with one of two routes. You could go with the time-honored tradition of serving your child chicken noodle soup, although the heat of the soup might be uncomfortable for a child who has sores around and near the mouth. You could also go with the cold meal route. While there are not as many options for a cold and relatively bland dinner, a cold dinner might be easier for your child to eat. Some ideas would be cold meats, such as ham, or livers. With that being said, it might be a difficult task to get your child to eat beef, chicken, or turkey liver, but it will be a meal that has a lot of nutritional value.
#4 Recommended Snack Diet for Chicken Pox
There’s a very good chance that your child isn’t going to want to eat, but if your child is feeling up to the idea of snacks, then there are a few options to consider. You are going to want to look for foods that are rich in the amino acid lysine, which has been shown to speed up the healing process of the lesions from the chicken pox virus. These foods include cheese, yogurt, eggs, and meats. For a snack, some cheese can make a healthy snack for your child. You might also want to consider some popsicles, as these are not only a treat for a sick child to eat, but the cold can help soothe the discomfort from the virus. Plus, your child might be happy to have some fruity flavor from the popsicles after going through a relatively bland diet.
#5 Recommended Drinks for Chicken Pox
Making sure that your child stays properly hydrated is crucial when it comes to fighting off any illness, including chicken pox. Vegetable juices and coconut waters are potential solutions that not only bring some flavor into your child’s diet, but it also provides some important nutrients that your child might not be taking in through solids. You can also consider some teas, especially herbal teas with cinnamon and basil, to boost the immune system while your child is fighting off the chicken pox virus. If your child is severely dehydrated, you might want to think about a sports drink that can replenish lost electrolytes.
#6 Recommended Herbs for Chicken Pox
Some herbal remedies you might want to look at are chamomile, cinnamon, and basil. All of these herbs have been shown to boost the immune system, which is exactly what your child needs when he or she is fighting off the chicken pox virus. Thankfully, cinnamon and basil can easily be mixed into the foods that your child is eating. Chamomile teas are also very common, meaning that it will be easy to find these herbal remedies for your child. Making sure that your child is comfortable is something that any good parent would want to do.
#7 Recommended Fruits for Chicken Pox
Generally, there are going to be more fruits that you want to avoid than fruits that you will want to focus on. What should be more important is making sure that your child is getting the nutrients that he or she needs to be as healthy as possible while fighting off the illness. This means that a general intake of fruit, as long as it is not acidic fruit, can benefit your child pretty well. You just have to be careful with which fruits you look at, as acidic fruits can cause far more pain than healing in this situation.
#8 Recommended Vitamin/s for Chicken Pox
You are going to want to make sure that your child gets an increased amount of all vitamins, as there is a very good chance that your child isn’t going to be getting much from the bland and soft foods that he or she is willing to eat. Making sure that your child’s body has the proper nutrients needed to fight off an illness is important, and that sometimes means that you need to push your child to eat at least a few things that have high vitamin values.
#9 Recommended Mineral/s for Chicken Pox
As with the vitamins, there’s a very good chance that your child is not getting the mineral intake that he or she normally would. This means that increasing the overall number of vitamins in the foods that your child is willing to eat is the best thing that you can do for your child. In some cases, this might mean that you value nutritional value over the flavor of food, but for your child to get healthy again as soon as possible, this is something that you are simply going to have to do.
#10 Discouraged Foods for Chicken Pox
There are several foods that you should avoid giving to your child. Foods that are too hot are going to aggravate the sores around and near the child’s mouth, which is never good. The same applies to spicy foods, meaning that most foods with any degree of hot spice in them are going to have to stay in the kitchen until your child has fought off this illness completely. You should also stay far away from foods that are extremely acidic. Acidic foods are not only painful for people who have sores near their mouths, but the acid in those foods can cause damage to the sores. Nobody wants this to happen to their child, meaning that acidic foods shouldn’t even be considered.
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