three yummy ways to fight the common cold
Everyone around me seems to be sick this week! Somehow I have managed (knock on wood) to fend off the cold bugs flying around. Though I have no scientific evidence to prove this, I like to think it’s due to the regular consumption (so to speak) of my three favorite cold-fighters.
1. Drink an Emergen-C packet everyday. 
If you feel a case of the sniffles coming on, double the dosage. The best flavor is the Lemon Line one, and even though they’ve recently upgraded their packaging (I liked it better before it got slick), this standby has been around for years. A must on plane-trips!
2. Eat garlicky pasta at least once a week.
This is my favorite quick pasta dish: Pasta with broccoli rabe and red pepper. Traditionally, it’s made with orecchiette, but if that’s hard to find (as is the case in my hood) shells will do. Put your pot of pasta water on the stove. While you’re waiting for it boil, roughly chop a bunch of broccoli rabe, set aside. Then, chop four to six garlic cloves very finely. Add pasta to boiling water, set timer as per al dente instructions. When there’s about five minutes left, add broccoli rabe to the pasta pot. Meanwhile, heat up a few tablespoons of extra virgin. When it’s sizzling, add garlic, and cook until just before it turns golden. Remove from heat. Drain pasta and broccoli rabe, and then add them to the pan with the oil and garlic. Turn the flame on to very low, toss for minute on low heat, sprinkle with a handful of good red pepper flakes. Serve with fresh parmesan.
3. Take hot, hot baths with C.O. Bigelow’s Cold & Flu soak
You don’t need to have a cold to enjoy the goodness of this apothecary’s bestselling bath soak. Infused with eucalyptus, peppermint, willow bark and Echinacea, it will have you breathing deeply and feeling sleepy in no time. Note: If you can’t find it on their site, call 800-395-4004.
I guarantee that these three things will make your winter months more enjoyable, if not actually healthier. Hey, they won’t hurt! Do you have a favorite way to fight a cold? Share your tips here! — Angela M.
January 30th, 2007 at 9:42 am
1. If it’s too cold outside or not safe to sleep with a window open, use a cool-mist humidifier in your bedroom. If you are seriously congested or you also have a cough, use one of those plug-in menthol vapor things in addition (Sudacare is one brand).
2. Use a neti pot with saline (see netipot.org for an explanation and a demonstration video). Yes, it’s a little bit gross, but it really goes a long way toward unstuffing the schnoz.
3. Call a Chinese or Korean restaurant and order the spiciest soup they have. The hot pepper will help thin mucus.
January 30th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Your recipe for broccoli rabe reminds me of a dish served at a local restaurant near me. They use the broccoli rabe, small penne, Italian sausage, and chicken broth. You cook the sausage and slice it and set it aside. Saute the broccoli rabe in a tiny bit of olive oil with plenty of garlic. Pour a small amount of the chicken broth into the skillet and add some hot pepper flakes. Add back the broccoli rabe and sausage. Cook your penne pasta until al dente. Add the pasta to the skillet; toss and serve. You may need to add some more broth. I have made this veggie lately by using veggie stock and leaving out the sausage. It is better the next day.
January 30th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Great list! I was sick a couple of weeks ago and my mom turned me onto a new product called Sudacare Shower Soothers. They are incredible–available at Duane Reade, etc. It’s a vaporizing tablet that you put on the shower floor. Cleared me right up– they’re remarkable.
January 30th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
The best… the BEST? Philistines! The best flavor of Emergen-C is clearly and obviously Raspberry.
I have learned the hard way that if you leave Emergen-C to sit for too long before you drink it, or if you drink it at a leisurely pace, it begins to turn an unappealing greyish shade.
A couple of other people make nice cold and flu baths, too – I think Kiss My Face makes one, which most larger natural foods stores probably carry. C.O. Bigelow is basically just Bath & Body Works wanting to compete with Kiehl’s, so there’s a good chance the cold and flu stuff is sold at someone’s local Bath & Body Works – some carry more selection of the Bigelow stuff than others. Also, Limited Inc (the parent company) is headquartered across town from me and have a Bigelow concept store in a shopping complex a few blocks away from their HQ, Easton Town Center, that they sort of co-own. (They also have semi-flagshippy stores there for most of their other current and former brands, but probably not as flagshippy as in NYC, just the ones closest to corporate HQ.) I have no idea whether the hype about Bigelow’s “since 1838″ age is true or not – I’d certainly never heard of it before it was introduced by B&BW, so I suspect it might all be marketing.
Don’t use a Neti Pot, use a NeilMed Sinus Rinse bottle. Same sort of solution, way easier to use. I think they’re at neilmed.com; most drugstores sell them. The starter kit is around $15, and 100 packets cost around $10 or so. There’s another company that makes a product called SinuCleanse that’s similar but is used with a neti pot, and their packets work just as well – they’re usually sold side by side, and they sell 50 packets for around $5-6, which I think is more convenient. These help a lot, but they help more if you don’t have a stuffy nose (if you do, the water has nowhere to go). Works best as a preventive for people with constant sinus problems – to keep congestion from becoming an infection.
Another really good Thing To Eat is couscous lentil curry soup, which Nile Foods makes and sells in just-add-water cups. Will definitely make your nose run, if that’s the effect you need.
January 30th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I swear by regular saunas, a daily serving of yogurt, and Ocean nasal saline spray (easier and cheaper than the neti pot or the NeilMed).
Like Julie said, spicy Asian soup is also excellent.
January 31st, 2007 at 8:35 am
C.O. Bigelow has indeed actually been around since 1838. They started out as a pharmacy in NY, Bigelow Chemists and the original pharmacy is still open. C.O. Bigelow is the house brand. If I understand this correctly, they have been acquired by Limited Brands, which also owns Bath and Body Works, hence their products now being sold in those stores/competing with Kiehls. Their stuff really is amazing. [I don't work for them or anything, just a big fan, particularly of the Cold and Flu Soak!]
February 3rd, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I make my family’s garlic soup recipe… 50 cloves (!) will ward off any little bugs. And also, maybe the people you don’t like so much.
This soup kicks chicken noodle soup’s you know what. It’s the BEST thing when you have the flu. All of the ingredients boost your immune system and are antimicrobials, and it tastes wonderful too. (Yes, even if you’re sick and can’t taste anything, you will taste this soup.)
Mix and match your own ingredients* and “add ons”* but here’s Jessie’s basic garlic soup recipe. It’s wonderful on its own.
- a couple of tablespoons of olive oil–pouring about 3 times around the bottom of the pan
- 30 to 50 cloves garlic (that’s approximately 3-5 heads)
- 6 to 8 C. chicken stock (homemade or Campbell’s made–it would probably be good with beef stock too)
- 1 large sprig fresh sage (8-10 leaves) or 2-4 tsp. dried sage (to taste)
- 3 to 5 bay leaves
- 3 fingered pinch salt (I use Maldon sea salt but it’s hard to find so anything you prefer would be fine)
1. Peel and roughly chop garlic. Pour oil into large stock pot.
2. Put garlic in pot with chicken stock, sage, bay leaves, and salt.
3. Bring to boil.
4. Simmer soup 20 to 30 minutes.
5. Pour soup in blender (you may have to do this in “batches” if your blender is small) and blend until sage and bay are finely chopped.
6. Strain soup if you prefer, discarding stems, etc. from sage and bay. Or eat them, if you’re feeling particularly rabbit-like.
7. Pour soup back into stock pot, cover, and simmer 10 minutes further.
It’s good for what ails you! Enjoy!
If you’ve got a bit of crusty, cheesey, garlic bread with the soup this meal is ABSOLUTE heaven. (If you’re lazy or sick, Dierbergs makes a freaking awesome one that you bake at home, it’s in the deli section.)
*Things I might think about adding if I wasn’t sick:
-orzo pasta or small shell pasta
-celery
-shredded chicken
-shredded carrots
-tiny cubes of potato (think hashbrown sized)
February 5th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Saline spray just dries stuff up in your nostrils, and is not a rinse. The rinses actually move stuff through and out. For that reason, I don’t think Ocean is at all comparable to rinses. Also, if you do like Ocean, most stores sell a store brand that costs like 1/3 as much, as “saline nasal spray.” (Ocean claims it’s not the same, doctors have told me otherwise.) I’d do it in addition to, not instead of, a rinse, or to help dry stuff up when you’re so congested during a cold that the rinses won’t go through your sinuses.
If you do rinses at all, you quickly learn to bend from the waist when you’re done, with a tissue at your nose… it only takes one or two instances of trapped water dripping out of your nostrils onto the floor when you bend over to learn *that* one.
Good to know about CO Bigelow – I thought it could be something like that, but with the pharmacy not being as famous as, like, Caswell-Massey or etc, it’s hard to know – Limited must have wanted to acquire a company with no major national distribution. Limited is understandably not very forthcoming with info. (There are two big companies around here: most ppl who work for Limited Inc are stressed out and last just a few years, everyone at Nationwide Insurance seems happy.) The Bigelow stuff was test-marketed here starting a few years ago, I think before the other B&BW stores got it.
I’m innately suspicious about that kind of thing because I used to work for a company that had a cafe with an entirely fictional mascot who had an elaborate history as a mid-20th-century adventurer. We were allowed to be forthcoming about the person not really existing, if asked by customers, but a lot of people aren’t. The mascot even had a fictional “beloved dog” who had adventures of his own that showed up on store copy and merchandise. I don’t think this company brands their cafes at all anymore – the concept I’m describing was their second branding concept, and neither one really worked out.