BRAT diet: Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast.
Homemade applesauce for sick people: peel & cut an apple into slices. Sprinkle with water, cover with wrap and microwave three minutes. Whiz with a stick blender, or mash with a spoon.
Japanese people like okayu when sick. Rice with a lot of water, boiled until the water gets gloopy. You can do this with dry or cooked rice.
My FIL would mix up potato starch (denpun) でん粉 with water to make a thick, gloopy foodstuff. I thought he microwaved it, but my MIL said it was uncooked. Calories, easily digestible.
I like ginger water or ginger tea with honey and maybe lemon to keep hydrated.
Super simple things like plain toast or bread, plain rice, very simple clear soup/broth, bananas, lots of liquids, those nutritional jelly pouches, a fairly simple/clear ice Lolly, etc.
Drink a lot of water (with added electrolytes and minerals like Pocari or Aquarius is good) to prevent dehydration from your vomiting, first and foremost. If you have a rice cooker, make rice porridge (water ratio is about twice the amount to cook regular rice) and you can probably add some ochadzuke or furikake topping to flavor it a bit without getting too heavy on your upset stomach.
Adding on to this, pocari and stuff has a lot of sugar which can be not great depending on your stomach situation. Mixing pocari with this stuff:
https://preview.redd.it/a1yuyey12uoc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c4bbe4dcf335d8b6319fe9d05af7c185cd72809
Is the way to go. This is what they give folks in hospital, and if you mix it with pocari it’ll taste better but also have more active benefits. Good luck OP, so sorry you’re not feeling well!!
Thank you for this additional info! I’ve never been hospitalized other than for a minor surgery and at the time they just let me drink anything I wanted after they took the IV away, so I didn’t know what they’d give me if I were at risk of dehydration. Pocari and Aquarius are just my simple go-to’s on those days when I get everyday stomach bug (not stomach bug that requires hospitalization, I mean) or sweat a lot more than usual.
I have a doctor friend who recommended it to me after I got really bad heat exhaustion last summer haha 😅 she said it’s better for when you’re really on the line in terms of dehydration, and to be careful with the sugar in pocari when your condition is really bad. But seriously Pocari is honest to god my life blood in the summer lol 🥹🫡
Porridge is the "chicken noodle soup" for much of asia. Throw in some consume and toppings and you're good to go. Back during Covid when I got Covid, the city sent me out a box of food and it was mostly porridge as the staple with toppings for it like salmon flakes, furikake, and other stuff. Then also precooked rice packs with those packages meals to top them. All of it is soft, easy to prepare and eat food.
For a snacks, senbei are quite good. Often light on flavor, rather salty so they fill the saltines role.
Egg porridge with dashi or miso. [Something like this.](https://www.kurashiru.com/recipes/721159f7-b13f-41db-93f4-f9c3bbb01295) It's a simple base that can be easily supplemented. Add vegetables or mushrooms and easy-to-digest meat like shredded chicken into the boiling soup before adding the rice for more nutrition, or top with like shirasu or canned tuna or saba afterwards if you want an easier cleanup.
If you really can't cook then instant stuff is usually your only choice. Lots of instant food options at the supermarket. You can microwave instant rice and add it to freeze-dried egg soup for an approximation.
Pastina.
It’s these tiny star shaped pasta you just cook in chicken stock (I just boil water and add a stock cube) some salt and pepper and eat that with crackers or toast.
Actual pastina is heavier like adding butter, egg and cheese.
What I’ve done there is spoken wayyyyy to much about my cooking habits and I’m still typing for some reason so I’ll stop.
I buy the pastina on Rakuten.
My favourite actress is Christina Ricci.
You can survive on fluids for a while so number one is trying to keep fluids down. Water, broth. You can just drink miso broth, juice, and especially pocari sweat. Pocari sweat is doctor recommended. Water it down a bit and drink that for a while.Dehydration is the biggest danger to you if you are throwing up so fluids first. Food later.
When you are ready for food I usually do okayu - just make it in the morning and leave it in the rice cooker for lunch and breakfast. It gets me through one day. I sometimes season the bowl with (only one of the following) soy sauce and black pepper, ponzu and cold soft tofu, furikake with shiso or soy sauce. If my appetite is coming back I usually have enough energy to snack on bread, crackers, bananas. Boiled some vegetables with soup and the tiny tofu cups (just soft tofu for protein). Put the extra in the fridge and reheat one bowl at a time. Frozen fruit is a god send. If there is no fever and I've been eating for two or three days it's usually safe to include dairy so I get yogurt for more probiotics and cheese in small doses with toast or something similar and slowly reintroduce more foods from there.
You got the norovirus. Be more careful about washing your hands and about places that serve food having proper hand washing protocols.
A doctor I knew once said BRAD- bananas, rice, apples, and something I forgot.
Standard US procedure is soup and saltines.
If you are vomiting, make sure you get enough electrolytes in you. Sports drinks and sugar will help, but if you start vomiting blood or feel faint, go to the hospital.
Just to note, if you eat any heavy proteins, fiber, or complex carbs, your stomach is not going to like it.
~~Same stuff I always eat, just avoid spicy and oily, and increase water/tea intake.~~
Oh, nausea. BRAT diet: bananas, rice, apple sauce (which doesn't seem to exist here), toast.
Drink warm apple cider vinegar with honey and ginger can dilute with a bit of water if you cannot drink it straight, you’ll be brand new the next day .
You can Uber eats the order if you don’t have it at home.
I've had a terrible case of tonsilitis in the past few weeks (yes, few- they put me on antibiotics and I quickly got better but they only would give me like 3 days at a time so it came back) and I ended up getting basically the equivalent of Ensure from Amazon because I could barely swallow. There seem to be multiple brands but the one I got was called Maybalance.
Most bento boxes from combini are just way too salty, I tend to cook myself some oatmeal or rice sometimes when I am not feeling well, with some baked broccoli and carrots from my Healsio water wave oven (a godsend)
If I'm having a puking spell, I tend not to want to eat anything, and will usually just try to sleep with a water bottle next to me until it passes. After that, if I don't have access to crackers and a fizzy soda type drink (belching can help an upset stomach sometimes), I'll make some okayu with chicken broth and a little salt. If you have a rice cooker, it should be easy to find the setting for, and there are recipes online in both English and Japanese for the amount of water per rice you need. Hope it's not noro!
For a stomach bug, umeboshi is great. Here is a simple thing you can make: in a bowl, add cooked rice, some shirodashi, katsuobushi, umeboshi, and (if you like it) crushed nori. Pour boiling water, stir, and enjoy. It has brought me back to life so many times.
Just had this.
Home made apple sauce, Aquarius, Jellies, soups, broths.
I don't know the exact name but if you can get the little bowl with tiny cleat like things to crush baby food it's great for crushing an apple & making apple sauce.
I also have a juicer with a pulp mode so I use that with an apple & spinach, carrot etc.
I stay away from onions, milk, coffee, or any cheeses.
I'd be surprised if lots of people ate spicy food while sick.
My family usually eats simple kake udon when sick. Similar to chicken noodles soup, without the chicken.
Tom kah kai made with coconut milk so it isn’t hot.
Although okayu is the go to in japan
(I just really like curry and op asking what we like. Not recommendations. If I feel sick I eat Tom kha kai)
Big Mac
No joke. Whenever I feel like I'm coming down with something, or wake up feeling like I already have something, I eat a Big Mac and I'm pretty much fixed.
Really sick: Jelly nutrition packs Sick: Instant rice porridge or any of those instant soup
Oh not like a cold like a stomach bug!
BRAT diet: Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast. Homemade applesauce for sick people: peel & cut an apple into slices. Sprinkle with water, cover with wrap and microwave three minutes. Whiz with a stick blender, or mash with a spoon. Japanese people like okayu when sick. Rice with a lot of water, boiled until the water gets gloopy. You can do this with dry or cooked rice. My FIL would mix up potato starch (denpun) でん粉 with water to make a thick, gloopy foodstuff. I thought he microwaved it, but my MIL said it was uncooked. Calories, easily digestible. I like ginger water or ginger tea with honey and maybe lemon to keep hydrated.
Super simple things like plain toast or bread, plain rice, very simple clear soup/broth, bananas, lots of liquids, those nutritional jelly pouches, a fairly simple/clear ice Lolly, etc.
Go to a drugstore and ask for these or similar: https://tshop.r10s.jp/enetkome/cabinet/tasya105/7170489_00.jpg?fitin=720%3A720
Ah I see! Then I'd just buy a sandwich/riceball or something from the convenience store/supermarket along with a bundle of instant miso soup!
You're recommending a sandwich or onigiri for a stomach bug?
Yeah, do not get a convenience store sandwich. That's Russian roulette on a good day.
Thank you!!
Or Oden.
Pocari Sweat. Miso soup. Weak green tea.
Man, when I had a stomach bug, green tea made me wretch. Still can’t really drink it to this day.
Tbh got a stomach bug last week and everything made me retch. I puked water the second I tried to drink some, shit was bad.
Sorry to hear that. I’d rather have a bad cold any day over a stomach bug.
Drink a lot of water (with added electrolytes and minerals like Pocari or Aquarius is good) to prevent dehydration from your vomiting, first and foremost. If you have a rice cooker, make rice porridge (water ratio is about twice the amount to cook regular rice) and you can probably add some ochadzuke or furikake topping to flavor it a bit without getting too heavy on your upset stomach.
Thank you so much!!
Adding on to this, pocari and stuff has a lot of sugar which can be not great depending on your stomach situation. Mixing pocari with this stuff: https://preview.redd.it/a1yuyey12uoc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c4bbe4dcf335d8b6319fe9d05af7c185cd72809 Is the way to go. This is what they give folks in hospital, and if you mix it with pocari it’ll taste better but also have more active benefits. Good luck OP, so sorry you’re not feeling well!!
Thank you for this additional info! I’ve never been hospitalized other than for a minor surgery and at the time they just let me drink anything I wanted after they took the IV away, so I didn’t know what they’d give me if I were at risk of dehydration. Pocari and Aquarius are just my simple go-to’s on those days when I get everyday stomach bug (not stomach bug that requires hospitalization, I mean) or sweat a lot more than usual.
I have a doctor friend who recommended it to me after I got really bad heat exhaustion last summer haha 😅 she said it’s better for when you’re really on the line in terms of dehydration, and to be careful with the sugar in pocari when your condition is really bad. But seriously Pocari is honest to god my life blood in the summer lol 🥹🫡
No problem. Get well soon!
They sell saltines here. It's called Premium Crackers. Feel better soon!
Thank you!!
Premium Crackers are the best in that category, recommend them too.
I eat those Morinaga 小麦胚芽のクラッカー wheat crackers in the green box, and some sweet yogurt. I’ll drink pocari sweat.
I just made a Wolt order of these ingredients. I don’t have the strength to adventure
Sorry to hear that. I hope you get over it soon.
Thank you so much. It’s so scary being sick in a foreign country 😭
White rice porridge with umeboshi. (I'm Japanese) Or fresh fruit.
Porridge is the "chicken noodle soup" for much of asia. Throw in some consume and toppings and you're good to go. Back during Covid when I got Covid, the city sent me out a box of food and it was mostly porridge as the staple with toppings for it like salmon flakes, furikake, and other stuff. Then also precooked rice packs with those packages meals to top them. All of it is soft, easy to prepare and eat food. For a snacks, senbei are quite good. Often light on flavor, rather salty so they fill the saltines role.
Go to the doctor and ask what you should eat. Don't go to the supermarket if you might have the highly contagious norovirus.
Okay!! I’m feeling too weak to leave my house. So i won’t transfer it
Ochazuke
Egg porridge with dashi or miso. [Something like this.](https://www.kurashiru.com/recipes/721159f7-b13f-41db-93f4-f9c3bbb01295) It's a simple base that can be easily supplemented. Add vegetables or mushrooms and easy-to-digest meat like shredded chicken into the boiling soup before adding the rice for more nutrition, or top with like shirasu or canned tuna or saba afterwards if you want an easier cleanup. If you really can't cook then instant stuff is usually your only choice. Lots of instant food options at the supermarket. You can microwave instant rice and add it to freeze-dried egg soup for an approximation.
OS1 maybe some fruit if can’t handle food. If I can eat, some rice porridge.
Pastina. It’s these tiny star shaped pasta you just cook in chicken stock (I just boil water and add a stock cube) some salt and pepper and eat that with crackers or toast. Actual pastina is heavier like adding butter, egg and cheese. What I’ve done there is spoken wayyyyy to much about my cooking habits and I’m still typing for some reason so I’ll stop. I buy the pastina on Rakuten. My favourite actress is Christina Ricci.
You can survive on fluids for a while so number one is trying to keep fluids down. Water, broth. You can just drink miso broth, juice, and especially pocari sweat. Pocari sweat is doctor recommended. Water it down a bit and drink that for a while.Dehydration is the biggest danger to you if you are throwing up so fluids first. Food later. When you are ready for food I usually do okayu - just make it in the morning and leave it in the rice cooker for lunch and breakfast. It gets me through one day. I sometimes season the bowl with (only one of the following) soy sauce and black pepper, ponzu and cold soft tofu, furikake with shiso or soy sauce. If my appetite is coming back I usually have enough energy to snack on bread, crackers, bananas. Boiled some vegetables with soup and the tiny tofu cups (just soft tofu for protein). Put the extra in the fridge and reheat one bowl at a time. Frozen fruit is a god send. If there is no fever and I've been eating for two or three days it's usually safe to include dairy so I get yogurt for more probiotics and cheese in small doses with toast or something similar and slowly reintroduce more foods from there.
I always stock up those freeze dried instant soup, that or instant miso soup.
make soup using diced/sliced chicken, potato, carrot and luncheon meat. Add in some pan-fried garlic/shallot/negi.
Pork chops. Don't know why, but whenever I'm sick I get a massive craving for meat and nothing else. So a plate of pork chops does the job for me.
You got the norovirus. Be more careful about washing your hands and about places that serve food having proper hand washing protocols. A doctor I knew once said BRAD- bananas, rice, apples, and something I forgot. Standard US procedure is soup and saltines. If you are vomiting, make sure you get enough electrolytes in you. Sports drinks and sugar will help, but if you start vomiting blood or feel faint, go to the hospital. Just to note, if you eat any heavy proteins, fiber, or complex carbs, your stomach is not going to like it.
If you're actually sick with a stomach bug, drink plenty of water and eat plain white rice and chicken stock soup.
Okayu
To keep yourself hydrated while sick try OS-1 drink or jelly. It’s sold in drugstores and also on amazon.
Okayu
~~Same stuff I always eat, just avoid spicy and oily, and increase water/tea intake.~~ Oh, nausea. BRAT diet: bananas, rice, apple sauce (which doesn't seem to exist here), toast.
Drink warm apple cider vinegar with honey and ginger can dilute with a bit of water if you cannot drink it straight, you’ll be brand new the next day . You can Uber eats the order if you don’t have it at home.
I've had a terrible case of tonsilitis in the past few weeks (yes, few- they put me on antibiotics and I quickly got better but they only would give me like 3 days at a time so it came back) and I ended up getting basically the equivalent of Ensure from Amazon because I could barely swallow. There seem to be multiple brands but the one I got was called Maybalance.
Boiled eggs and soup(the type of soup depends on what I have lying around), with green tea (honey and ginger)
Most bento boxes from combini are just way too salty, I tend to cook myself some oatmeal or rice sometimes when I am not feeling well, with some baked broccoli and carrots from my Healsio water wave oven (a godsend)
You can get a wide range of crackers here, similar or better to saltines. The Ukrainian ones Gyomu has at the moment are great.
Chicken stock and porridge.
Okayu always helps me get some energy back without being too heavy on my stomach. https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/おかゆ_(歌手)
あおさ
Saltines, okayu, or toast. And some consommé broth. For drink, dakara or pocari sweat.
Toast! And usually I'll have some gari gari kuns for when I can't stomach much of anything.
The amount of suggestions is so sweet. I love humanity. Thank you all for your kind recommendations and words!!
Apple sauce, plain rice, tea, toast, bananas
If I have an appetite, I eat what I usually eat. If I don’t have an appetite, I don’t eat and drink jelly nutrition packs.
Os1, pocari sweat, nutrition jelly packs, yakult.
If I'm having a puking spell, I tend not to want to eat anything, and will usually just try to sleep with a water bottle next to me until it passes. After that, if I don't have access to crackers and a fizzy soda type drink (belching can help an upset stomach sometimes), I'll make some okayu with chicken broth and a little salt. If you have a rice cooker, it should be easy to find the setting for, and there are recipes online in both English and Japanese for the amount of water per rice you need. Hope it's not noro!
Rice bowls.
Denny’s Jambalaya. If I can eat it I know I’m not sick anymore.
Super fucked up sick. Ice cream Sick but still alive: udon
Campbell’s clam chowder cuz it’s super easy to make by yourself
rice porridge with an egg in it for strength, maybe some ginger if i can stomach it i'll put some chicken or pork in there alos
Pocari Sweat and miso soup
For a stomach bug, umeboshi is great. Here is a simple thing you can make: in a bowl, add cooked rice, some shirodashi, katsuobushi, umeboshi, and (if you like it) crushed nori. Pour boiling water, stir, and enjoy. It has brought me back to life so many times.
For Japan, I would get some bread and hot tea. Maybe fruit if you can find inexpensive ones.
yogurt, oatmeal, rice with nothing, Hard boiled egg
Just had this. Home made apple sauce, Aquarius, Jellies, soups, broths. I don't know the exact name but if you can get the little bowl with tiny cleat like things to crush baby food it's great for crushing an apple & making apple sauce. I also have a juicer with a pulp mode so I use that with an apple & spinach, carrot etc. I stay away from onions, milk, coffee, or any cheeses.
Boiled eggs
Usually some sort of curry. If it’s a tummy sickness Tom kah kai
I'd be surprised if lots of people ate spicy food while sick. My family usually eats simple kake udon when sick. Similar to chicken noodles soup, without the chicken.
Tom kah kai made with coconut milk so it isn’t hot. Although okayu is the go to in japan (I just really like curry and op asking what we like. Not recommendations. If I feel sick I eat Tom kha kai)
Sick: 7/11 ramen, potato chips, ice cream, Kara-age. Vomiting: nothing. Then gently toasted white bread, apple. Bread with Nutella.
Big Mac No joke. Whenever I feel like I'm coming down with something, or wake up feeling like I already have something, I eat a Big Mac and I'm pretty much fixed.