How to Use Home Remedies to Treat Food Poisoning

Food poisoning can happen anywhere: picnics, restaurants, or even from your food at home. Food poisoning usually occurs because someone prepares food without clean hands, transferring bacteria to the food. It will also happen if the food is not thoroughly cooked. The result may just feel like a bad case of the flu. However, if your symptoms include symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, or dehydration, you should go to the hospital. A lot of food poisoning cases can be taken care of at home and even before the symptoms occur.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Gatorade
• Fruit juice
• Honey or corn syrup
• Salt
• Hot water bottle
• Water
• Herbal teas such as mint, blackberry, chamomile and raspberry
• Bread

1. Flush your system out with as many fluids as possible. When you think you might have food poisoning, getting the poison out of your body is important. Vomiting is common and will get rid of the bacteria that is causing the food poisoning, but it will also flush out the important things such as potassium, sodium and glucose. By drinking water and juice or Gatorade, you will get back those important electrolytes as well as get rid of the food poisoning.

2. Mix some fruit juice (for potassium), a little bit of honey or corn syrup, and a pinch of salt to help flush your system out. You can use this mixture instead of or with Gatorade to flush out your system and retain important electrolytes.

3. Drink an herbal tea mixture of mint, blackberry, chamomile and raspberry. Sip it slowly. This will help you relax and ease the pain of the cramps.

4. Eat some bread. Bread will help soak up some of the poison and give you some relief. As soon as you start to feel the symptoms, eat a couple of pieces of bread to prevent some of the after effects such as vomiting and diarrhea.

5. Rest as much as you can. If the symptoms are not too bad and there is no need to go to the hospital, cancel any plans you have and stay home and rest. Let the food poisoning run its course.

Tips & Warnings

• Make sure to wash your hands before preparing food and cooking it. Prevention is the best remedy for food poisoning and washing your hands is part of preventing it from happening.

• Cook food thoroughly to prevent food poisoning.

• After the food poison is gone and you feel better, you will be ready for some good food. However, you should go easy on your stomach and eat light foods or bland foods.

• Don’t make yourself vomit. Vomiting is a good way to get rid of the bacteria from the food poisoning but you do not want to force yourself to vomit. Let it happen naturally.

• Consult your doctor or go to the emergency room if your symptoms are severe and are not easing up after trying home remedies.