Light and frequent meals, rich in vegetables, fish and legumes are a good strategy. How to behave with supplements and the desire to overdo it with sweets and high-calorie foods
Among the unpleasant legacies of Covid, in that galaxy of annoying ailments ranging from muscle aches to exhaustion, from headaches to insomnia, there is also thelack of appetite.
What can we do for those who lose their appetite after Covid?
Let’s start by saying what not to do – replies Elena Dogliotti, nutrition biologist and scientific supervisor for the Umberto Veronesi Foundation -: how to “bomb” yourself with proteins or others supplements taken at random in the illusion of recovering more quickly. After an illness, any illness, we must allow our body time to recover and return to its usual rhythms. In the case of nutrition, therefore, “yes” to balanced meals, perhaps more moderate and more frequent than usual, and to a more healthy diet than ever. As always, the cornerstones of
Mediterranean food
. Sometimes after a pathology there is a preference for soft and liquid foods that must be indulged without ever forgetting that (together with water) fruit and vegetables allow us to stock up on liquids, as well as vitamins and minerals, but without exaggerating with the intake of simple sugars. As a protein source, it is better to focus on fish and legumes. Also, after a disease the
microflora intestinale
generally in crisis, especially if a antibiotic: it is necessary to help her to “recover” with whole foods (always vegetables and even extra virgin olive oil), without forgetting yogurt and Kefir.
What if, to whet your appetite, you let yourself be tempted by sweet foods?
Nothing wrong with that, but it is better to indulge this desire with naturally sweet foods such as fruit, which can very well become part of the components of a salad; we think of apples, pears but also berries, pomegranates and raisins.
What if, in the post-illness phase, there is a fear of nutrient deficiencies?
You must avoid the “do it yourself” and contact your doctor who, with appropriate tests, will be able to verify any real shortcomings and prescribe tailor-made supplements. B vitamins, always and only when a deficiency is identified, can be very useful for giving a “boost” of energy and increasing appetite.
How to behave when, to aggravate the lack of appetite, there is a decrease in taste and smell, as happens to many people who have had Covid?
Taste and smell are connected – explains Anna D’Errico neuroscientist, researcher at the Goethe Universitat in Frankfurt – and we often attribute the lack of the former to the weakness of the latter. And this also happens in the case of Covid: the sense of smell follows two ways, the orthonasal one, which allows you to perceive odors through the nostrils, and the retronasal one which arises from the connection between the oral cavity and the nose. The taste of food and drinks comes to us above all through this second way and therefore, even when the real sense of taste is not affected, we feel the flavors less. It is clear that in these conditions the appetite decreases. Curiously it can happen that the lack, or the decrease, of taste and smell lead to excessive, even compulsive eating. You go in search of fatty and high-calorie foods, the dishes are too salty. Either way, whether you eat too much or too little, depression lurks. Even purely physical problems can complicate the situation or slow down the resolution of the problem: the
chronic rhinitis
having undergone surgical operations (which have compromised these two senses), having to follow a chemotherapy treatment.
How to overcome the problem?
To help the recovery of taste, and it is not uncommon for it to take weeks or even months, it is better to avoid certain foods that are often unwelcome: roasted meats, coffee, chocolate. You can then “indulge” by varying the consistency of foods, alternating temperatures, or focusing on the pleasantness of colors and foods that give pleasant tactile sensations. We must not be discouraged but continue to “test”: losing the pleasure of being at the table also means losing an important opportunity for sharing and conviviality. In some cases, especially if instead of just not smelling smells and tastes you find everything unpleasant or even disgusting, you can resort to real “Olfactory training” (using essential oils) aimed at restoring normalcy little by little.
April 5, 2022 (change April 5, 2022 | 21:00)
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