Diet in Typhoid – what to eat and most importantly “WHY”

Diet in Typhoid

In illnesses that affect the liver, diet restrictions are important. Typhoid and Jaundice are two such illnesses. It’s important to understand why diet needs to be controlled, otherwise, the tendency is to break the rules once in a while.

In the initial stages of the illness Salmonella Typhi has ruptured the intestines a great deal, so having anything fibrous or hard would irritate the intestines and harm them further. So semi solid food, juices, soups are advised in the first phase of chronic typhoid. Fat is to be avoided as it is difficult to digest, spices are to be avoided as they would irritate the wounded intestines. Also in the first phase, there may be vomitings and diarrhea. If these exist, one needs to have lots of liquids. To replace the lost body fluid and salts, intake of ORS, fruit juices, buttermilk, soups and pain water are advised. The rule of thumb is to have about 3-4 liters of water in any form.

Once the illness is controlled, the doctor may start you on solids but would restrict ANY OIL, FAT, Non Veg, and Caffeine. I was never able to understand why this was so and often resorted to few drops of oil in my food which did me further damage and prolonged my illness to over 6 months. So I want to spend time explaining why the doctors instruct us to avoid oil and fats. OIL is heavy to digest but more importantly, Salmonella hides in the gallbladder, eating oil leads to secretion of bile juices from the gallbladder for digestion, which carries the bacteria back to the intestines. The whole idea is to repair the infection caused by Salmonella, therefore, while the body is fighting the bacteria in the intestines, if more get dropped through the bile juice, the fight becomes harder. So any stimulant that increases the chances of inactive, hidden Salmonella reaching the intestines is to be avoided until the infection already caused is controlled. Once the infection is controlled, body can fight the new entrants at a later point (as fighting the earlier batch of the bacteria caused the same effect as any vaccine, building immunity against Salmonella)

It’s important to understand that in addition to avoiding oil and fat, ingredients like coconut, peanut, milk etc. that are fatty should also be avoided. Non veg, tea, coffee are supposed to be stimulants for the bacteria and should still be avoided. Note that Spices can be started at this point as the intestines are now healed.

1.       Boiled rice, bread (roti),

2.       All Lentils (dals) – Tur, Moong, Rajma, Kali Dal, Urhad, Chana

3.       Curd (from low fat milk). Curd is an excellent probiotic. Have as much as you can

4.       Steamed idly with sugar or any chutney (no coconut or groundnut. Use Chutney dal)

5.       Bread with Jam

6.       All fruits, All Juices - One fruit that I would highly recommend is Banana. Have 6,8,10, up to 12 bananas in a day. It's rich in carbs and a bunch of minerals such as Potassium. It doesn't hurt the stomach and provides much needed energy. Also helps with the early morning cramps in the stomach and acidity. I never liked bananas before but when I was down with Typhoid, I felt like eating them all the time. I would have 2 big bananas as soon as I woke up in the morning (at 6am), 2 at 11 AM, 2 in the afternoon at 4 PM and 2 before sleeping at 9 PM. Other fruits/ juices I consumed were Chikoos, Watermelon Juice (2 glasses in the morning), Pomegranate and Orange Juice (1 glass in the evening). I couldn't eat “hard” fruits like Apple and Guava as they were hard to digest (high iron content in Apples, hard seeds in Guavas) & would cause an upset stomach.

7.       All vegetables (without oil) – These are a lot easier to cook and eat than it sounds. We are so used to the spices (tadkas) that we have come to believe that it’s the oil that cooks the food. After eating the delicious Okra/Lady’s Finger ( Bhindi), Cauliflower (Gobi), Fenugreek (Methi) and Spinach (Palak) vegetables cooked without oil (one just needs a nonstick pan and a lid to do the magic), I’ve come to wonder why the original recipes need one to use oil.  

Update 19th Feb 2017 - Over the last 2 years, since I wrote this blog, I've received a lot of queries around quick recipes for typhoid diet.  The thumb rules for a healthy and easy to digest diet for typhoid patients  are:

1. Food prepared for typhoid patients needs to be fresh (refrigerated food is not preferred)

2. There should be no trace of oil, butter or ghee

3. Food should be very easy on the stomach, light and soft

4. Spices, chilies are to be completely avoided 

Idlies, bananas, boiled daals, rice and bread are absolutely safe to be consumed. Since the diet restriction for typhoid lasts for a month, sometimes a couple of months, it becomes really tough to have the same diet over and over again. My mother used to make some porridges that tasted good, had a high nutrition value an and were easy on the stomach. She used to prepare the mixture once a week and both me, my 9 month old son and others in the family that had digestion troubles would feast on those preparations. You can try making this one quick powder yourself - it needs powdered rice (wash and dry the rice and then roast it before grinding), Powdered mixture of roasted urad daal, moong daal and toor dal, roasted powdered ajwain. This mixture can last for several months. When hungry, a few spoons need to be cooked in boiling water. It's delicious and very easy to digest. It works as a great carry food when on the wheels. If you want to get this powder shipped to your doorstep, let me know . All the ingredients used would be organic and custom made for the order and shipped through courier. Therefore, the costs would be slightly higher. Nevertheless, if you are interested in trying out some of the following, send me an enquiry by filling the form here

1. Complete meals (250 gms for 250/-)
1. Moong daal porridge
2. Urad daal porridge
3. Toor daal porridge
4. Moong, Urad and Toor dal porridge mix
2. Energy boosters (250 gms – 550/-)
1. Anjeer, Khoob kala and Munnaka – I first came across this effective mixture for typhoid in this video from Ramdev baba. It works well when consumed in the early stages of typhoid. Although I started consuming it much later, it still worked for me.
3. Snacks (250 gms for 150/-)
1. Suji upma mix – This has all the roasted ingredients and roasted Suji. One would need to boil the mixture in hot water and consume.
4. Digestive aids (100 gms for 150/-)
1. Ajwain, methi and kaala jeera mix – this mixture needs to be taken at night, with warm water. It relieves acidity and improves overall health of the digestive system.

Other posts on Typhoid

1. Chronic Typhoid - Story of my miraculous escape
2. Typhoid (Salmonella S Typhi) Fever- Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Types and Prevention
3. Typhoid Treatment and home remedies
4. Typhoid Vaccine - Oral and Injectable
5. Typhoid travel guide for travelers to India