Here’s how to dill with a sore throat.
Instead of going straight for tea with honey, you might want to open up a jar of pickles.
Dr. Linda Yancey, infectious disease specialist at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston, Texas, shared why eating pickles or drinking pickle juice can help relieve a sore throat.
It might seem a bit jarring to look to pickles for a sore throat remedy, but it all comes down to the properties of pickle brine.
“Any time you have a solution that is more concentrated than the fluid in our tissues, such as salt or sugar, it reduces the inflammation by drawing the water out,” Yancey shared with Well + Good.
A simple salt-water pickle brine consists of approximately 3.5% salt, while salt makes up around 0.4% of the body’s weight — so the ratio certainly tracks.
When it comes to picking the perfect people for sore throat relief, Yancey recommends opting for salty over sweet.
“Dill pickles work [to help a sore throat] because of the salt in the pickling solution,” she said.
Sweet pickles — such as bread and butter or candied pickles — likely don’t have enough salt content to provide any sort of relief.
As for how many pickles need to be consumed in order to feel the effect, there’s no magic number.
“It is more of a home remedy than a medical intervention, so there are no official recommendations,” Yancey said, explaining that it’s something you have to experiment with to find the right amount for you personally.
However, it’s important to acknowledge just how much salt you’re consuming when going this route, as sour pickles are known for being high in sodium with one medium spear holding 33% of the daily value for adults, per the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
But Yancey acknowledged that this isn’t going to completely heal your sore throat.
“This is a minor and temporary intervention,” Yancey said. “It will bring about a small decrease in symptoms for about 10 to 15 minutes.”
Even though pickles are a temporary solution to the dill-emma, it can still be a part of getting rid of a sore throat, along with drinking tea and following a doctor’s recommendations.
“A spoonful of honey also works well, as does very sweet tea,” Yancey advised, also recommending a salt-water gargle if you don’t have any pickles readily available.
“It should be noted that people on salt-restricted diets should not use either dill pickles or salt water gargles since both have a substantial salt load,” she said. “In the same way, diabetics should avoid honey or sweet tea.”
