When you undergo invasive surgery, hospital personnel will give ice chips to crack on to prepare you for the surgery. They are also recommended if you have mouth sores or oral mucositis.
Ice chips, unlike ice cubes, are easy to chew or munch and it provides instant relief from any pain or tensions you are having. It is one of the good things when you think about the hospital. They carry and stock these ice chips to help many patients to have successful surgeries.
The main thing to discuss here is you may crave these ice chips while you're at home - either to munch leisurely or to relieve from any pain or vomiting sensation. So, in this blog, we'll see how you can make ice chips at home like they do in the hospital.
What are ice chips?
Before going further, let's discuss what exactly these chips are and how they appear.
Ice chips resemble normal chips and have flat and translucent surfaces. They are irregular in shape and often have pointed edges. Easy to hold and chewable in small bites, ice chips have become everyone's favourite household items to store and use.
You can also use them instead of ice cubes. You can put them in your favourite cold drink and keep a stock in your fridge so that you can eat them whenever you feel like it. If you have kids who have frequent vomiting sensation, then you can give them chips to suck on to get relief from the sensation.
How to make them at your home?
Now, let's discuss the main topic - how to make them like they do in the hospital.
Making ice chips is easy and quick. Whether you want to make them urgently like in the middle of the night or store them beforehand - ice chips have an easy process.
Things you require:- A flat aluminium tray
- A container to store
- A freezer
- You need 30 - 40 minutes, provided they are made -2 degrees F
Steps to make ice chips
- Pour drinking water on the tray and fill it to a thickness of the chips you want. Depending on the width you want, you can pour water either to the brim or half of the tray height.
- Now, carefully put the tray into the freezer and wait for about half an hour.
- After waiting, take out the tray and twist it to break the ice into a small number of chips
- Collect these chips into a container and store them in your fridge to use whenever you want.
- If you need them urgently, wait for some time and let the chips melt a bit. Now you can suck or chew on them without having any inconvenience.
Tips to Follow to Get Hospital-Like Ice Chips
Almost all of you may feel that even after you followed the right instructions to make ice chips, they are not exactly like you had them in hospital. It can be too hard or too cold for you, making you dislike them in an instant. So, here are a few tips that you can follow.
- The taste of the chips is related to the hardness they achieve in the freezer.
- Once the ice freezes in the tray, allow it to cool down further till it reaches ambient temperature i.e., between 0 and 10 degrees.
- Once it melts a little, ice chips become chewier allowing you to have that happy feeling like you do having the hospital ice chips
- Also, you need to take care of the storage. Hospitals keep the storage drawer at 30 degrees so that ice chips are in a delicious state.
- So, next time you are preparing the ice chips, make sure you are maintaining the right temperature.
Benefits of Ice Chips
Why go to such lengths to prepare ice chips when you can have ice cubes instead? If you're thinking the same question, then you need to know the following points about ice chips.
Hi, I am Mike Morleye. As a professional writer, I put together my writing skills to share knowledge on diverse topics in a readable, understandable and appealing format.
