What this solves
Acute mountain sickness suppresses hunger — at 4,500 m up to 60% of trekkers lose their appetite and many feel nauseous within 2–6 hours of arrival. But you must eat: glycogen depletion amplifies AMS, breaks the acclimatisation cycle, and accelerates dehydration. The trick is to pick foods that fit your current trigger profile — small-volume, low-fat, easy to chew, with temperature and smell matched to your nausea level. Skip the high-volume dumplings, the yak butter, and the dairy-heavy chang until tomorrow.
Tell me how bad it is
How to read the result
Tier 1 — Try first are foods you can almost always swallow: bland, room-temp, low-volume, and triggering none of your checkboxes. Eat one item every 15–20 minutes until something sticks.
Tier 2 — Try if mild are bigger kcal wins (carbs + fat) but require a working appetite. They're worthless to someone actively dry-heaving — but perfect on day 3 when nausea is fading and you need to rebuild glycogen.
Tier 3 — Avoid for now are the standard "Tibetan foods" every lodge pushes (momo, butter tea, yak stew). At altitude they can crash a queasy stomach within 30 minutes. Try them at Daocheng town (3,750 m) — wait until above 4,500 m.
The calorie gap at the bottom estimates how far behind you are versus your altitude-adjusted target. Aim to close it over the next 6 hours, not all at once.
Limitations
FAQ
A: Typical AMS-related nausea peaks 6–18 h after ascent and resolves within 24–48 h of stable altitude or descent. If it's getting worse on day 3, it's probably not AMS — could be HACE prodrome or an infection. Descend.
A: Counter-intuitively, no. Cold or room-temp food smells less and triggers nausea less. Hot butter tea smells fantastic to your Tibetan host and terrible to your queasy stomach. Plain warm water > hot butter tea right now.
A: Small bites — yes. Force-feeding large meals triggers retching. The "tiny bite every 15 minutes" rule is the WMS recommendation. 30 g of plain cracker × 8 = 480 kcal in 2 h, with no nausea spike.
A: Weak fix, but real. Ginger has mild 5-HT3 antagonist activity (some motion-sickness drugs do the same). Sugar + caffeine from cola can suppress mild queasiness. For moderate-to-severe nausea, they don't move the needle.