Hospital is a place that gives happiness as well as sadness. It spreads a feeling of cheerfulness when a mother gives birth to a child. On the contrary, it creates a sad atmosphere when someone dies or is affected by a deadly disease. If you have ever visited the hospital, you might have seen ice chips. Have you ever thought what is the role of ice chips in the hospital? Did you get an answer? If not, then today you will surely get to know about it. So, let’s discover information about ice chips, their benefits and a few more facts.
What are Ice chips?
Many people correlate ice chips with ice cubes, but both are different. Ice chips are small and thin pieces. Unlike ice cubes, they are more flattened out. Well, the procedure to make ice chips is quite similar to that of the ice cubes with just a slight difference. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
The thinness of the ice chips makes them crunchier and nicer to munch. In a hospital, these different-sized ice slabs are used for an assortment of purposes such as to cool down a drink, to ease a sore throat, for massage and before surgery.
Benefits of Ice Chips Over Ice Cubes
If there is just a little difference between ice chips and ice cubes why are ice cubes not used in the hospital? What makes ice chips suitable to use in the hospital? Let’s find out a few benefits of using ice chips over ice cubes:
- Ice chips take less time to freeze than ice cubes. In general, ice chips take 30 minutes to freeze, whereas ice cubes take 3-4 hours for the same.
- Ice chips take up less space in the freezer, while cubes take up more.
- One can easily keep ice chips in the mouth and suck them rather than ice cubes.
Why Do Hospitals Provide Ice Chips to Patients?
In hospitals, patients use ice chips to keep themselves hydrated. Now, you might be thinking why don’t they simply prefer water for hydration? What is the purpose of using ice chips for hydration? So, let us tell you that patients face a number of hardships while intaking liquid because of surgery and other treatments. Therefore, ice cubes are consumed as an alternate way to keep themselves hydrated. This way, patients just keep an ice chip in their mouth and chew it for their daily water intake. Hence, ice chips serve as a great way to keep patients hydrated when they are not able to consume liquid. Do you know why we are laying more emphasis on hydration? Here are a few reasons:
- The amount of water in your body aids in regulating your body temperature.
- It helps in removing toxins from your body.
- It helps in protecting joints.
- It protects soft tissues.
How to Make Hospital-Like Ice Chips at Home?
If you also want to make crunchy and thin ice slabs at home, you can follow the steps mentioned below. It is a 30-40 minutes process to make ice cubes at home. However, make sure you have all the materials and tools mentioned below:
Material Required
Water, flat aluminum tray and an air-tight container.
Tool Required
Freezer
Steps to Make Ice Chips
Follow the underneath steps sequentially and carefully:
- Pour some water into the aluminum tray. Make sure the tray is clean as you have to eat it afterward.
- Place this aluminum tray in the freezer.
- After 30 minutes, take the tray out and check whether it is frozen properly or not. If not, place it again in the freezer for 10 minutes.
- Once done, give a proper twist to the tray to make chips.
- Place these ice chips into an air-tight container.
- Use them whenever required.
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Final Words
To recapitulate, Ice chips are used by the patients to keep themselves hydrated before and after surgery and for massage purposes. If you also want to use these thin slabs for much or medication purposes, you can make it at home by following the steps highlighted above. Moreover, you can also use ice maker machines to get perfectly shaped ice chips.
