Many people mistakenly believe that the stronger the concentration and the longer the cooking time of Chinese herbal medicine, the more effective it will be. Doctors remind us that this is incorrect. Cooking Chinese herbal medicine is a process of continuously releasing and dissolving the active ingredients in the herbs. Once the concentration of active ingredients in the herbs and the liquid reaches a balance, this process stops. Continuously boiling the medicine will not continue to dissolve the active ingredients, but instead cause the evaporation and reduction of the active ingredients in the liquid, and even lead to the degradation of the active ingredients in high temperatures over a long period of time, reducing the efficacy of the medicine.
However, there are also considerations when cooking herbal medicine. Some herbs require pre-cooking (i.e. they must be boiled first in the same decoction). These herbs are characterized by their hard texture, such as dragon bone, oyster shell, turtle shell, tortoise shell, and mineral medicines, which need to be pre-cooked for half an hour or longer. Some toxic herbs, such as snake six grains, raw aconite, and raw grasswort, need to be pre-cooked for two hours to reduce their toxicity, and then other herbs from the same decoction are added for simultaneous cooking. Another type is the wrapped decoction method (i.e. the herbs are wrapped in a gauze bag for cooking). These herbs have characteristics such as having hairs or fine particles, which are difficult to remove from the decoction and may irritate the throat after consumption, such as honeysuckle and loquat leaves. Some herbs have high viscosity and turn into a paste when in contact with water, which may cause the pot to become sticky during cooking, such as plantain seeds, radish seeds, pills, powders, ointments, and pastes.
In addition, doctors also remind us to pay attention to dosage and other details:
1. Adjust the temperature of the decoction according to the condition and properties of the herbs to better exert the therapeutic effect.
2. Some herbs may cause vomiting if taken improperly, such as mint, which is more likely to cause vomiting when taken hot, so it is better to take it cold.
3. After taking diaphoretic medicine, one should rest in bed. For spicy and warm diaphoretic medicine, covering oneself with a blanket to induce slight sweating is beneficial; however, for spicy and cool diaphoretic medicine, covering oneself with a blanket is not recommended.
4. When taking diaphoretic medicine, one should only induce slight sweating throughout the body, and avoid excessive sweating to prevent exhaustion (especially for the elderly). If sweating does not occur after taking the medicine, drinking some hot water or hot thin porridge can help enhance the effectiveness of the medicine.
5. After taking diaphoretic medicine, avoid eating sour food and cold drinks immediately.
6. Avoid eating raw, cold, greasy, and difficult to digest food, as well as spicy and stimulating food during the medication period, so as not to affect the absorption and efficacy of the medicine. For example, avoid vinegar when taking poria cocos, avoid raw onions when taking honey, avoid carp and mullet when taking ophiopogon, avoid garlic when taking atractylodes, peaches, and plums.
