Many people today are passionate about medicated diet and enjoy making medicated porridge at home to achieve the effect of health preservation and disease prevention. But how can we eat medicated diet scientifically and rationally? After all, medicated diet is a kind of food, and medicated diet consumption is about eating, not taking medicine. So how much Chinese medicine should be put in medicated porridge?
What are the types of medicated diet?
Traditional Chinese medicine diet therapy plays an important role in health preservation, health care, and rehabilitation, especially for patients with chronic diseases, elderly patients, and some women and children patients, who can enjoy delicious food while receiving conditioning and treatment. Medicated diet can be divided into three categories according to its functions.
1. Nourishing category
This type of medicated diet is for people who are weak but do not have any illness. It mainly regulates the functions of organs and tissues to achieve the purpose of enhancing physical fitness and promoting health. It includes dishes such as stewed chicken with astragalus, purple river cartilage soup, deer antler kidney-strengthening soup, and cistanche sheep soup.
2. Therapeutic category
This type of medicated diet is for patients and serves as a dietary supplement for treatment or auxiliary treatment. It can achieve the purpose of treating diseases through long-term consumption and is most suitable for patients with chronic diseases. The categories are mainly classified according to their functions, including fever-dispelling medicated diet, laxative medicated diet, heat-clearing medicated diet, cold-expelling medicated diet, digestion-promoting medicated diet, nourishing medicated diet, qi-regulating medicated diet, blood-regulating medicated diet, phlegm-expelling and cough-stopping medicated diet, etc.
3. Health preservation category
This type of medicated diet is a dietary supplement based on the physiological and pathological characteristics of the diners to promote health and anti-aging. It mainly improves the body's immune function and coordination. Common examples include lotus seed porridge, coix seed porridge, poria cake, hawthorn cake, walnut porridge, black sesame cake, and wolfberry chrysanthemum porridge.
How much Chinese medicine should be put in medicated porridge?
The "medicine" in medicated diet is very particular. Wang Zhiguo, a researcher at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences who participated in the Ministry of Science and Technology's major new drug development project during the 11th Five-Year Plan, has conducted in-depth research on the health preservation and rehabilitation of traditional Chinese medicine. He affirms that "medicated diet must be selected, matched, and made under the guidance of traditional Chinese medicine theory, and it is not simply the sum of drugs and food."
"Making medicated diet requires the spirit of excellence. It should be done in a way that the medicated diet has no medicinal taste and the medicinal taste is not prominent, meeting the basic requirements of ordinary diet in terms of color, aroma, taste, and appearance." Most of the people who come for consultation are middle-aged and elderly people. Among them, there are 6 older friends who live in the same community. They came together to ask the expert face to face: how much medicine should be put in medicated diet?
Hearing this question, Cao Jianchun, the secretary-general of the Surgery Branch of the Chinese Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and a cultural popular science lecturer of the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, asked in turn, "Do you elderly people come prepared? Is there too much or too little 'medicine' in the medicated diet?" The old people described their experiences of tasting medicated diet. For example, if a medicated diet hotpot uses 10 kinds of Chinese medicine, one person would put in 20 kinds, and there are even claims of using 30 kinds... The old people asked, "Is it better to put more Chinese medicine?"
Cao Jianchun listened carefully and could see that the old people were worried about the improper preparation of medicated diet and the potential health risks of eating it. He said, "I know you already have the answer. Putting too much medicine in the medicated diet is certainly not beneficial. The incompatibility of Chinese medicine refers to the inappropriate combination of certain Chinese medicines in compound formulas. For example, the "Eighteen Antagonisms" and "Nineteen Incompatibilities" mentioned in traditional Chinese medicine. One important principle in making medicated diet is to have a reasonable combination, which must also follow the "incompatibility of Chinese medicine" as mentioned in traditional Chinese medicine theory."
Regarding similar questions, Dr. Sun Qiwei, a medical doctor and popular science columnist in food and medicine, talked about the renowned Chinese medicine master Jin Shiyuan as an example. "Master Jin is 90 years old this year. He is energetic, has keen senses, clear speech, and a loud voice. Although he has been dealing with Chinese medicine for 76 years, he actively advocates 'food supplementation is better than medicinal supplementation' and 'use food first, then medicine'."
Master Jin's "health without medicine" tells us that it is not worth it if eating a meal leads to the situation where "medication is ineffective" or "treating illness harms the body".
