Ms. Wu's mother heard that medicated diet is beneficial for the body, so she bought ginseng and astragalus from the pharmacy, and red dates from the fruit store. She boiled a pot of chicken soup with these ingredients. After drinking the soup, Ms. Wu couldn't sleep at night, she had a dry mouth and kept drinking water, and she also kept going to the bathroom. Later, she learned from the doctor that the chicken soup boiled with ginseng, astragalus, and red dates, although it can replenish vitality, for a healthy person like Ms. Wu, it is unnecessary and can easily cause excessive internal heat.
Mr. Li had a similar experience, but he ate at a different place than Ms. Wu. He invited a few friends to dine at a small restaurant. The owner recommended the latest specialty dish - Aconite Lamb Pot, which can warm the yang and nourish the kidneys, and strengthen the body. Mr. Li happily ordered this dish. After eating, Mr. Li's palpitations and chest tightness became more and more obvious, and he was directly sent to the hospital. The cause of the illness was simple: the chef did not understand the knowledge of medication, and randomly put astragalus and aconite in the lamb pot. Lamb meat is warm in nature and can warm the yang, while aconite also has the side effect of affecting heart rhythm. Therefore, Mr. Li, who already had a poor heart condition, made things worse and developed arrhythmia.
These two cases are often mentioned by experts from the Chinese Medicinal Diet Research Association. Based on these cases, they remind medicated diet chefs and consumers that they must not "only know the suitability of medicated food, but not the incompatibility of medicated food". Medicated diet is different from regular diet. It is neither a conventional Chinese medicine prescription nor ordinary food. It emphasizes the rational combination of medicine and food. The combination of medicine and food must be selectively adjusted according to the nature of the medicine and food. Medicated diet takes the nature of medicine and the taste of food, using food to enhance the medicinal effect and medicine to assist the power of food, complementing each other. Recently, at the preparatory meeting of the China (Hangzhou) Health Expo, experts and scholars enthusiastically discussed the importance of the compatibility of medicated diet, unanimously agreeing that medicated diet with medicinal ingredients is definitely not just "boiling dumplings in plain water", it needs to be tailored to the individual.
