Nowadays, health care has become a hot topic. When many people mention diet therapy, they will think of soaking wolfberries in water, cooking porridge with red dates, and stewing yam soup.
Actually, our ancestors were much more particular about "eating healthy" than we imagined.
Starting from the "Dietary Therapeutic Materia Medica" of the Tang Dynasty to the "Yinshan Zhengyao" of the Yuan Dynasty, from the category of royal meals in the palace to the field of folk remedies, the richness of the dietotherapy list possessed by the ancients is astonishing.
Now, let’s open these health-preserving recipes that have been around for thousands of years and take a look at those health-preserving foods that have been proven by time.
The wisdom of "medicine and food come from the same source" in the dietary therapy monographs of the Tang Dynasty
When discussing the health-preserving foods of the ancients, Meng Shen of the Tang Dynasty cannot be avoided. As an apprentice of the "King of Medicine" Sun Siwei, he compiled the earliest existing dietary therapy monograph "Dietotherapeutic Materia Medica" in my country.
This book records 260 types of dietary supplements, such as spinach, coriander, and mandarin fish that we often eat today, all of which can be found in it.
The medicinal properties, effects, and contraindications of each food are clearly written.
Meng Shen's dietary therapy philosophy was deeply influenced by his teacher. Sun Simiao clearly stated in "A Thousand Gold Prescriptions" that for those problems that can be solved with food, medication should be avoided as much as possible.
This concept of "eat first, medicine later" became the basic principle of dietary therapy and health preservation in later generations.
Nowadays, many people immediately think of taking medicine as soon as they feel a little uncomfortable. However, in fact, those ordinary ingredients in the kitchen are most likely the mildest way to cook.
"Royal Health Manual" by the Royal Physician of the Yuan Dynasty
If the "Dietotherapeutic Materia Medica" is a comprehensive collection of folk dietary therapy in the Tang Dynasty, then the "Yinshan Zhengyao" of the Yuan Dynasty is the "Royal Health Guide Manual" in the palace context.
This book was compiled by the imperial physician Hu Sihui, and the therapeutic prescriptions recorded in it were of the imperial level.
What is particularly interesting is that Hu Sihui attaches great importance to the use of animal food to maintain health, especially mutton, an animal food.
Most of the dietary prescriptions in the book use mutton marrow to match the grass fruit, sheep spine to match the tangerine peel, and sheep kidney to match the pepper. The grass fruit, tangerine peel, and pepper are seasonings that can warm the body and strengthen the spleen.
This is related to the Mongolian people's habit of eating meat as their main diet. However, it also shows the wisdom of "replenishing the internal organs with the internal organs" contained in traditional Chinese medicine.
In addition, this book also records distillation and brewing in the earliest times, and emphasizes that drinking a small amount is good for the body, but drinking too much will damage the spirit and shorten life.
It seems that the ancients saw the pros and cons of drinking more thoroughly than we do.
Daily maintenance in the official dietary therapy prescription of the Song Dynasty
During the Song Dynasty, there was a heavyweight dietary therapy book called "Taiping Shenghui Prescriptions". It was the first large-scale comprehensive prescription book in my country compiled by a government organization.
The book has a special "Food Therapy Theory" and records a large number of dietary therapy prescriptions, most of which are presented in the form of porridge, soup, cakes, and tea, and are simple and easy to implement.
There is a content in the book called "Sheep Kidney Soup Recipe", which uses sheep kidney and mutton to replenish kidney qi. When combined with wolfberry leaves, it can make the tendons strong and resistant to aging. Ginger can warm the body and strengthen the stomach. It has a very good tonic effect on five types of labor and seven injuries and insufficient kidney qi.
What these dietary prescriptions emphasize is the concept of "treating the disease when you are sick and maintaining your health at ordinary times", and its meaning is actually the same as the "treating the disease before it is" that we are strongly advocating now.
Many people don't pay attention to it and only get anxious when they really get sick. In fact, daily dietary maintenance is the most basic and most effective way to maintain health.
The "natural medicine box" hidden in the kitchen
The core concept is that "medicine and food come from the same source", which belongs to the ancient people's health care. Many of the medicinal values are in the food itself.
Ginger, which is often seen in our daily kitchens, has the effect of relieving the surface and dispersing cold. If you accidentally catch a cold, boil a bowl of ginger soup and drink it, the effect is better than anything else;
besides Coix seed Strengthen the spleen and exude dampness, lotus seeds Tonify the spleen, stop diarrhea, nourish the heart and calm the mind.
Many people have these ingredients in their kitchens, but they don't know that they have these "hidden skills".
Instead of going to the supermarket to buy a bunch of health products, start by using these natural ingredients in your kitchen.
The dietary wisdom of the ancients, how to use it today
The dietary therapy wisdom of the ancients still has strong guiding significance today.
first is Syndrome differentiation and feeding , choose appropriate ingredients according to personal physique and seasonal changes.
People with a deficient and cold constitution can appropriately increase their consumption of warm foods, such as mutton and ginger, while people with excess heat need to avoid these.
The second aspect is to adopt appropriate practices according to different seasons. Eat bean sprouts and bamboo shoots in spring, watermelon and mung beans in summer, honey and lilies in autumn, and mutton and longan in winter.
There are also appropriate ways to develop according to different regions. The climate in the south is characterized by humid and hot, so it is suitable to eat barley and red beans to clear away heat and dampness; the climate in the north is dry, so it is suitable to eat white fungus and mutton to achieve the effect of warming and nourishing.
Keeping healthy is not about copying other people’s methods, but about finding the one that suits you.
Starting from the "Dietary Therapeutic Materia Medica" of the Tang Dynasty to the "Yinshan Zhengyao" of the Yuan Dynasty, the health-preserving wisdom possessed by the ancients conveyed to us a simple truth: the best way to maintain health does not exist in the pharmacy, but in the kitchen.
On the Chinese dining table, there are still those health-preserving foods that have traveled through thousands of years, including wolfberry, yam, lotus seeds, red dates, ginger, and mutton.
They are not expensive and not difficult to find, they just require us to mix and cook them carefully.
Eating the right food is better than taking any medicine.
Starting from this moment, to imitate the wisdom of the ancients, the common ingredients in the kitchen will most likely be the most excellent health "medicine".
Comments NOTHING