Click on “Temple of Traditional Chinese Medicine” to focus on a healthy lifestyle.
“Know what you have done wrong, treat it with food; if dietary therapy does not work, then resort to medicine.” — Tang Dynasty, Sun Simiao, “Qianjin Fang: Food Therapy.”
This means that if a person’s body has issues, the first consideration should be dietary therapy; if dietary therapy fails, then medication should be considered. Thus, it’s clear that in order to have a healthy body, knowing how to eat well during the three meals a day is very important.
Those who are fond of traditional Chinese medicine may not understand prescriptions, but they should at least know a bit about dietary therapy because our lives are inseparable from three meals a day, and most of the nutrients our bodies need come from food.
Eating correctly can have a role that cannot be replaced by medicine and can also “eradicate illness when sick and strengthen the body when healthy.”
The wisdom of eating is ingrained in the veins of the Chinese people.
I wonder if everyone has read the contemporary Chinese novelist Yu Hua’s long fictional novel “Chronicle of a Blood Merchant,” which mentions that every time Xu Sanguan sells blood, he must go to the Victory Hotel to eat a plate of stir-fried pig liver, along with a couple of liang of warmed yellow wine, to replenish his weakened body.
If you understand traditional Chinese medicine, you would know that pig liver can nourish liver blood, and yellow wine warms and circulates the blood, which is beneficial for blood regeneration. Pig liver and yellow wine are both simple and common ingredients, yet they play such a crucial role—that is the wisdom of Chinese eating.
Of course, Xu Sanguan’s behavior in the novel is not something to be advocated.
The dietary wisdom of Guangdong people
When it comes to dietary therapy and health preservation, one must mention the people of Guangdong, who are known for their light and flavorful cuisine and their expertise in making various delicious medicinal dishes.
Guangdong people know how to enjoy food, always making various ingredients tasty and nutritious. For example, the famous snack pig’s trotter ginger (also known as ginger vinegar), which can be found everywhere on the streets, holds an irreplaceable position in the hearts of the locals.
In Guangdong, serving ginger vinegar signifies good news in the family. Regardless of which family has welcomed a baby, the hosts will cook a large pot of pig’s trotter ginger to share with relatives, friends, and neighbors. Moreover, women who have given birth must eat this delicious pig’s trotter ginger to help replenish their bodies.
Ginger is pungent and warm, with a strong ability to relieve exterior conditions and dispel cold. Women who have just given birth often lose a lot of blood and lack the warmth of qi and blood; they easily feel cold. The use of ginger in pig’s trotter ginger serves to drive out the cold and warm the body. Adding a sour and sweet flavor…
