(Joyce, 2017)
Chinese diet therapy is the combination of traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese cooking culture, its history can date back to thousands of years ago. In western medicine the concept of diet therapy is that treat nutritional deficiency or diseases related to nutrition by having nutritious foods and balancing the nutrition intake, while Chinese diet therapy aims to prevent and treat diseases ( Xu, 2003). It has a wider range of knowledge and application than western diet therapy. Chinese diet therapy won’t cure you instantly like pills do, they need to take time to work. There is an old saying in China that drug has 30 percent of poison, which means drug always has its side effect. If you want to prevent some diseases, there is no doubt that Chinese diet therapy is the best choice.
Chinese herbal soup is one of the important part in Chinese food culture, also is the most common diet therapy in China, especially in Guangdong Province, where has profound culture of herbal soup due to its hot and humid climate. People lives in Guangdong province make different herbal soup according to different seasons and different physical conditions. When making the herbal soup, the choice and balance of ingredients should be correct so that it would be effective for your body. Chinese herbal soup is usually cooked with meats, vegetables and Chinese herbs, and different recipes of herbal soup have different effects.
(Joyce, 2017)
In China, there is a terminology called “上火”(inner heat), which means your body has “too much heat”. Our body system is controlled by yin and yang, which constitutes Qi (vital energy) (May, 2015). Yin and yang are opposites, the balance of yin and yang keeps you healthy. When you have inner heat, it means your body has too much yang. Aa a Chinese, I don’t know much about yin yang. To me, inner heat is easily got if you have too much spicy and fried foods, stay up late or have too much pressure. The visible symptoms of inner heat include acne, mouth ulcers, swollen gums, invisible symptoms are sore throat, constipation, dizziness. Some herbal soups can help you to reduce your inner heat, like bitter gourd and pork rib soup, herbal pork soup (cooked with poria cocos and couch grass root) and herbal chicken soup (cooked with wormwood).
(Elaine 2017)
What’s more, Chinese herbal soups also can help you to release toxins in your body, adjust sex hormones, nourish the stomach, strengthen the brain, etc.
Chinese herbal soup is a complicated business, if you don’t have proper knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine, just look up online for trusted recipes according to the effect you want.
Reference:
Elaine 2017, Herbal Chicken Soup, photograph, viewed 26 September 2019, <https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/herbal-chicken-soup/>
Joyce 2017, Chinese Herbal Chicken Soup, photograph, viewed 26 September 2019, <https://eatwhattonight.com/2017/04/chinese-herbal-chicken-soup/>
May Chiam 2015, Keep Calm and Drink Herb Soups, The Star, viewed on 25 September 2019, <https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/food/features/2015/01/15/keep-calm-and-drink-herbal-soups>
Xu, Z 2013, ‘The Origin and Application of Diet Therapy’, Food Research and Development, vol. 24, pp. 18-19. <https://wenku.baidu.com/view/823f8b330640be1e650e52ea551810a6f524c821.html>
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