Radish is the most common ingredient on the dinner table in Chinese households. The pharmacologist Li Shizhen once described radish as: "can be eaten raw or cooked, pickled or made into sauce, fermented into soybean paste or vinegar, or even served as a staple food," which shows its extraordinary culinary value. However, in addition to its edible value, radish also has excellent medicinal value. It's the golden autumn of October, and eating radish this way can be even better than ginseng!
White radish is neutral and slightly cold in nature, with effects such as clearing heat and detoxifying, strengthening the stomach and aiding digestion, resolving phlegm and stopping cough, promoting qi circulation and urination, and promoting the production of body fluids to quench thirst. Modern research has proven that the amylase and mustard oil components in radish are greatly beneficial to human digestive function.
1. Can treat digestive system diseases
For food accumulation, abdominal bloating, indigestion, and poor appetite, you can pound it raw and drink the juice; For nausea, vomiting, acid reflux, and chronic dysentery, it can be chopped, stir-fried with honey, and chewed slowly; For constipation, it can be boiled and eaten; For mouth ulcers, it can be pounded into juice and used as a gargle.
2. Effects on the respiratory system
For cough and phlegm, it's best to chop it, stir-fry with honey, and chew slowly; For pharyngitis, tonsillitis, hoarseness, or loss of voice, the juice can be pounded and taken with ginger juice; For nosebleeds, the raw juice can be pounded, mixed with a little wine, and taken warm, or the juice can be dripped into the nose; For hemoptysis, it can be cooked and eaten with lamb or crucian carp; To prevent colds, it can be boiled and eaten.
3. Benefits for the urinary system
For various urinary stones and difficult urination, slices can be stir-fried with honey and taken orally; For various types of edema, radish can be decocted with floating wheat and consumed as a soup.
4. Other benefits of white radish
For beauty, it can be boiled and eaten; For beriberi, it can be decocted and used for external washing; For detoxification, such as from alcohol or coal gas poisoning, it or its leaves can be used, or the decoction can be drunk; For promoting joint mobility, it can be boiled and used.
Radish is one of the oldest vegetables in China, and in ancient times, it was called "Immortal's Bone." It has the effects of quenching thirst and sobering up, dispelling stasis, lowering blood pressure, and eliminating phlegm.
The entire radish is a treasure
Radish leaves: The nature and flavor are acrid, bitter, and neutral. The effects are the same as radish, and it can treat symptoms such as epigastric and abdominal bloating, indigestion, excessive phlegm, and insufficient lactation.
Radish seeds: They have antifungal effects and can interfere with thyroid hormone synthesis.
Radish skin: Can treat intestinal bleeding and relieve headaches.
Radish old root: (In traditional Chinese medicine, it's called "Diku Lou") It is made by drying the old root and is used medicinally like the radish itself, promoting urination to treat conditions like edema.
Medicinal and therapeutic uses
(1) To clear the lungs, stop cough, moisten dryness, and resolve phlegm: 300ml of white radish juice and 15g of malt sugar are steamed until dissolved and then swallowed slowly while warm. Often used for whooping cough in the elderly and children.
(2) For burns and clearing heat toxins: 1000g of radish and 500g of lamb are boiled into a soup; eat the meat and drink the soup.
(3) For pertussis (whooping cough): 1. 250g of white radish and 6g of olive are chopped, decocted in water, taken twice a day, and can be cured in a few days. 2. 500g of white radish and 10g of olive are juiced and consumed.
(4) For influenza: 250g of large white radish is added to 500ml of water, decocted until cooked, an appropriate amount of sugar is added, and it is consumed while warm.
(5) For bronchitis: 250g of radish and 60g of rock sugar are juiced. Drink 300ml once in the morning and once in the evening.
(6) To prevent meningitis: A soup made from 250g of radish and 50g of mung beans is consumed.
(7) For hemoptysis and unstoppable nosebleeds from pulmonary tuberculosis: (The juice from 1000g of a large radish is extracted, 15g of honey is added, and it is consumed like tea.
(8) For scalds and burns: Apply white radish juice to the affected area. For those who are unconscious from smoke inhalation burns, administering radish juice will revive them.
Contraindications for radish therapy
Radish should not be taken with qi-tonifying herbs like ginseng, Codonopsis root, or Astragalus root, because ginseng supplements qi while radish disperses it. People with a weak and cold spleen or indigestion should not eat it in large amounts or raw.
As the saying goes, when eaten correctly, the effects of radish can be comparable to ginseng. The above is a carefully compiled guide by the author on the correct way to eat radish. This autumn, hurry and let these big white radishes fly onto your dining table! With them, will you still worry about diseases finding you?