Irregular menstruation, dysmenorrhea, and other conditions are common health issues for women, which are often closely related to diet and poor habits. Therefore, in addition to identifying the correct cause, dietary therapy is also crucial for treating irregular menstruation.
Dietary Principles During Menstruation
1. Avoid raw and cold foods; eat warm and cooked foods.
Traditional Chinese Medicine believes that "blood flows when it is warm and stagnates when it is cold." Consuming raw or cold foods during menstruation can, firstly, hinder digestion, and secondly, easily damage the body's yang energy, leading to internal cold. Cold nature causes stagnation, which can impede the smooth flow of menstrual blood, resulting in scanty flow or even dysmenorrhea. Even during the height of summer, it is not advisable to eat cold drinks during menstruation.
The diet during menstruation should be warm and cooked. It is recommended to consume foods like seaweed, red dates, sorghum, Job's tears, mutton, and apples. Reduce intake of cold and slippery foods such as pears, water chestnuts, water caltrop, winter melon, and kale.
2. Avoid sour, spicy, and irritating foods.
Women often feel especially tired during their period, with weakened digestive function and poor appetite. Therefore, the diet should focus on light, easily digestible, and absorbable foods. Avoid overly sour and strongly irritating foods such as hawthorn, pickled vegetables, vinegar, chili, mustard, and pepper.
3. Prevent iron deficiency by combining meat and vegetables.
Iron is an essential trace element for the human body. It not only participates in the synthesis of hemoglobin and many important enzymes but also plays a significant role in immunity, intelligence, aging, and energy metabolism. Due to significant iron loss during menstruation, it is very important to consume iron-rich foods. Fish, lean meat, animal liver, and animal blood are rich in iron with high bioavailability, making them easily absorbed and utilized by the body. In contrast, plant-based iron from foods like soybeans and spinach has a lower absorption rate. Therefore, the diet during menstruation should include a proper mix of meat and vegetables, with an appropriate increase in animal-based foods to meet the special iron needs of this period.
Recommended Foods
Brown Sugar and Ginger Soup
1. Choices for staple foods and legumes: Wheat, millet, corn, black glutinous rice, and soy products.
2. Choices for meat, eggs, and dairy: Pork, pig skin, beef, mutton, animal offal, rabbit meat, chicken, fish, eggs, milk, and dairy products.
3. Choices for vegetables: Rapeseed, bok choy, cabbage, spinach, amaranth, celery, lotus root, mustard greens, garlic greens, cauliflower, bell peppers, tomatoes, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, and fresh mushrooms.
4. Besides avoiding excessive raw fruits and vegetables during menstruation, it is generally good to eat more apples, pears, bananas, oranges, hawthorn, water chestnuts, sugarcane, peaches, plums, apricots, pomegranates, persimmons, and bayberries.
Dietary Taboos
1. Avoid pungent and dry foods such as ginger, alcohol, and chili.
2. Avoid greasy foods. Patients often have poor appetite or indigestion. The diet should be easy to digest and whet the appetite, avoiding foods that harm the stomach.
3. Avoid cold foods. Cold-natured foods include: crab, conch, clam, cucumber, lettuce, watermelon, and iced drinks.
I. Brown Sugar and Ginger Soup
Main ingredients: 20g ginger, 15g red dates (dried)
Supplementary ingredients: 50g brown sugar
Method: Boil the brown sugar and red dates for 20 minutes. Then add sliced ginger, cover tightly, and simmer for another 5 minutes.
Health Tips:
1. Tonifies Qi and nourishes blood, warms the meridians and invigorates blood circulation.
2. Suitable for a cold uterus, lower abdominal cold pain, scanty and dark menstrual flow.
3. Brown sugar and red dates both tonify Qi and nourish blood while warming the meridians and invigorating blood. Ginger's pungent and warm nature assists the power of brown sugar.
II. Motherwort Boiled Eggs
Main ingredients: 150g eggs
Supplementary ingredients: 30g motherwort
Method:
1. First, pick out impurities from the motherwort, rinse it clean with water, chop it into sections, and drain.
2. Place all eggs in water and wash them individually.
3. Put the motherwort and eggs into a pot, add water, and cook together. After 20 minutes, the eggs will be cooked. Remove the shells and put them back into the soup to cook for another 15-20 minutes.
Health Tips:
1. Invigorates blood to dispel stasis, nourishes blood to regulate menstruation, and supplements Qi and blood.
2. Suitable for early menstruation with chest and abdominal distension and pain.
3. Suitable for treating dysmenorrhea due to insufficient Qi and blood and blood stasis, as well as irregular menstruation, lochia after childbirth, and functional uterine bleeding.
III. Garlic Spareribs
Garlic Spareribs
Main ingredients: 800g pork spare ribs
Supplementary ingredients: 100g garlic (white skin), 75g glutinous rice flour
Seasonings: 25g starch (pea), 10g meat tenderizer, 10g MSG, 4g salt, 10g sugar, 10g fermented bean curd juice, 100g peanut oil
Method:
1. Wash the spare ribs and cut them into 8cm pieces. Marinate with meat tenderizer for 1 hour, then rinse and drain. Add some water to garlic cloves and blend into garlic juice with a blender.
2. Pour the garlic juice over the spare ribs and mix until absorbed. Then add seasonings, glutinous rice flour, and starch, and marinate for 30 minutes.
3. Heat oil in a wok until very hot. Add the spare ribs and fry over low heat until golden brown and cooked through. Lift and arrange on a plate.
IV. Lotus Seed and Ginkgo Stewed Silkie Chicken
Main ingredients: 1200g silkie chicken
Supplementary ingredients: 15g ginkgo (dried), 30g lotus seeds, 50g glutinous rice
Seasonings: 3g pepper, 15g green onion, 10g ginger, 10g soy sauce, 5g salt
Method:
1. Slaughter the chicken, remove feathers and internal organs, and wash it clean.
2. Place ginkgo, lotus seeds, glutinous rice, and pepper into its abdominal cavity and sew it up.
3. Place the chicken in a clay pot with the opening facing upwards. Add an appropriate amount of water, green onion, ginger, soy sauce, and salt. Stew until cooked.
Health Tips:
1. Tonifies the kidneys and secures essence, invigorates blood and regulates menstruation.
2. Suitable for male spermatorrhea, turbid urine, and female leukorrhea.
V. Rock Sugar and Motherwort
Main ingredients: 100g eggs
Supplementary ingredients: 20g Angelica sinensis, 30g motherwort
Method:
1. Decoct Angelica sinensis and motherwort in water to make a medicinal broth.
2. Boil the eggs in plain water until cooked.
3. After removing the eggs, peel them and make several small holes on the surface with a needle.
4. Place the eggs back into the medicinal broth and cook for 3-5 minutes.
Health Tips:
1. Nourishes blood and benefits the kidneys, regulates menstruation and relieves pain, prevents miscarriage.
2. Angelica sinensis is sweet, pungent, and warm; it nourishes blood, regulates blood circulation, and alleviates pain in menstruation.
3. Motherwort is bitter, pungent, and cool; it invigorates blood to resolve stasis, regulates menstruation, and reduces edema.
4. Eggs are sweet and neutral; they nourish yin, moisten dryness, and nourish blood to prevent miscarriage.
5. Rich in protein, vitamins, calcium, iron, phosphorus, and other elements.
6. Suitable for menstrual irregularity, menstrual pain, endometriosis, anovulation, or fallopian tube blockage.
7. This dish is suitable for breast cancer patients.
Garlic ribs
Garlic white meat