Vegetables contain a large amount of dietary fiber, which has a good laxative effect on the human body and can reduce the incidence of colorectal cancer. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that people with different constitutions should choose different seasonal vegetables. The following briefly introduces the therapeutic effects of several seasonal vegetables and their suitability and contraindications for different constitutions.
1. Shepherd's purse (Ji cai) is sweet in taste and warm in nature. Li Shizhen said: "It sprouts after the Winter Solstice, grows stems of five or six inches in the second and third months, and blooms with small white flowers, neat and uniform." Shepherd's purse is the earliest seasonal wild vegetable to announce spring. Because of its fresh and delicious flavor, it is commonly used by people to make wontons, stir-fry with pheasant, or cook with tofu into a soup. However, most people are unaware of its medicinal value. Clinically, it is often used to treat various bleeding diseases, such as hematuria, functional uterine bleeding in women, fundus hemorrhage in patients with hypertension, and gingival bleeding. Its good hemostatic effect is mainly due to the shepherd's acid it contains. Currently, there are two types of shepherd's purse on the market: one has short leaves, a unique fragrance, and a good hemostatic effect; the other is artificially planted, with broad leaves, not very fragrant, and poor medicinal efficacy.
2. Water spinach (Wong tong), also known as hollow vegetable, is sweet in taste and neutral in nature. It can be stir-fried, made into soup, or served cold. Because of its bland taste, it is often overlooked by people, ignoring its medicinal value. Ji Hui's "Fang Caomu Zhuang" calls it "the rare vegetable of the south" because it can detoxify, such as from mushroom, arsenic, wild gourd, and cassava poisoning; it treats bites from centipedes and venomous snakes; it treats strangury, hematochezia, leucorrhea in women, hemoptysis due to lung heat, epistaxis, and unknown poison. Some records state that taking it orally can treat dysentery caused by heat, and applying it externally can sores, carbuncles, and swelling. Purple water spinach contains insulin-like substances, so it is beneficial for diabetic patients to control blood sugar.
3. Crown daisy (Peng hao cai) is sweet, pungent, and neutral in nature. As early as the Tang Dynasty, it was listed as a food therapy item. The Tang Dynasty physician Sun Simiao, in his "Qian Jin Fang," stated that it can "calm the heart qi, nourish the spleen and stomach, and resolve phlegm fluid." Crown daisy has a significant effect of calming the liver and clearing deficient heat. It is effective for symptoms of hyperactive liver yang, such as dizziness and head distension in hypertension, vexation and heat, restful sleep, and cough with sputum due to heat. It has the effect of moistening the intestines and promoting bowel movements, making it especially suitable for those with constipation due to internal heat.
4. Ginger (Sheng jiang) is pungent in taste and slightly warm in nature. In daily cooking, a little ginger is often used as a seasoning when cooking fish, meat, chicken, duck, shrimp, crab, etc. The medicinal effects of ginger include dispelling cold, removing fishy odor, stopping vomiting, inducing sweating, stopping cough, and preventing nausea. Ginger peel promotes urination and can be used to treat bacillary dysentery; for dysentery due to heat, the ginger peel is kept, and for dysentery due to cold, the peel is scraped off. Because ginger has an ascending nature, it is not advisable to eat it at night, as the body's qi is converging during the night, so it is contrary to its ascending nature. Decocting 3 slices of ginger with 10 red jujubes and drinking the liquid is highly effective in treating gastric and duodenal ulcers and diarrhea due to deficiency and cold of the spleen and stomach. It must be noted here that ginger should be avoided by those with a strong tendency of internal heat and those with a yellow and dry tongue coating.
5. Chives (Jiu cai) are sweet, pungent, and warm in nature. It is a good tonic and stimulant, with functions of strengthening the stomach and tonifying yang. For symptoms caused by kidney yang deficiency, such as nocturnal emission, spermatorrhea, lumbar soreness, frequent urination, bedwetting in children, and excessive leucorrhea with lumbar soreness in women, chives can be eaten regularly. Therefore, it is also called "Yang Qi Cao" (grass that raises yang). If stir-fried with dried small shrimp (kaiyang), its effect is even better. However, chives should be avoided by those with internal heat and constipation, dry mouth, and dry tongue. Chives can harm the eyes, so those with eye diseases, such as conjunctivitis, should also avoid eating them.