Many friends have had this experience: when suffering from a skin disease, the doctor always advises not to eat "trigger foods". So, do you understand what "trigger" means? And what foods are considered "trigger foods" exactly?
"Trigger foods" refer to foods that people with certain illnesses should avoid during treatment, that is, foods that can induce or exacerbate diseases. The "Chinese-Japanese Dictionary" (Japanese) defines "trigger foods" as: "Generally considered to be foods that irritate or worsen external injuries, swellings, bumps, or certain illnesses, such as lamb, sea cucumber, fish, etc.". Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) believes that "trigger foods" are mostly those with properties of being pungent, warm, and dispersing; warm, dry, and yang-boosting; or greasy and stagnating. TCM classifies them into six categories based on their properties:
1. Heat-inducing foods, such as wild onion, ginger, Sichuan pepper, lamb, dog meat, garlic, and white wine;
2. Wind-inducing foods, such as shrimp, crab, toon sprouts, mustard, and fermented bean curd;
3. Dampness-inducing foods, such as maltose, glutinous rice, fermented glutinous rice, and rice wine;
4. Cold-stagnation-inducing foods, such as pears, persimmons, and other raw or cold foods;
5. Blood-inducing foods, such as chili, pepper, and bayberry;
6. Qi-stagnation-inducing foods, such as potatoes, lotus seeds, buckwheat, Gordon euryale seeds, and various bean products.
They can also be classified by the following sources:
1. Edible fungi: Mainly mushrooms, shiitake, etc. Overconsumption of these foods is easy to cause wind and yang generation, triggering old illnesses such as liver yang headache and liver wind dizziness. It also easily induces or exacerbates skin sores, ulcers, and swellings.
2. Seafood: Mainly hairtail, yellow croaker, pomfret, clam meat, shrimp, crab, and other aquatic products. These foods are mostly salty, cold, and have a strong fishy smell. For people with allergic constitutions, they can easily trigger allergic diseases such as asthma and urticaria. At the same time, they also easily promote skin diseases like sores, ulcers, and swellings.
3. Vegetables: Mainly bamboo shoots, mustard, pumpkin, spinach, onions, garlic, chives, etc. These foods can easily induce skin sores, ulcers, and swellings.
4. Fruits: Mainly peaches, apricots, etc. Previous generations have pointed out that eating too many peaches can easily generate heat and cause carbuncles, sores, abscesses, boils, and parasitic diseases. Eating too many apricots can cause boils and sores, and damage the sinews and bones.
5. Poultry and livestock: Mainly rooster, chicken heads, pig heads, goose meat, chicken wings, chicken feet, and musk deer meat. These foods are active in nature and have an ascending and floating nature. Eating them can easily cause wind and yang to rise, triggering old illnesses such as liver yang headache and liver wind dizziness. In addition, they also easily induce or exacerbate skin sores, ulcers, and swellings. Although eggs are not considered a trigger food, they should not be eaten in excess. Generally, no more than two per day is advisable, especially for patients with hepatitis, allergies, high blood lipids, high fever, kidney disease, or diarrhea. The reason is that eggs contain a large amount of protein, but they are foreign proteins. A considerable number of people have an abnormal reaction after eating foreign proteins.
Modern clinical research has also confirmed that avoiding trigger foods is of great significance for reducing wound infections and promoting wound healing after surgery.
As for whether to avoid trigger foods, it is necessary to follow the TCM method of "differentiating syndromes to determine avoidance". If you have a deficient and cold body, loose stools, stomach pain that feels better with warmth, and cold limbs, then cold-natured foods such as watermelon, snow pears, and bananas should be avoided. If you have recently had a red face, fever, thirst, insomnia, irritability, or hemorrhoids with blood, then hot-natured foods such as ginger, pepper, white wine, and garlic should be avoided. For people suffering from urticaria, various dermatitis, eczema, rosacea, or acne, all irritating foods can become "trigger foods" and should be "avoided". Some asthma patients can usually eat and drink without any restrictions, but during an asthma attack, high-protein foods such as eggs, milk, fish, and shrimp become "trigger foods" that worsen the condition and should be "avoided". Therefore, patients can appropriately consult their doctors about these issues when seeing a doctor to better prevent and treat diseases.
Finally, one point we should note is that while trigger foods can induce or aggravate certain diseases, on the other hand, due to their promoting and inducing effects, they are also used in diet therapy to treat certain diseases. For example, in the early stage of measles, if the rash does not come out smoothly, using trigger foods like mushrooms and bamboo shoots can help it to erupt and shorten the course of the disease. Therefore, "trigger foods" can also play a certain auxiliary therapeutic role in some diseases.