After a long and hot summer, the body's energy is depleted while food intake is reduced. Therefore, as the temperature gradually cools in autumn, it is necessary to nourish the body and store up energy for the coming winter. People often neglect the requirements of a daily diet due to a fast-paced life. Many are simply content with eating their fill, ignoring the rational combination of nutrients. A fast food meal and a bottle of pure water, or a hamburger and a cup of cola, may temporarily fool our stomachs, but this often poses a threat to health. The lifestyle editor has specially gathered various diet and health care information suitable for this autumn, allowing you and your family to be healthy and happy every day!
Seasonal Delicacies
In winter, mutton is highly favored. It is sweet and warm in nature, rich in fat, protein, carbohydrates, inorganic salts, and minerals like calcium, phosphorus, and iron. Besides being nutritious, mutton can also help prevent and treat diseases such as impotence, premature ejaculation, scanty menstruation and infertility, postpartum weakness, abdominal pain due to cold hernia, stomach cold pain, poor digestion, weak lung energy, and chronic cough with asthma. However, there are some things to keep in mind when eating mutton in winter.
Reasonable Pairing to Prevent "Heatiness" Mutton is warm in nature, and eating it often can easily lead to "heatiness" (上火). Therefore, when eating mutton, it should be paired with cool and neutral-natured vegetables to play a cooling, detoxifying, and "heat-reducing" role. Cool-natured vegetables generally include winter melon, loofah, spinach, cabbage, enoki mushrooms, mushrooms, water bamboo shoots, and bamboo shoots. It is best to pair mutton with tofu, which not only supplements various trace elements, but the gypsum in it can also clear heat, purge fire, relieve vexation, and quench thirst. When mutton and radish are cooked together, the cooling nature of the radish can be fully utilized to eliminate stagnation and resolve phlegm-heat. Additionally, mutton should not be used with Banxia or Acorus calamus.
Not to be eaten with vinegar, tea, or pumpkin
The "Compendium of Materia Medica" states: "Eating mutton with vinegar injures the heart." Mutton is very heating, and vinegar is sweet and warm, similar in nature to alcohol. When the two are cooked together, they can easily stir up fire and move blood. Therefore, vinegar should not be added to mutton soup. Mutton is rich in protein, and tea contains a significant amount of tannic acid. Drinking tea immediately after eating mutton will produce a substance called tannic acid protein, which can easily cause constipation. If eaten with pumpkin, it can easily lead to jaundice and beriberi.
Mutton is delicious, but eat in moderation
Mutton is sweet and very heating. Excessive consumption can promote the development of certain lesions and aggravate the condition. Furthermore, for people with liver disease, if they consume a large amount of mutton, the liver cannot completely and effectively perform metabolic functions such as the oxidation, decomposition, and absorption of proteins and fats, thus increasing the burden on the liver and potentially leading to illness. Those who frequently have canker sores, red eyes, a bitter taste in the mouth, irritability, a dry and sore throat, swollen gums, or diarrhea should not eat too much of it.
Avoid cooking with copper utensils
The "Compendium of Materia Medica" records: "When mutton is cooked in copper utensils: it damages men's yang and causes women to have sudden discharges; the nature's effects are so different, this cannot be unknown." The reasoning behind this is: when copper encounters acid or alkali under high heat, it can undergo a chemical change to form copper salts. Mutton is a high-protein food, and when cooked in copper utensils, it can produce certain toxic substances that harm human health. Therefore, it is not advisable to cook mutton in a copper pot.