Expert Advice: A Healthier Laba Porridge by Matching It to Your Needs
In many parts of China, Laba porridge is a traditional health food consumed for its folk customs. Due to different local customs and habits, the ingredients for Laba porridge vary greatly. Experts point out that consuming Laba porridge in winter is best done by "matching it to your needs" based on your personal requirements for a healthier outcome.
Longan Laba Porridge: To Expel Cold and Keep Warm
During the cold month of the twelfth lunar month, the temperature drops, and many office workers engaged in mental labor often suffer from cold hands and feet, especially in the morning and evening. Deputy Chief Physician Wang Dongxu, a dietary therapy expert at Nanjing Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine Hospital, explains that from a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) perspective, cold and numb hands and feet are often caused by poor blood circulation due to qi deficiency, blood deficiency, and yang deficiency, which fails to warm the skin and makes one feel cold. These individuals need to consume Laba porridge with the effects of replenishing qi, invigorating blood, and warming yang to expel cold and keep warm. Longan, also known as dragon's eye, is warm in nature and sweet in taste, benefiting the heart and spleen, and replenishing qi and blood. It has excellent nourishing and restorative properties. Therefore, longan is the primary ingredient for this type of Laba porridge. Additionally, foods like red dates, peanuts, red beans, brown sugar, ginkgo nuts, and goji berries are excellent for nourishing blood and warming yang and can be paired with longan, along with japonica rice, to cook a Laba porridge that serves as a great remedy for expelling cold and keeping warm.
Coix Seed Laba Porridge: To Strengthen the Spleen and Benefit the Stomach
Although many people dislike year-end social engagements, they are inevitable for those in the workplace. As the New Year approaches, unit dinners, client appreciation gatherings, and family reunions are common, leading to a series of dinner parties. However, amidst the clinking of glasses, many people's health unknowingly suffers. Reporters have learned from hospitals that during the end of the year, the number of patients with diseases caused by frequent socializing significantly increases, with mild cases including indigestion and severe cases leading to alcoholic gastritis, gastric bleeding, acute pancreatitis, and even death.
Professor Guo Haiying, director of the Health Preservation and Rehabilitation Teaching and Research Office at Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, suggests that citizens who often socialize at the end of the year might take the opportunity of Laba Festival to drink Laba porridge to nourish their intestines and stomach, and it can also be consumed regularly as a stomach-nourishing food. This type of Laba porridge can use coix seed as the main ingredient. "Compendium of Materia Medica" records that coix seed can "strengthen the spleen and benefit the stomach, and make the body light and extend life." Coix seed has the highest fiber content among grains, which helps to eliminate excessive junk food consumed during social gatherings. The rich water-soluble fiber in coix seed can absorb bile salts (which are responsible for digesting fat), reducing the absorption rate of fat by the intestines, and consequently lowering the concentration of fat in the blood. Therefore, coix seed Laba porridge is suitable for readers who frequently drink alcohol and have lavish meals with meat and fish for social occasions.
Chestnut Laba Porridge: To Tonify the Kidneys and Replenish Qi
Winter is the perfect season for eating chestnut-braised chicken, chestnut-braised pork ribs, and street-side sugar-roasted chestnuts. However, few people think of using chestnuts to make porridge. Deputy Chief Physician Wang Chengsheng, a health preservation expert from the Nanjing Natural Medicine Society, points out that for winter, a season suitable for nourishing the kidneys, eating Laba porridge with chestnuts as the main supplementary ingredient is a very nourishing therapeutic method. "Compendium of Materia Medica" states that "chestnut is sweet in taste and warm in nature, entering the spleen, stomach, and kidney meridians... Chestnut treats kidney deficiency, weakness in the lower back and legs, and can tonify the kidney and replenish qi." Sun Simiao, a great master of health preservation from the Tang Dynasty, also said, "Chestnut is the fruit of the kidney; those with kidney problems should eat it." Furthermore, due to the cold and dry winter, some people experience chapped lips, and in severe cases, cheilitis or angular stomatitis. The main cause is a lack of Vitamin B2, so one should eat more foods containing it. Vitamin B2, also known as riboflavin, is involved in the catalytic process of biological oxidation enzymes in the human body. A deficiency of Vitamin B2 affects biological oxidation and can lead to diseases such as glossitis, conjunctivitis, keratitis, and seborrheic dermatitis. When the temperature is below 0°C and the relative humidity is also low, it is easy to induce or aggravate the symptoms of Vitamin B2 deficiency. The Vitamin B2 content in chestnuts is at least four times that of rice, and every 100 grams also contains 24 mg of Vitamin C, which is incomparable to grains. When made into Laba porridge, its nourishing effect is even better!