The Spring Festival is the biggest reunion holiday for Chinese people, and hosting banquets is a traditional courtesy. However, today's banquet feasts are dominated by high-protein, high-fat, and high-calorie foods such as chicken, duck, fish, meat, shrimp, and crab, while staple foods and vegetables are often consumed in smaller amounts. Coupled with frequent toasting and alcohol consumption, or neglecting food hygiene, this often leads to unpleasant consequences. Therefore, it is very necessary to understand disease prevention knowledge.
During the festival, every household buys extra food. The dining table is filled with cold dishes, hot stir-fries, and a variety of pastries. If cross-contamination between raw and cooked food occurs during preparation, or if food is not thoroughly cooked, or if leftovers are not reheated thoroughly the next day, it can cause food poisoning characterized by vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea.
The Spring Festival coincides with the season when colds and viral hepatitis are prevalent. Most families today do not have the habit of using serving chopsticks, and tableware is not sterilized with every meal. Through frequent contact, these infectious diseases can be transmitted via food, utensils, and saliva.
After consuming large amounts of foods rich in sodium glutamate, such as chicken, duck, fish, and meat, it is broken down into glutamic acid and tyrosine in the body. Under the action of intestinal bacteria, these are converted into toxic substances that interfere with the function of brain nerve cells. This can lead to what is known as "delicious syndrome," which is characterized by sudden dizziness, palpitations, rapid pulse, elevated blood pressure, shortness of breath, trembling of the jaw, and numbness in the upper limbs, usually appearing 0.5 to 1 hour after the meal.
The human body, stimulated by high-protein, high-fat foods, and alcohol, activates the pancreas to secrete trypsin. When trypsin is secreted in excess, it can digest the pancreas itself, leading to persistent and severe abdominal pain, accompanied by symptoms of acute pancreatitis such as fever, nausea, and vomiting.
A high-fat diet is a major trigger for acute attacks of cholecystitis and cholelithiasis. Its symptoms include pain in the upper right abdomen, accompanied by paroxysmal colic that radiates to the left shoulder and right back. It can also be accompanied by fever, nausea, vomiting, and jaundice.
Overeating, excessive salt intake, alcohol abuse, smoking, or over-excitement can all cause elevated blood pressure, precordial pain, transient aphasia or hemiplegia, and even lead to acute myocardial infarction and stroke.
Alcohol is actually a toxin. Drinking a small amount of low-alcohol beverages generally does not cause significant health damage. However, excessive drinking or alcohol abuse can lead to symptoms of alcohol poisoning such as incoherent speech, unsteady gait, and loss of self-control, as well as other "tragedy following joy" adverse consequences. Every year, in this city and around the world, there are deaths due to alcohol poisoning.
For people with purine metabolism disorders, consuming large amounts of foods rich in nucleic acids, purines, and high fats, such as fish and meat, especially when combined with alcohol or excessive fatigue, can easily induce gout. Gout is characterized by severe pain, redness, and tenderness in the metatarsophalangeal joint, big toe, or other joints.
For you and your whole family to have a happy and peaceful Spring Festival, we recommend that you pay attention to food hygiene, chew your food slowly, do not overeat, do not only eat meat dishes, eat less greasy food, and drink less alcohol. Do not forget to eat more vegetables and an appropriate amount of staple food at the same time, so that the nutrients consumed are relatively balanced, their metabolic products achieve acid-base balance, and prevent high blood lipids, sudden weight gain, and other adverse consequences.