Most Comprehensive Guide to Healthy Menstrual Cycle Diet
During those special days of the month, many women tend to feel listless and their complexion may appear dull. This monthly "little event" becomes one of the necessary troubles women endure. Therefore, how to properly care for oneself during the menstrual period becomes key, and it turns out there's a great deal to learn about the diet before and after your period!
During Menstruation: Avoid Cold and Spicy Foods
During menstruation, a woman's resistance decreases and her emotions can be unstable. Some may experience poor appetite, lower back pain, fatigue, and other symptoms. It's advisable to choose nutritious, appetizing, and easily digestible foods. To maintain nutritional balance, also pair with an appropriate amount of fresh vegetables and fruits. To achieve beauty-enhancing, health-boosting, and regulatory effects,
1. Be selective with fruits. Eating fruit during menstruation can prevent constipation and avoid pelvic congestion. However, some fruits with cold properties should not be consumed during this time. Fruits suitable for the menstrual period are neutral ones like apples, figs, strawberries, and tomatoes. Citrus fruits, peaches, cherries, jujubes, lychees, longans, pineapples, pomegranates, and grapes are considered warm and are also suitable, but be careful not to eat too much at once. Fruits to avoid during menstruation include pears, bananas, persimmons, mangoes, watermelons, kiwis, and other cold foods.
2. "The flow of menstrual blood" should be based on nourishing warmth. During menstruation, it's also important to supplement foods that are beneficial for the flow of menstrual blood. Blood flows when it's warm and stagnates when it's cold. Eating raw or cold foods during the period can, firstly, hinder digestion, and secondly, easily damage the body's yang energy, leading to internal cold. Cold nature causes stagnation, which can make menstrual blood flow不畅, resulting in less flow and even dysmenorrhea. Even during the height of summer, it's not advisable to eat cold drinks during your period. Instead, opt for warming and nourishing foods, such as lamb, chicken, red dates, tofu skin, apples, Job's tears, milk, brown sugar, motherwort, angelica, and longan.
3. Light and easily digestible foods are the top choice. Women during their period often feel especially tired, with weakened digestive function and poor appetite. Therefore, attention should be paid to a light diet, choosing nutritious, appetizing, and easily digestible foods. Avoid overly sour and highly stimulating foods like hawthorn, pickled vegetables, vinegar, chili, mustard, and pepper. It's better to choose foods like red dates, noodles, and Job's tears porridge. To maintain nutritional balance, fresh vegetables and fruits should also be consumed. Food should be fresh, which not only tastes delicious and is easy to absorb but also has less nutritional degradation.
4. Prevent iron deficiency with a mix of meat and vegetables. Iron is an essential trace element for the human body. It not only participates in the synthesis of hemoglobin and many important enzymes but also plays an important role in immunity, intelligence, aging, and energy metabolism. Due to significant iron loss during menstruation, it's very important to supplement with iron-rich foods. Fish, lean meat, animal liver, and animal blood are rich in iron and have high bioavailability, making them easily absorbed and utilized by the body. In contrast, the plant-based iron in soybeans and spinach has a lower absorption rate. Therefore, during the menstrual period, the diet should include a mix of meat and vegetables, with a proper increase in animal-based foods to meet the special need for iron.
After Menstruation: The focus is on blood-nourishing and health maintenance
When menstruation begins, a certain amount of blood is lost. The main components of blood include plasma protein, potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, and other inorganic salts. This means that each period results in a loss of some protein and inorganic salts. Therefore, in principle, within 1-5 days after the period ends, one should supplement with nutrients like protein and minerals, and use some blood-tonifying remedies. During this time, foods and medicines that can not only benefit the skin and beauty but also have blood-nourishing and blood-activating effects become the top choice.
For blood-nourishing foods, those containing iron and carotene are the best. Some people mistakenly believe that only eating vegetables leads to anemia, which is a wrong concept. Plant-based foods not only contain iron, carotene, and other nutrients but also have the advantage of being easy to digest and absorb, and many foods are rich in iron. Besides lotus root starch, hair seaweed, and dried radish, other common blood-nourishing and iron-rich foods mainly include:
Black Beans In ancient China, it has always been believed that eating beans is beneficial, especially black beans, which can generate blood and blacken hair. Black beans can be prepared in various ways. After childbirth, one can cook black chicken with black beans.
Carrots Carrots, also known as red radishes, are called "ginseng" by the Japanese. They contain vitamins B and C, and a special nutrient, carotene. Carotene is extremely beneficial for blood nourishment, so making a soup with carrots is an excellent blood-tonifying beverage.
Gluten This food is available in many local food stores, vegetarian restaurants, and at braised food stalls. Gluten is quite rich in iron and is a delicious food worth promoting.
Spinach Also known as bogengcai, spinach is a famous blood-nourishing food. It is quite rich in iron and carotene, so spinach can be considered an important food among blood-nourishing vegetables. Among fruits, dried grapes, plums, apricots, and peaches contain the most iron.
Daylilies Daylilies contain the highest amount of iron, twenty times more than the well-known spinach. They are rich in iron and other nutrients such as vitamins A, B1, C, protein, fat, and colchicine, and also have diuretic and stomach-strengthening effects.
Longan Pulp Longan pulp is also known as longan meat or "fu meat." Fresh longans are available every summer. This is a well-known blood-nourishing food in folk culture. Because it is rich in iron and also contains vitamins A, B, glucose, sucrose, etc., it can treat forgetfulness, palpitations, and insomnia caused by neurasthenia. For postpartum women, eating longan soup, longan paste, or longan wine is also a very good blood-nourishing food.
Recommendation: Post-Menstrual Sweets for Beauty and Blood Nourishment
After your period, eating red dates, drinking brown sugar water, or drinking rose hip tea can all help with blood nourishment and health maintenance. Here are two simple and easy dessert recipes to help ladies maintain a rosy complexion during those special days!
1. Ginger and Jujube Brown Sugar Water
Ingredients: 30 grams each of dried ginger, large red dates, and brown sugar.
Method: Wash the first two ingredients. Chop the dried ginger and remove the pits from the dates. Add brown sugar and simmer. Drink the soup and eat the dates.
Effects: Has the effect of warming the meridians and dispelling cold. Suitable for cold-type dysmenorrhea and chloasma.
2. Rose Hip Tea
Ingredients/Method: Use rose hip flowers picked in summer or autumn. Choose purplish-red, semi-open buds that do not have scattered petals and have a fresh fragrance. Steep them as a tea substitute.
Effects: Has the effects of promoting qi, activating blood, and moisturizing the skin. Suitable for irregular menstruation, dysmenorrhea, etc.
3. Ginger and Job's Tears Porridge
Ingredients: 10 grams of dried ginger, 10 grams of mugwort, and 30 grams of Job's tears.
Method: Decoct the first two ingredients in water to get a juice. Cook the Job's tears until about 80% done, then add the ginger and mugwort juice and cook until completely done.