Interpretation of Nine Healthy Foods
Recently, the American fitness magazine "Shape" invited multiple nutrition experts to select the 9 healthiest foods from various categories such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and snacks. Several of these vegetables and fruits align with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Let's see how TCM interprets these healthy vegetables.
Lemon
In the view of TCM, the lemon fruit can resolve phlegm, stop coughing, promote the production of body fluids, and strengthen the stomach. It is used for bronchitis, whooping cough, poor appetite, vitamin C deficiency, and summer heat with thirst. The root can move qi to relieve pain, stop coughing, and calm wheezing. It is used for stomach pain, hernia pain, orchitis, cough, and bronchial asthma.
Broccoli
Some call broccoli a "gift from heaven" and the "poor man's doctor." This is because eating broccoli regularly has the effects of soothing the throat, clearing the voice, moistening the lungs, and stopping coughs. Long-term consumption can also reduce the risk of developing cancers such as breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and stomach cancer.
Broccoli has a remarkable effect in killing *Helicobacter pylori*, the bacteria that causes stomach cancer. Broccoli is one of the foods richest in flavonoids. Besides preventing infections, flavonoids are the best blood vessel cleansers; they can prevent cholesterol oxidation and stop platelet aggregation, thereby reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Some people's skin turns purple and blue from minor bumps and injuries, which is due to a vitamin K deficiency. The best way to supplement it is to eat more broccoli.
Not only is broccoli first-class in its anti-cancer effects, but it also tastes quite good. When stewed with pigeon eggs, shrimp, and appropriate amounts of black-bone chicken and wolfberries, broccoli and pigeon egg soup can achieve a complementary nutritional effect and promote nutrient absorption. Additionally, broccoli shrimp balls, stir-fried with broccoli, fresh shrimp, and appropriate amounts of salt, chicken essence, starch, and salad oil, is also an excellent home-cooked dish.
Broccoli should be eaten more in the fall, as its nutritional content in the stems is highest at this time.
Sweet Potato
Ancient texts such as the "Compendium of Materia Medica" and "Supplement to the Compendium of Materia Medica" record that sweet potatoes have the effects of "nourishing deficiency, replenishing qi, strengthening the spleen and stomach, and reinforcing the kidney yin," making people "long-lived with few illnesses." It can also tonify the middle jiao, harmonize the blood, warm the stomach, and nourish the five organs. The modern "Chinese Materia Medica" states: "Sweet in taste, neutral in nature. It enters the Spleen and Kidney meridians." "It tonifies the middle jiao and harmonizes the blood, replenishes qi and promotes the production of fluids, relaxes the intestines and relieves constipation. It is indicated for edema due to spleen deficiency, sores and swellings, and intestinal dryness with constipation."
The roots of sweet potatoes come in different colors such as white, yellow, and light purplish-red. It is cultivated all over China. It is harvested in winter, washed, the fibrous roots are removed, and it is used fresh, or sliced and dried for later use. Sweet potato is sweet in taste and neutral in nature. It can tonify the spleen and replenish qi, relax the bowels to relieve constipation, and promote the production of fluids to quench thirst (when raw). It is used for spleen qi deficiency with constipation, and for heat in the lungs and stomach with thirst and dry throat.
In the recently published "ranking" of 20 anti-cancer vegetables by the National Cancer Research Center of Japan, sweet potato ranks first. Japanese doctors found in a dietary survey of 260,000 people that the cancer-suppressing rate of cooked sweet potatoes (98.7%) is slightly higher than that of raw sweet potatoes (94.4%). Philadelphia Hospital in the USA has also extracted an active substance from sweet potatoes---dehydroepiandrosterone, which can effectively inhibit the occurrence of colon and breast cancer.
Walnut
The medicinal value of walnuts is very high. TCM believes that walnuts are warm in nature, sweet in taste, and non-toxic, with effects such as strengthening the stomach, nourishing the blood, moistening the lungs, and nourishing the spirit. The "Shennong Ben Cao Jing" (The Divine Farmer's Materia Medica Classic) classifies walnuts as a superior-grade herb that, taken long-term, makes the body light, replenishes qi, and prolongs life. In the "Shi Yao Ben Cao" (Materia Medica for Dietetic Therapy) by Meng Shen of the Tang Dynasty, it is recorded that eating walnut kernels can stimulate the appetite, unblock and nourish the blood vessels, and make bones and flesh delicate. In the "Kai Ben Ben Cao" (Materia Medica of the Kaibao Era) by Liu Han et al. of the Song Dynasty, it is recorded that walnut kernels "make one strong and healthy, moisten the skin, blacken beard and hair, and when eaten in large quantities, promote urination and relieve five types of hemorrhoids." In the "Ben Cao Gang Mu" (Compendium of Materia Medica) by Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty, it is recorded that walnut kernels have effects such as "replenishing qi and nourishing blood, moistening dryness and resolving phlegm, benefiting the Gate of Life (Ming Men), regulating the Triple Burner, warming the lungs and moistening the intestines, treating deficiency-cold with wheezing and coughing, heavy pain in the waist and feet, colicky pain in the heart and abdomen, and dysentery and intestinal bleeding."
Modern medical research suggests that the phospholipids in walnuts have a good protective effect on the brain nerves. Walnut oil contains unsaturated fatty acids, which have the effect of preventing arteriosclerosis. Walnut kernels contain essential trace elements for the human body such as zinc, manganese, and chromium. The levels of zinc and manganese decrease with the aging process, and chromium promotes glucose utilization, cholesterol metabolism, and protects the cardiovascular system. The cough-suppressing and wheezing-calming effects of walnut kernels are also very significant. In winter, it has excellent therapeutic effects for patients with chronic bronchitis and asthma. Therefore, eating walnuts regularly can both strengthen the body and fight aging. Some people often take tonics, but actually eating a few walnuts in the morning and evening is extremely beneficial, and often better than taking tonics. Walnuts are an excellent food-medicine. Whether used as an adjunct to medicine, or eaten raw, boiled, candied, or in dishes, they have good effects such as nourishing blood and qi, tonifying the kidneys and replenishing essence, stopping cough and wheezing, and moistening the bowels to relieve constipation.
Garlic
Eight Major Health Benefits of Garlic
1. Powerful sterilization. The sulfur compounds in garlic have extremely strong antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects, inhibiting and killing various cocci, bacilli, fungi, and viruses. It is currently the most potent natural antibacterial agent found in plants.
2. Preventing and treating tumors and cancer. Elements such as germanium and selenium in garlic can inhibit the growth of tumor and cancer cells. Experiments have found that the group of people with the lowest cancer incidence are those with the highest selenium levels in their blood. The U.S. National Cancer Institute considers garlic to be the number one plant with anti-cancer potential in the world.
3. Detoxifying and cleansing the intestines, preventing gastrointestinal diseases. Garlic can effectively inhibit and kill bacteria and viruses that cause gastrointestinal diseases, such as *Helicobacter pylori*, remove toxic substances from the intestines, stimulate the gastrointestinal mucosa, stimulate the appetite, and accelerate digestion.
4. Lowering blood sugar, preventing diabetes. Garlic can promote insulin secretion, increase glucose absorption by tissue cells, improve the body's glucose tolerance, rapidly lower blood sugar levels, and kill various bacteria that cause infections leading to diabetes, thereby effectively preventing and treating diabetes.
5. Preventing and treating cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Garlic can prevent fat deposition in the cardiovascular system, induce fat metabolism within tissues, significantly increase fibrinolytic activity, lower cholesterol, inhibit platelet aggregation, reduce plasma concentration, increase the dilation of micro-arteries, promote vasodilation, regulate blood pressure, and increase the permeability of blood vessels, thereby inhibiting thrombus formation and preventing arteriosclerosis. Eating 2-3 cloves of garlic daily is the best and simplest way to lower blood pressure. Garlic can help maintain the proper amount of a certain enzyme in the body to avoid high blood pressure.
6. Protecting liver function. The trace element selenium in garlic participates in the aerobic metabolism of the blood, removes toxins, and reduces the burden on the liver's detoxification process, thereby protecting the liver.
7. Boosting energy. Garlic can effectively supplement substances needed by the kidneys, improving symptoms of general fatigue caused by insufficient kidney qi, and can also promote sperm production, greatly increasing sperm count.
8. Preventing colds. Garlic contains a pungent substance called "allicin," which has a good killing effect on pathogens and parasites and can prevent colds, as well as alleviate symptoms such as fever, cough, sore throat, and nasal congestion.
Spinach
TCM believes that spinach has the effects of nourishing yin and moistening dryness, promoting bowel movements to unblock the intestines, nourishing blood to stop bleeding, and clearing heat to descend qi. It has a certain therapeutic effect for symptoms such as insufficient body fluids, gastrointestinal imbalance, thirst, dry intestines with constipation, as well as intestinal tuberculosis, hemorrhoids, anemia, bloody stools, and high blood pressure. It can also promote pancreatic secretion and aid digestion. Eating spinach regularly also has a certain effect in preventing glossitis, cheilitis, angular ulcers, dermatitis, and scrotitis.