Start of Spring, the first solar term of the year, is a time when temperatures gradually rise and the body's yang energy steadily increases. How should one maintain health and embrace the spring during this period?
Dietary regulation for Start of Spring should begin with enjoying the fresh, green vegetables of early spring to nourish the body. Pungent and sweet vegetables help to support and protect yang energy. These include scallions, cilantro, red dates, and peanuts. Fresh vegetables like carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, and green peppers also have the effect of boosting yang energy and can be appropriately incorporated into the diet.
Healthy Embracing of Spring
"Embracing Spring" refers to eating fresh spring vegetables on the day of Start of Spring. In the north, this typically involves eating raw water radishes, while in the south, it's often raw lettuce. It also includes eating spring pancakes. Spring pancakes are thin pancakes made from wheat flour, either grilled or steamed, and are filled with a stir-fried mixture of bean sprouts, yellow chives or chives, vermicelli, eggs, and other ingredients. Radish, yellow chives, and chives are all pungent foods that help disperse energy, which is beneficial for raising and protecting yang energy. Spring corresponds to the liver, which governs the upward movement and free flow of energy, and pungent foods have this exact effect.
Therefore, for health maintenance during Start of Spring, one should eat more pungent and warm foods that promote dispersion, such as red dates, fermented black beans, scallions, cilantro, peanuts, and shrimp. In addition, radish can be cooked into a congee with japonica rice or made into a shredded radish pancake, offering multiple benefits such as regulating qi, aiding digestion, tonifying the spleen and stomach, dispelling wind and cold, reducing phlegm, and detoxifying.