As autumn approaches, the weather becomes dry, and the body's immunity decreases, making one prone to lung-heat cough. The main symptoms include a dry cough, excessive phlegm, and dryness of the lips and throat. Since all medicine has some toxicity, dietary therapy is the healthiest approach. So, what should you eat to alleviate lung-heat in the fall? Let's look at some good dietary methods to clear and moisten the lungs. The following 7 remedies can help clear lung-heat and stop coughs.
1. Clearing heat, moistening the lungs, transforming phlegm, and stopping cough: Fritillaria Bulb and Tofu Stew
Ingredients: 2 blocks of tofu, 15g of Fritillaria Bulb, appropriate amount of rock sugar (for one adult).
功效: Clearing heat, moistening the lungs, transforming phlegm, and stopping cough.
做法: Crush or grind the Fritillaria Bulb into coarse pieces. Place it along with the rock sugar on top of the tofu. Put it in a stewing pot, cover, and steam over low heat in a water bath for 1 hour. Drink the soup and eat the tofu and Fritillaria Bulb.
说明: This soup is mainly for cases of prolonged, unhealed cough that has damaged lung yin, or for those with dry-heat in the lungs. The treatment should focus on clearing heat, moistening the lungs, transforming phlegm, and stopping cough.
In the soup, Fritillaria Bulb is the underground bulb of perennial herbs such as *Fritillaria cirrhosa* and *Fritillaria unibracteata*. It contains various alkaloids, sterols, and starch. Its nature is sweet, bitter, and slightly cold. It clears heat, moistens the lungs, and transforms phlegm, and is effective for various types of coughs, making it a key medicine for this purpose.
Tofu's nature is sweet and slightly cold. It functions to tonify the spleen and stomach, and also clears heat and moistens dryness. When paired with Fritillaria Bulb, it can enhance its effect of clearing the lungs and moistening dryness.
Rock sugar moistens the lungs and promotes fluid production to treat dry lung cough. It also harmonizes the taste of the Fritillaria Bulb and tofu, making the soup's flavor sweet with a slight bitterness, a pleasant balance.
2. Moistening, removing dryness, and stopping heat-induced cough: Banana and Rock Sugar Water
Ingredients: 3 bananas, appropriate amount of rock sugar.
功效: Dry climate, summer heat, etc., can induce bronchitis, which in Traditional Chinese Medicine is known as a dry-heat cough. Bananas have the effect of moistening, removing dryness, and stopping heat-induced cough.
做法: Peel and chop ripe bananas. Add them with rock sugar and 2 bowls of water to boil into a sugar water drink.
说明: Bananas also have the function of cleansing the intestines, helping to expel phlegm along with waste from the body.
3. Clearing heat, moistening the lungs, and transforming phlegm: Winter Melon Seed, Pomelo Seed, and Walnut Kernel Soup
Ingredients: 2g winter melon peel, 5g pomelo seeds, 10g walnut kernels.
功效: Winter melon promotes urination, reduces edema, detoxifies, clears heat, relieves restlessness, stops cough and wheezing, and quenches thirst. Pomelo seeds help regulate endocrine function. Walnuts warm the lungs and kidneys, benefit the "life gate" (Ming Men), and their kernels are nourishing, strengthening, moistening the lungs, and transforming phlegm.
做法: Wash the winter melon peel. Add pomelo seeds and walnut kernels and crush them. Boil with 10 bowls of clear water, strain the dregs, and drink as a tea substitute for several consecutive days.
说明: The various ingredients above work together in this soup. Among them, pomelo seeds also have the effect of treating hair loss and dry, yellow hair.
4. Moistening, clearing phlegm, and stopping heat-induced cough and wheezing: Fig Drink
Ingredients: Appropriate amount of brown sugar. Medicinal ingredient: 2 to 4 figs.
功效: Stops heat-induced wheezing and cough, relapses of old coughs caused by heat, and hiccups.
做法: Wash the figs and cut them open. Add with 2 bowls of clear water to boil into a soup. Add brown sugar later. Drink the concentrated soup while it is warm.
说明: Figs have the effects of nourishing and moistening the intestines, promoting urination and bowel movements, and clearing phlegm. They also have uses such as reducing inflammation and pain, and stopping dysentery.
5. Loquat and Snow Pear Juice
Ingredients: 150g loquats, 200g snow pears, 10ml honey.
做法:
(1) Peel and core the snow pears, then cut them into pieces.
(2) Mix the loquat pulp with the snow pears and blend until smooth.
功效: Loquats have the effect of clearing lung qi, and suppressing cough and transforming phlegm. Snow pears can clear and moisten the lungs, promote fluid production to quench thirst, stop cough and wheeze, and transform phlegm. This drink has the benefit of protecting the throat and benefiting the lungs. It is suitable for throat discomfort, excessive coughing, and phlegm caused by excessive smoking.
6. Shredded Cabbage and Carrot Salad
Ingredients: 200g Napa cabbage, 100g carrots, 100g soaked wood ear mushrooms, salt, MSG, sesame oil, vinegar as needed.
做法:
(1) Wash the Napa cabbage and shred it; peel the carrots and shred them; tear the wood ear mushrooms into pieces.
(2) Mix the above ingredients with an appropriate amount of salt, MSG, sesame oil, and vinegar.
功效: Napa cabbage is rich in water, vitamins, and components like calcium, sodium, magnesium, and zinc, and has the effect of clearing heat and detoxifying. Eating more Napa cabbage not only helps to clear the lungs and soothe the throat but also has the effect of detoxifying and nourishing the skin.
Carrots are rich in carotene, which is converted into vitamin A (needed by the human body) by enzymes in the intestines, reducing the chance of infection in the respiratory and intestinal mucosa.
This dish is refreshing and palatable. Regular consumption by smokers has a good effect of stimulating appetite, aiding digestion, soothing the throat and protecting the lungs, and preventing respiratory inflammation.
7. Tomato and Fish Scale Soup
Ingredients: 125g fresh bean sprouts, 65g fresh tomatoes, 150g fresh fish scales (preferably from large-scaled fish like carp, grass carp, or bighead carp), 50g lean pork, 2 slices of ginger, 10ml cooking wine, salt, MSG as needed.
做法:
(1) Wash the fresh bean sprouts; wash and cube the fresh tomatoes; slice the lean pork thinly.
(2) Add the fresh bean sprouts, tomato, lean pork, fresh fish scales, ginger, cooking wine, salt, and other ingredients with 600ml of clear water to a boil in a pot. Then, reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Drink as a soup or have it as a side dish. Take one dose daily for 7 consecutive days. Afterwards, take 2 doses per week.
功效: The chlorophyll in bean sprouts can destroy carcinogenic nitrosamines, thus having a cancer-preventing effect. More importantly, it can to some extent alleviate the toxicity of carcinogens in cigarettes on the lungs.
Tomatoes not only have anti-aging properties but also anti-cancer effects.
Fish scales, once considered useless, have been found to have certain preventive and therapeutic effects on stomach cancer and lymphoma. They can also be used with other medicines to treat leukemia. Regular consumption of this nutritious soup has a good effect of counteracting smoke toxicity and preventing lung cancer.