What is medicinal food?

The origin and evolution of medicinal food

Human ancestors in order to survive, had to forage for food all over the natural world; over time, also discovered that certain animals and plants can not only be used as food to satisfy the hunger, but also has some kind of medicinal value. In the primitive stage of human society, people do not have the ability to separate food and medicine. This phenomenon of combining food and medicine into one formed the origin and prototype of medicinal cuisine. Perhaps it is on the basis of such a situation that traditional Chinese medicine says "medicine and food have the same origin". Modern archaeologists have discovered many medicinal foods from the primitive era. Modern ethnography has also found that some peoples in the primitive era would make food with medicinal effects. All these prove that medicinal food can indeed be said to have originated in the primitive age of mankind. Of course, this primitive form of medicinal food cannot be said to be the real medicinal food, as people at that time did not consciously utilize the medicinal properties of food. The real medicinal diet can only appear in the civilized era when human beings have already had rich knowledge of medicines and accumulated rich culinary experience. So the real meaning of the medicinal diet in our country in the end when it originated, and how the development and evolution of it? Our country since the emergence of the written word, oracle bone inscriptions and gold inscriptions have already had the word medicine and dietary words. And the word medicine and dietary use, the formation of the word medicinal cuisine, the earliest in the "Hou Han Shu - the biographies of women". In it, there are words like "Mother mixes medicinal food and thinks about it very closely". There is also a record in the Song History - Zhang Guan's Biography that says, "The flea rises and serves medicinal food". These records prove that, at least a thousand years ago, China has appeared in the name of medicinal meals. And before the emergence of the word "medicinal food", China's ancient texts, has appeared on the production and application of medicinal food records. In the Rites of Zhou, there is a record of "food doctors". The food doctor was mainly responsible for the preparation of the "six foods", "six drinks", "six meals" and "a hundred delicacies" of the Zhou Emperor, "six drinks", "six meals", "a hundred delicacies", and "a hundred sauces" in terms of taste, temperature, coolness, and quantity. The work performed by food doctors is similar to that of modern nutritional doctors, while the book also covers some other aspects of food therapy. The Zhouli - Tianguan also recorded that the disease doctors advocated using "five flavors, five grains, five medicines to nourish their illnesses"; the ulcer doctors advocated "acid to nourish the bones, pungent to nourish the tendons, salty to nourish the veins, bitter to nourish the qi, sweet to nourish the flesh, slippery to nourish the orifices," etc. These ideas were already very mature food doctors. These claims are already very mature principles of food therapy. These records show that China as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty had a wealth of knowledge of medicinal diets, and the emergence of specialized personnel engaged in the production and application of medicinal diets. Written in the Warring States period of the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine contains: "Where you want to diagnose a disease, you must ask about the diet and residence", "the treatment of disease must seek its origin", "medicine to dispel, food to follow". And said: "people to the five grains as the basis", "the sky to eat people with five gas, the earth to eat people with five flavors", "five flavors into the mouth, hidden in the stomach and intestines", "poison to attack the evil. Five grains for nourishment, five fruits for help, five animals for the benefit of five vegetables for the full, the smell of the combined service to replenish the essence and benefit the gas". With the "Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine" was written at a similar time of the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" also mentioned the medicinal value of some foods: "Tochigi's fruit, food does not grow old". The above medical records show that in the pre-Qin period China's food therapy theory has taken shape. The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine*** has 13 formulas, 8 of which belong to the medicinal and dietary formulas, such as Wu? Bone Pill, made of cress, Wu? , sparrow's egg and abalone. It is made by grinding the first three foods into pills and serving them with abalone soup. It was mainly used to treat blood wasting disease. It shows that the production and application of medicinal food was also more mature at this time.

The Qin and Han dynasties have further developed. The last year of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the book "Shennong Ben Cao Jing" set of previous research contains 365 kinds of medicine, including jujube, ginseng, wolfberry, schizandra, rhubarb, Coix lacryma, Poria, ginseng, ginger, scallion, Angelica sinensis, shellfish, almonds, umeboshi, antler velvet, walnuts, lotus seeds, honey, longan, lily, appendicia and so on, are all with the medicinal properties of the food, often as the raw material of the preparation of the dietary herbs. Han Dynasty famous doctor Zhang Zhongjing's "Typhoid Miscellaneous Diseases", "Golden Chamber Essentials Square" further developed the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, in addition to the use of medication in the treatment also used a large number of dietary regimens to match, such as White Tiger Soup, Peach Blossom Soup, Bamboo Leaf Gypsum Soup, Gua Tishang, Ten Jujubes Soup, Lily Chicken Zizi Huang Soup, Angelica Ginseng and Ginger Mutton Soup, Gan Mai Dajubes Soup, and so on. In terms of dietary therapy, Zhang Zhongjing not only developed the theory of "Huangdi Neijing", highlighting the role of dietary regimen and prevention, creating a precedent of combining drugs and food to treat serious diseases and acute illnesses, but also documented the contraindications of dietary therapy and dietary hygiene that should be paid attention to. Before the Han Dynasty, although there is a richer knowledge of medicinal diet, but still not systematic, for the theoretical foundation of China's medicinal dietary therapeutics period.

Jin and Tang period for the formation of the medicinal dietetics stage. At this time, the theory of medicinal diet has made great progress, there are some specialized writings. Ge Hong of the Jin Dynasty, "after the elbow to prepare the emergency formula", the Northern Wei Cui Jie's "food scripture", the Liang Dynasty, Liu Hugh's "food formula" and other writings on the development of China's medicinal dietary theory has played a role in the beginning and the end.

Tang Dynasty famous doctor Sun Simiao in its "preparation of the emergency thousand gold formula" with "food treatment" chapter, so far food therapy has begun to become a specialized discipline, which *** contained 164 kinds of medicinal food, divided into fruits, vegetables, grains and rice, birds and animals of the four major categories. Sun Simiao also pointed out that: "food can expel the evil and safe internal organs, pleasing to the feelings of cool Zhi to capitalize on the gas and blood", "Where you want to treat, the first food therapy; both food therapy is not healed, and then is the ear of the medicine"; and that "if you can use food to calm the disease, the right nature of the disease, can be said to be Good work, long years of baiting the old strange method, the very health of the art also". Sun Simiao's disciple Montezemon set the great success of the previous compiled the "Food Therapy Materia Medica". This is China's first set of food, Chinese medicine as one of the therapeutic monograph, *** collection of 241 kinds of food, detailed records of the food flavor, health effects, overfeeding, side effects of partiality, as well as its unique processing, cooking methods. At this time, there is also a doctor of medicine Zan Yin compiled "Food Therapy Xinjian", the Southern Tang Dynasty Chen Shiliang's "Food Materia Medica", are in the Jin and Tang dynasties appeared in the monographs devoted to the therapeutic effects of food, food therapy, medicinal diets as a specialized discipline for a detailed exposition.

The Song and Yuan dynasties for the comprehensive development of food therapy and medicinal cuisine. Song Dynasty official revision of the "Taiping Sheng Hui Fang" dedicated "food treatment door", recorded 160 medicinal dietary formulas, can treat 28 kinds of diseases, and medicinal diets to congee, soup, cake, tea and other forms of dosage appeared. Yuan dynasty rulers also attach importance to the theory of medicine, advocating the further combination of Mongolian and Chinese medicine and absorption of the results of foreign medicine, by the dietary doctor Hu Si Hui compiled by the "dietary just about to" for China's earliest nutritional monographs, containing 203 kinds of food, in addition to talking about the treatment of disease, for the first time from the point of view of nutrition, emphasized that the normal person should strengthen the diet, nutritional intake, used to prevent disease, and detailed records of the Dietary hygiene, taking medicine and food taboos and food poisoning performance, quite insightful.

The Ming and Qing dynasties is the Chinese medicine food therapy dietary science into a more perfect stage, almost all the writings on the materia medica have paid attention to the relationship between the materia medica and dietary science, for the cooking and production of medicinal food has reached a very high level, and most of them are in line with the requirements of nutritional science. The Ming Dynasty's medical masterpiece "Compendium of Materia Medica" to the Chinese medicine dietary therapy provides a wealth of information, only grain, vegetables, fruits, three parts of the collection of more than 300 kinds of, which specializes in the list of dietary taboos, drugs and dietary taboos and so on. Zhu Di's "rescue herb" recorded 414 kinds of plants can be eaten in the famine year, and will be a detailed description of its map, about its origin, name, flavor and cooking methods. In addition, there are Xu Chunfu's Ancient and Modern Medical System, Lu He's Food Materia Medica, Ning Yuan's Food Inspection Materia Medica; among them, the more famous ones are Jia Ming's Dietary Instructions and Wang Mengying's Dietary Recipes for the Followed Resting Place, etc., which are still of great practical value in the clinic and in the life today. This period of therapeutics also has a prominent feature, the idea of advocating vegetarianism has been further developed, such as Huang Yunguan's "porridge", Cao Tingdong's "Lao Lao HengYin" all attach importance to vegetarianism, which is therapeutic, the development of health science are helpful. Chinese medicinal diet from ancient times to the present day, a long history; from the court to the folk, widely spread. According to some scholars, since the early Han Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty, there have been more than 300 works on medicinal diets. And now the writings about therapeutic diet is more colorful, the application of an unprecedented wide range, and even the emergence of a number of specialized dietary restaurants. In people's lives, medicinal diets have also gained unprecedented popularity, and also enjoy a good reputation abroad and are highly favored. Medicinal diet is an important element of traditional Chinese diet and traditional medicine. Today, it has become a unique science, art and culture into tens of thousands of households and spread all over the world.

The role of medicinal diets

● Treatment of diseases

1.

Certain diseases or a certain stage in the disease can be treated with medicinal diets or food-based. For example, Gui Zhi Tang is a dietary supplement that is the main treatment for external wind and cold, Ying and Wei are not in harmony with the main formula; "The Essentials of the Golden Chamber" in the sweet wheat and jujube soup to treat the woman's dirty mania, etc., are examples of dietary supplements as the main treatment for disease.

2. The combination of medicine and food to assist in the treatment of disease?

"Neijing" proposed: "medicine to get rid of, food to follow," food therapy is an important and indispensable content of integrated therapy. Ancient medical practitioners advocate relying on drugs at the stage of disease and evil blazing, once the disease and evil has been weakened, in the treatment of medicine at the same time, dietary nutrition must also be timely and ensure that to restore the positive energy, enhance its ability to resist disease. Jin Yuan four Zhang from Zheng advocates attacking the evil first, food after good, which is typical of the combination of medicine and food.

3. Identify the evidence of dietary treatment of disease?

The identification of dietary treatment is developed from the identification of the treatment. It is based on the theory of food, the four qi of food, five flavors, attributed to the meridian, yin and yang attributes and other closely related to the physiology of the human body as a guide to the theory and experience, for the patient's symptoms, according to the "five flavors are in tune with each other, the nature of the flavor connected to the" principle, as well as "the cold is hot, the hot is cold, the deficiency of the tonic, the solid is diarrhea. According to the principle of "the cold is hot, the hot is cold, the weak is tonified, and the solid is cured", relevant food and medicinal diets are applied to treat and nourish the patients, so as to achieve the purpose of curing the disease and rehabilitation. The patient's diet is basically divided into four categories: warm tonic, clear tonic, flat tonic, and specialized recipes.

● health care

Medicinal diets are used in health care for a large number and wide range. The emergence of health food and health food in recent times, refers to the health promotion for the purpose of tonic food. Today, our market health food is quite a lot, roughly the following types:?

1, tonic diet?

In the Chinese medicine herbs can be used to do tonic and therapeutic diet of 500 kinds of more than 1/10 of all the Chinese medicine herbs, and our government health authorities issued more than 70 kinds of Chinese medicine. These special therapeutic dietary foods, mostly from ancient books or folk experience in circulation as well as modern processing and improvement of products. Among the most commonly used medicines and foods are: ginseng, cordyceps, astragalus, yam, atractylodes, asparagus, poria, licorice, angelica, shouwu, yellow essence, walnuts, sesame, jujubes, bear's paw, bird's nest, aconite, turtle, coix lacryma, lotus seeds, honey, wolfberries, fungus, longan meat, royal jelly and so on. Ancient times, such as the "Ten Medicine Divine Book" in the jujube ginseng soup has the benefit of qi and blood, help yang moisten the intestines and so on. The food Jian Ben Cao" in the pig kidney wine, can cure kidney deficiency and lumbago, "Zunsheng eight paper" in the yellow essence cake, with the role of tonic lungs and lungs, and so on. These colorful special tonic food and medicinal food is unique to China.

2, with a variety of health effects of medicinal cuisine?

The combination of food and medicine made with a variety of health effects of many dishes. Such as therapeutic health effects of medicinal dishes, snacks, snacks, candies, preserves, and so on, to name a few. Such as the Yuan dynasty "mountain home supply" in the honey plum blossom, plum blossom preserved. Medicinal health drinks include soup, drink, wine, syrup, milk, tea, dew, juice and so on. Tea is mostly made of separate tea or mixed with certain drugs, such as wolfberry tea, jade mill tea, ginseng and wolfberry wine, etc. These are unique processing methods, with a variety of health effects of medicinal food.

● Enriching people's dietary life

Daily diet to add fitness, health and disease prevention food and delicious food is very popular among the masses. Because of the oriental characteristics of medicinal food, rich in food culture and artistic connotations, can be in the home, rest, drinking, entertainment and socializing, reception of guests, tourism, health care activities, enriching the content of dietary health care, improve the cooking technology, beautify people's lives, and carry forward the Chinese dietary culture and many other aspects of good and far-reaching impact.