To eat is to eat seeds

Why does Chinese medicine emphasize “five grains as nourishment”? The grains are the seeds of plants, and the seeds are the essence of plants. According to TCM diet and nutrition, different parts of the plant contain different qi and spirit.

The most essential things are contained in the seeds. And the protein structure of the seed itself is completely different from the protein structure of other parts.

That is to say, when you take this material energy inside the seeds and transform it into your own essence, the amount of your own energy consumed is the lowest. If you eat other parts, you still need to go back to consume your own energy, so eating seeds is the very right choice.

In the sense of TCM diet and nutrition, what we call eating should actually be eating seeds, and the other things are just for the next meal. Therefore, you should not reverse the main guest.

Five grains nourish where

Having said that, what exactly are the five grains? To understand the five grains in detail, we need to first understand the cold, hot, warm, cool and meridian. Corresponding to our liver, heart, spleen, lungs and kidneys, the seeds we need to eat are wheat, millet, corn (millet), rice and beans (beans).

Although, there is no problem to eat the five grains, but we should not eat them blindly. Because the five grains have different tonic effects on different organs of the body respectively. Here, let’s learn more specifically about.

01 liver Qi deficiency, to eat more wheat, especially oat

Avena sativa is a very beneficial grain for the human body. Oat and oat is not the same, oat needs to meet the “three ripe”.

The so-called three ripe means: first, it is ripe itself; second, it has to be concocted, fried once with fire; third, it needs to be steamed again, so oat noodles of fire, warmth is particularly large, so the liver deficiency cold people eat some oat noodles is very good.

In Inner Mongolia and Jinbei, people eat oat noodles, eat yellow rice cake, are a tradition, can withstand the local cold wind and frost, which is also determined by the local topography, climate conditions.

02 Eat more millet when your heart is on fire

When one’s heart fire is particularly strong, with strong desires and excitement to sleep all day, one should eat a little more millet.

There are two interpretations of millet: one is yellow sticky rice, which is rhubarb rice; another is Panicum, which refers to sorghum. I am inclined to endorse the latter interpretation.

03 Spleen Qi deficiency, eat more corn

The most easily digested and absorbed grains are millet. Many people tell me that millet is cold, which is the answer on the Internet, but in fact millet is warm.

But if you drink millet thin porridge is too thin, it will easily cause frequent urination. Because the taste of millet porridge is sweet and light, sweet and light things are more diuretic. So many people go to the toilet very often after eating millet thin porridge.

So, people thought of eating fried rice again, fried a little bit of burnt bitter taste, to balance the sweet and light itself. In fact, this is like we drink plain water easy to urinate, put some bitter tea leaves, drink it is the same.

The real millet porridge is the kind of thick, not soup and water stuff. Pregnant women drink millet porridge after childbirth, but also the millet above the rice essence rice oil boiled out, that is the most nourishing.

04 When the lungs are deficient in qi, eat more rice

Planting rice, first of all, needs water. And the northern climate is dry, so the origin of rice is mainly in the south, called rice. The rice produced in the northeast is also good, but rice is colder, and many people tend to produce stomach acid after eating. Then if we want to eat Northeast rice, but afraid that rice cold will cause stomach acid how to do? In fact, to the rice stew, add some cumin or cinnamon with pungent warmth inside, you can balance the coldness of the rice.

Common rice includes: japonica rice, glutinous rice, brown rice.

Japonica rice has the heaviest qi of autumn. We basically eat this kind of rice everyday. It is the kind of rice that is planted and harvested the latest, and has the heaviest autumn golden qi and autumn cool qi. There is a prescription called Bai Hu Tang, which is for clearing lung heat, in which this kind of rice called japonica rice is used. Why is it called white tiger soup? It takes the tendency of the heat to subside as the sun sets in the west.

According to Chinese medicine, “Bai Hu” represents the west, which corresponds to the cool and dry Qi of autumn. Named after the white tiger, the formula describes the rapid effect of heat relief, like the cool, dry breath of autumn on the earth, sweeping away the heat and humidity of the summer.

Glutinous rice, high in protein and low in starch. Glutinous rice is particularly sticky, with high protein content and low starch content, and we often use this rice to make sticky snacks. The more glutinous the rice, the better it tastes, so it requires people to pound glutinous rice, and the more glutinous rice is pounded, the stickier it is, the less digestible it is.

There is a prescription called Gui Zhi Tang in the “Treatise on Typhoid Diseases”, and there is a note after the prescription, which mentions that when taking Gui Zhi Tang, “forbid cold, sticky and slippery”. What do you mean by raw, cold, sticky and slippery? Raw, cold we all know, such as fruit, cold drinks or something; “sticky” refers to the nature of glutinous rice such food; “slippery” refers to food like bananas, bananas are sweet and cold, easy to eat after diarrhea, with the role of slippery intestines.

Brown rice refers to rice with bran, which can still germinate when placed in water. Brown rice is rice grain off the hull, but is the inner protective skin intact rice. In common parlance, it is rice that is hulled, unhusked, with bran, and can still germinate when placed in water. Now people actually need to eat some bran, because we eat too much refined rice, so that many people’s stomach is more and more delicate.

05 Eat more peas when the kidney is weak

Kidney is a very difficult thing, many people say that the kidney needs to eat beans, but we can not grab a handful of beans to eat, so some people play soy milk to drink. In fact, such a way to eat beans, eat more not only does not help, but will make the abdomen bloated. This is why? The beans into soy milk is just good to eliminate, but still not good.

The correct way to eat beans is to make tofu to eat, and it is best to eat brine point tofu. Tofu itself is finely ground, and both nutritious and delicious.

In addition, tofu, soy bean curd, stinky tofu, or eating tofu is the best choice to supplement the kidney. However, patients with chronic nephritis, renal insufficiency, and gout are not suitable for eating more soy products.