Chinese Traditional Medicine is well-known for incorporating a number of approaches to achieve all-round health and wellbeing. Natural food cure is chief among these methods, and the correct use of herbs and nutritional supplements are reported to have curative qualities. When treating that most common and aggravating of heath conditions, the common cold, Chinese complementary methods could be the key to a quick recovery.
With Chinese medicine, there is no need to get complicated. The most common items of cuisine can make a considerable difference to one’s sense of wellness; a fact supported by all schools of naturopathy. In the case of colds and flu, look first to your supermarket shelves for assistance. Ginger soothes your throat and warms your stomach, and celery is a great way to clear heat in the body. For cold symptoms such as a dry cough and sore throat, favourite food treatments are white fungus, pear, lily bulbs, lotus root, carrot, radish and water chestnuts.
Depending on where you are in the world, some of these food items may present a challenge to acquire. Finding all the ingredients you can it is best to take them raw; with the exception of white fungus, which should be boiled. You might like to incorporate the ingredients al dente in a soup, which will also serve to hydrate and soothe your throat.
The curative qualities of these ingredients are greatly enhanced by the use of Chinese herbs. Consult your local Chinese herbalist about dwarf lilyturf tuber, honeysuckle, crysantemum, dark plum and licorice. Any of these can be taken in the form of a herbal infusion, or combined to make a delicious and medicinal soup. Two to three grams of each of the above are the recommended combination. For viruses, consider adding dyer’s woad leaf to the mixture.
In case this culinary combination is failing to incite your appetite, consider researching and recreating a traditional Chinese soup recipe. White fungus soup with water chestnuts and lily bulbs, dark plum soup with licorice and sweet olive blossoms and pear soup with fritillaria bulb are recipes that will see you enjoying haute cuisine in the comfort of your own home. What better way to treat yourself than to know you are curing your cold in the process!
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