Talking about food and nutrition from a historical perspective
Food and nutrition, as one of the brilliant cultural achievements of the Chinese nation, has taken root and sprouted in this land since ancient times and has been passed down to this day. The history of feeding can be divided into two stages: the first stage is the enlightenment and growth stage before the Tang Dynasty; The second stage is the stage of development, maturity and prosperity after Sun Simiao first put forward the theory of dietotherapy in Tang Dynasty. However, after the introduction of western medicine and nutrition into China, the concepts of food support and dietotherapy seem to become more and more vague, and their application is also confusing, lacking effective guidance. In order to trace the source and use it in order, today we mainly talk about the problem of food support before the Tang Dynasty from a historical perspective. Based on this, what we refer to as food and medicine refer to substances that have traditional usage habits and history in China, so medicine naturally refers to Chinese medicine or Chinese herbal medicines.
First, what is food support
According to the Book of Rites, as early as the Zhou Dynasty, there were full-time food doctors in the palace, whose main duty was to provide reasonable diet and nutrition for the Zhou royal family.
The word "feeding and nourishing" first appeared in the "On the Five Permanent Political Powers" in the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine (hereinafter referred to as the "Classic of Internal Medicine"), and it said: "The disease is new for a long time, and it is toxic and non-toxic, so it is appropriate to make it regular. Great poison cures diseases, and ten goes to the sixth; Often poison cures diseases, and ten goes to the seventh; A small poison cures a disease, and ten goes to eight; Non-toxic treatment, nine out of ten. Grain, meat, fruits and vegetables are exhausted, and they are not used to it, which hurts them. "
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that a healthy human body should be in a state of yin and yang balance, and illness is the reason for the imbalance of yin and yang. Medication mainly relies on the bias of drugs (some of which are toxic) to intervene in the human body in order to achieve a re-balance between yin and yang. If some drugs are cold, they can treat heat syndrome; Some drugs are too hot to treat cold syndrome. This is what Chinese medicine often says: "those who are cold are hot, and those who are hot are cold." Since drugs are obviously biased, even if they are not toxic, they are not suitable for long-term use without the guidance of doctors. For example, Cordyceps sinensis is a good thing and has no toxicity, but not everyone can eat it. Even the same person is suitable for eating today, but it may not be suitable for eating after a while. Nowadays, many people always think that Chinese medicine is very safe, and it is very wrong to eat it at random without the guidance of a doctor.
The quotation in the above-mentioned Neijing holds that medication should not be used too much, and it should stop at the stage of "healing" when the disease is cured, and use "food support" for recuperation and rehabilitation. This is to carry out rehabilitation work by choosing food with relatively more peaceful taste instead of medicine. Why do you want to do this? Neijing holds that "it hurts the righteousness". That is, I am afraid that it will hurt the healthy qi of the human body. According to modern theory, it is afraid that it will hurt the immunity and resistance of the human body. This is the source of food and nutrition.
Therefore, we must make it clear that the so-called food cultivation is a method to prepare corresponding food for human consumption through selecting appropriate ingredients, reasonable collocation and appropriate cooking and production methods, so as to recuperate the healthy qi of human body.
Second, the connotation of food support
As mentioned in the above quotation, when drugs are used to treat diseases, whether toxic or non-toxic, they should stop when the disease has gone to its sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth, and use more peaceful food instead of drugs to complete the aftercare work. I am afraid that if drugs are used blindly, even if they are non-toxic, their bias will damage the healthy qi of the human body. Therefore, the first aspect of the connotation of food and nutrition is the embodiment of the traditional Chinese medicine’s thought of "stopping the disease in the middle" and "eliminating evil without hurting righteousness" We modern people are always anxious to see the disease well, but often fall into the situation of overtreatment without knowing it. It is sad that children are eager to use antibiotics to reduce their fever as soon as they have a fever, so as to reduce their parents’ own worries and troubles.
There is a saying in the article "On the Time of Dirty Qi Method" in Neijing Su Wen: "Poison attacks evil, grains feed, five fruits help, five animals benefit, five dishes are filled, and the smells are combined to supplement lean qi."
Five grains, five fruits, five livestock and five vegetables are all foods. When they are used reasonably and balanced in nutrition, they can achieve the effect of replenishing essence. Supplementing essence and qi belongs to the category of "strengthening the body" mentioned by traditional Chinese medicine. "Eliminating pathogenic factors" and "strengthening body resistance" are the main methods of treating diseases in traditional Chinese medicine. The so-called eliminating pathogenic factors means using the partiality of drugs to eliminate pathogenic factors in the body, just like marching to fight, which means expelling the enemy from the country; The so-called righting means mainly using some drugs with tonic effect to support and cultivate healthy qi in the body, which means strengthening the strength of one’s own army. From the interpretation of Neijing, the righting can be done not only by drugs, but also by reasonable diet. Therefore, the second connotation of food support is the embodiment of the thought of "strengthening the body" in traditional Chinese medicine.
Third, the content of food support
Through the interpretation of Neijing and related classics, food and nutrition is still a guiding principle of traditional Chinese medicine, that is, the three-factor diet recuperation methods and dietary taboos due to people, time and place. The so-called "because of people" is based on individual’s different physique or illness; The so-called timing is based on different seasons or times; The so-called place is based on different regions or environments.
The content of food and nutrition mainly includes three parts: food suitability, food taboo and food and nutrition prescription.
The so-called food suitability refers to deciding what to eat, what ingredients to choose, what processing methods to use, etc. according to the above-mentioned three-cause principle, in order to maintain or recuperate the body to a healthy state of yin and yang. This part of the content has long been systematically expounded in Neijing, such as different foods suitable for eating according to seasons and different dietary guidance according to diseases.
On the issue of ingredients, we must point out that many people like to add some Chinese herbal medicines to their food. For safety reasons, please be sure to look for them in the list of 87 "dual-use" Chinese herbal medicines published by the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
About food taboos, it is also a dietary taboo based on personal health according to the guiding principles of the above three reasons. Generally speaking, food taboos generally refer to all dietary taboos, including those in healthy state, food dosage, food quality (i.e. whether it goes bad or not), food collocation and diseases. Dietary taboos during illness, commonly known as taboos, are mostly recorded in prescriptions of past dynasties.
As early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were a large number of books on food classics in China (unfortunately, most of them were lost), and some food-nourishing prescriptions gradually appeared. Most of them were presented in the form of medicinal diet, such as Zhang Zhongjing’s "Pig Skin Soup", which was made of fresh pigskin, white honey and white powder, but the appearance of a large number of food-nourishing prescriptions had to wait until the Tang and Song Dynasties.
Fourth, the application of food and nutrition
Before Sun Simiao put forward the theory of "dietotherapy" in Tang Dynasty, the content of diet recuperation in China was mainly manifested in food support. So, what were the main applications of food support before the Tang Dynasty?
First of all, of course, in the daily diet guidance, a reasonable diet is the application of food support.
Secondly, it is mainly used in the rehabilitation stage after treatment. As the saying in Neijing says, "Eat and nourish everything", after the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth diseases are removed, the recovery of the body is promoted by eating and nourishing. According to modern theory, on the one hand, it relies on its own immunity to fight against external evils, on the other hand, reasonable food and nutrition itself has a certain function of "replenishing essence and qi" to strengthen its own immunity, and a combination of the two can promote the recovery of the body. This application of food nutrition can effectively avoid the harm to human body in the process of drug use and prevent the occurrence of over-medical treatment, which is especially worth learning from. Of course, the choice of food and support depends on the specific situation.
Thirdly, feeding and nourishing is an important way to cure the disease before it happens. Since reasonable food and nutrition can play an effective role in "replenishing essence and qi", the body will naturally be less prone to illness.
Before the Tang Dynasty, food support was still in the stage of enlightenment and growth. The author believes that food support is not so much technology as thought and culture. In the Tang Dynasty, Sun Simiao, a famous doctor, effectively inherited and carried forward the thought and culture of food support, and innovatively put forward the theory of "food treatment". Subsequently, a large number of dietotherapy monographs and prescriptions appeared, marking the gradual transition of food support culture from the enlightenment and growth stage before the Tang Dynasty to the development, maturity and prosperity stage.