Very black

Author: Zhang Enlai
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: Black foods refer to plant and animal raw materials and foods that contain natural black melanin. Due to the presence of natural melanin, their color is dark black or varying shades of deep brown. Some varieties have black outer skins, while others are black both inside and out, and some have black interiors despite black exteriors. Additionally, there are artificially produced black foods, such as black plums, soy sauce, fermented soybeans, and century eggs. Black foods are widely distributed in nature, including grains like black beans, black mung beans, black rice, black sesame seeds, and black wheat; aquatic and aquatic products like cuttlefish, black carp, loaches, sea cucumbers, kelp, nori, and water chestnuts; vegetables and fungi like black fungus, shiitake mushrooms, perilla, mountain ferns, black moss, hazelnuts, earth ear, eggplants, and purple mung beans; fruits like blueberries and purple grapes, as well as some processed foods like longans, black plums, pickled mustard greens, sprouts, and century eggs.
Traditional Chinese medicine has long discussed the relationship between the "colors" of food and health preservation. The five colors of food correspond to the five internal organs of the human body: red enters the heart, green enters the liver, yellow enters the spleen, white enters the lungs, and black enters the kidneys. Modern nutritionists have studied and found that black foods not only have high nutritional value but also provide strong health benefits to the human body. For example, black animal foods are rich in protein; black plant foods have higher fat content and contain polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are beneficial for nourishing brain cells and preventing blood cholesterol deposition. In addition to being rich in B vitamins, they are also abundant in riboflavin, which is often lacking in the dietary structure of China.
Furthermore, most black foods have a unique advantage in that the ratio of calcium and phosphorus they contain is reasonable. For instance, black fungus, black sesame seeds, black moss, nori, kelp, and black carp are often eaten, which is highly beneficial for correcting imbalances in calcium and phosphorus ratios in the diet. Black foods not only give people a sense of simple, rich, and robust appetite but also help regulate physiological functions, stimulate the endocrine system, promote saliva secretion, benefit digestion, enhance hematopoietic function, increase hemoglobin levels, and have moisturizing and hair-blackening effects. It is clear that black foods are rich in nutrients and greatly benefit our health.