Dietary Herbal 1000 Questions

Author: Zhou Jianjun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
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(1) There are various flavors and functions of medicinal herbs, which are generally summarized in traditional Chinese medicine as the five flavors: pungent, sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. Pungent actually includes irritating flavors like numbing and spicy, as well as fragrant scents (often referred to as pungent fragrance in traditional medicine). Sweet not only indicates a sweet taste but also refers to some bland, edible substances that are close to sweetness. Sour sometimes also includes flavors that are close to astringent. Only bitter and salty are single flavors. In dietary herbal medicine, the flavors assigned to foods mostly align with their actual tastes, but this is not always the case. This is because ancient practitioners, after identifying patterns in the functions of flavors through practical experience, no longer relied solely on tasting to determine flavors but could also deduce them based on functions. For example, since salty flavors are known to have effects like softening hard masses and resolving stagnation, any food with such effects can be classified as salty, such as Enteromorpha, kelp, and clams. The functions and primary treatments for each flavor are described as follows:
① Pungent flavor: Has functions like dispersing external pathogens, promoting qi flow, activating blood circulation, opening orifices, and transforming dampness. It treats conditions like external cold syndromes, qi stagnation, blood stasis, blocked orifices, and dampness obstruction, such as scallions, ginger, mustard greens, garlic, rose flowers, wine, and jasmine flowers. Additionally, pungent flavors have the effects of flavoring and improving digestion, such as Sichuan peppercorns, black pepper, chili peppers, cinnamon, and ginger.
② Sweet flavor: Has functions like nourishing, harmonizing the stomach and spleen, and soothing pain. It treats conditions like deficiency syndromes (or malnutrition), stomach and spleen disharmony, and spasmodic abdominal pain, such as sweet potatoes, pumpkin, chestnuts, sweet almonds, Tremella fuciformis, grapes, lychees, jujubes, and malt sugar, as well as the meat or internal organs of various animals. In sweet and slightly sweet foods, some can also promote diuresis and eliminate dampness, such as coix seeds, broad beans, water chestnuts, and winter melons. Additionally, sweet flavors have excellent effects in flavoring and correcting taste, such as white sugar, brown sugar, honey, and stevia.
③ Sour or astringent flavor: Has functions like astringency and consolidating the body. It treats conditions like excessive sweating, chronic cough and asthma, prolonged diarrhea, enuresis, or nocturnal emissions, such as plums, rose hips, schisandra, hawthorn, and rosehips. It is also worth noting that sour or slightly sweet-sour foods often have functions like generating saliva to quench thirst or aiding digestion, such as plums, tamarind, lemons, seabuckthorn, rose hips, hawthorns, and vinegar. Among these, the sweet-sour taste of vinegar, apart from stimulating the appetite and aiding digestion, is also a commonly used seasoning for dishes.
④ Bitter flavor: Has functions like clearing heat, expelling fire, stopping cough and wheezing, and purgation, such as bitter gourds, burdock roots, creeping fig, goji leaves, roxburghia, duckweed, persimmon leaves, and dandelions. However, bitter flavors are rarely found in foods, even when present, they are not prominent, and their effects are not strong. This is clearly different from medicinal herbs.
⑤ Salty flavor: Has the primary function of softening hard masses and resolving stagnation, treating conditions like scrofula and phlegm nodules, such as Enteromorpha, kelp, and nori. Additionally, the five flavors have relative tendencies toward different organs, as stated in the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon: "When the five flavors enter the stomach, they each return to their preferred organ, so sour first enters the liver, bitter first enters the heart, sweet first enters the spleen, pungent first enters the lungs, and salty first enters the kidneys." This tendency is primarily reflected in the effects of foods on different organs (regions). Strictly speaking, the five flavors do not solely act on one organ; the selective effects of foods are manifested in their various functions. For example, if a food can generate saliva to quench thirst, it indicates an effect on the stomach; if it can astringe and stop diarrhea, it indicates an effect on the large intestine; and if it can activate blood circulation and regulate menstruation, it indicates an effect on the liver. Some functions themselves reflect the target organ, such as strengthening the spleen and draining dampness, nourishing the liver and kidneys, and soothing the liver and regulating qi. As for why functions can reflect the organs that foods act on, it is because functions target corresponding symptoms, and symptoms primarily occur in different organs, with different organs producing different symptoms. For example, insufficient body fluids in the stomach cause thirst, and the function of generating saliva to quench thirst targets this symptom, thus reflecting its effect on the stomach. Similarly, if the large intestine is not firm, prolonged diarrhea will not stop, and astringent effects on the large intestine can target this symptom, reflecting its effect on the large intestine. This is how it works. Since various functions are closely related to the five flavors, the factors of the five flavors are also included in the way functions reflect the organs that foods act on. P12-13