Autumn - Guangdong Nourishing Soup - Seasonal03

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Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: The term "clear nourishment" primarily refers to selecting dietary ingredients that are balanced or slightly cold in nature. Specifically, it involves consuming foods that aid in strengthening the spleen, clearing heat, and promoting diuresis. On one hand, this helps expel internal damp-heat pathogens through urination, eliminating the "after-effects" of summer's intense heat. On the other hand, it regulates spleen and stomach function, laying a foundation for nourishment in the mid-to-late autumn and winter. During this time, it's a good idea to consume more foods like mung bean porridge, lotus leaf porridge, red bean porridge, jujube and lotus seed porridge, and yam porridge. For those with weak spleen and poor digestion, it's essential to avoid rich, nourishing yin-tonifying foods like deer horn glue and donkey-hide glue, as they can easily worsen symptoms such as loss of appetite and digestive issues. Instead, consuming foods like millet porridge or broad bean porridge, which have (spleen-strengthening and dampness-dispersing) properties, can be highly beneficial.
After the early autumn, although the weather becomes increasingly cooler day by day, there are often still hot days. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, if high temperatures persist, with sunny and rainy days being scarce and prolonged drought, warm-dryness may occur without invitation. It often damages the body's fluids, causing symptoms such as dry skin, red and dry tongue with little moisture, dry and brittle hair, constipation, dry mouth, nose, and throat, dry cough with little phlegm, and chest pain. In late autumn, cool-dryness harms the lungs, leading to cough with thin phlegm, dry throat and lips, and stuffy nose. However, whether it's warm-dryness or cool-dryness, the key characteristic is dry skin and fluid deficiency.
To prevent dryness in autumn, balanced foods or herbs with (nourishing yin and moisturizing dryness) and lung-nourishing, fluid-producing properties should be consumed in the mid-to-late autumn. Examples include stewing tremella or black fungus with rock sugar to consume, boiling yu zhu and sandalwood with ducks into soup, or roasting black sesame seeds, grinding them into powder, and mixing with honey to take.
To combat dryness, it's advisable to eat more fruits, with pears and sugarcane being the best choices. Others like water chestnuts, bananas, and loquats are also excellent moisturizing foods. However, those with spleen deficiency and excessive dampness causing diarrhea, or those with lung cold and sticky phlegm cough, should avoid consuming too many of these fruits.
It's important to note that autumn nourishment should prioritize clear and balanced methods. Except for those with yang deficiency, avoid overconsuming warm and heating foods or herbs like lamb, dog meat, ginseng, deer antler, and cinnamon, as this can easily worsen dryness. Additionally, autumn nourishment should be tailored to individual needs. Therefore, for those who are weak or have chronic conditions, it's best to consult a doctor for personalized nourishment under the guidance of TCM principles to achieve optimal results.
Drink more honey and less ginger in autumn
The main climatic feature of autumn is dryness, with insufficient moisture in the air and the body. To adapt to this dryness, we must frequently "replenish fluids" to mitigate its effects on the body. Drinking more water becomes a necessary measure to combat autumn dryness. However, simply drinking plain water is not enough to fully counter its negative effects. Once water enters the body, it is quickly evaporated or excreted. Thus, ancient Chinese medical practitioners provided us with an excellent dietary remedy for dryness: "morning salt water, evening honey soup." In other words, plain water is prone to loss, but if a small amount of salt is added to it, the situation changes significantly, making the water less likely to be lost. This method aligns with modern medical practices of replenishing physiological fluids for patients.