Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is the traditional medicine in China, and it is the material basis to ensure the prosperity of the Chinese nation. Diet is a necessity for human survival, both of which belong to the ancient traditional culture of China. People use the word "homology of medicine and food" to reveal the inevitable relationship between them. "homology of medicine and food" means that Chinese medicine and food originated at the same time.
The ancients believed that medicine and food were homologous. There is a saying in Huangdi Neijing-Angry Heaven: "Yin gives birth to five flavors; Yinwufu is tasteless. " Put forward the viewpoint of harmonizing and tasteless regulating yin and yang, and record the harmonious intake of "sour, sweet, bitter, pungent and salty" to keep people healthy. Tai Su in Huangdi's Internal Classic in the Tang Dynasty wrote: "Eating on an empty stomach is food, and patients take medicine", which embodies the idea of "medicine and food are homologous".
China is known as "the homology of medicine and food". Chinese medicine believes that food is medicine, or equivalent to medicine. Because they are homologous, common and effective. The attributes of food are consistent with those of drugs, including qi, taste, ups and downs, meridian tropism, reinforcing and reducing, etc. It is applied under the guidance of basic theories of traditional Chinese medicine such as yin and yang, five elements, viscera, meridians, etiology and pathogenesis, and treatment principles and methods. There is no clear boundary between food and medicine in traditional Chinese medicine, so there is food in drug therapy and medicine in diet therapy.
Medicine and food have the same origin and a long history. According to records, it has a history of more than 3000 years. In the long primitive society, our ancestors gradually divided some natural products into food, medicine and poison. In slave society, with the development of productive forces, cooking technology gradually formed, soup and liquid appeared, soup and wine were invented, and then medicinal liquor was made. With the implementation of wine-making technology, vinegar, sauce, lobster sauce, stir-fry and so on have been produced, enriching the medicinal content. The Zhou Dynasty had the earliest full-time nutritionist in the world-a dietician. "Book of Rites" records "five kinds of grains and five medicines to raise their diseases", and "Shan Hai Jing" contains the content of eating fish and birds to treat diseases. The first medical theory monograph Huangdi Neijing appeared in the Warring States Period, which not only laid a theoretical foundation for dietotherapy, but also collected dietotherapy prescriptions. Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing in Han Dynasty is the first medical monograph in China, which contains many medicated diets. Zhang Zhongjing's Treatise on Febrile Diseases and Synopsis of the Golden Chamber contain therapeutic prescriptions such as pigskin soup, angelica and ginger mutton soup. Tang Dynasty is an important stage in the development of dietotherapy in China. Sun Simiao's "Prepare a Thousand Gold Prescriptions for Urgent Care" is the earliest extant monograph on dietotherapy in China, which comprehensively and systematically expounds the theory of combining dietotherapy with food and medicine for the first time. He emphasized in "Wings of a Thousand Daughters": "If you can eat it and relieve its illness, it can be described as a good job, and you can learn the wonderful methods of life for many years and accumulate the skills of health preservation. When a husband is a doctor, he must first know the source of the disease, know what disease he has committed, treat with food, and then take medicine. " During the Song, Jin and Yuan Dynasties, the theory and application of dietotherapy developed greatly. The theory of "dietotherapy" in Taiping Shenghui Fang in Song Dynasty recorded the treatment prescriptions of 28 diseases. The book "Supporting the Aged and Caring for the Family" describes the diet, health care and treatment of the elderly. Diet is about to be written by Hu Sihui, Minister of Diet in Yuan Dynasty, and it is a complete monograph on nutrition. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, a large number of books on diet and health preservation appeared, and some works on wild vegetables appeared, which expanded the food sources. Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica also contains more than 200 kinds of medicinal foods.
The understanding of "homology of medicine and food" should be viewed from two aspects: one is that Chinese medicine and food are produced in the same way, and the other is the same source.
So-called Chinese medicine and food are produced in this way. Traditional Chinese medicine, like food, comes from thousands of years of life practice of our ancestors and is the crystallization of long-term struggle with nature and disease. Primitive people's initial mode of production-trying and looking for food, often in the case of hunger, inevitably ate some poisonous or seriously physiological animals and plants by mistake, resulting in obvious pharmacological effects and even death. After repeated experiments for countless times, they have a second understanding of animals and plants, that is, they have produced primitive Chinese medicine, so eating is an important way to accumulate knowledge and experience of Chinese medicine.
The so-called Chinese medicine and food are homologous, and both Chinese medicine and food come from animals and plants in nature. Moreover, it is difficult to completely separate many Chinese medicines from food. It can be said that they have two jobs, one is grain medicine, such as rice sprouts, malt, Huai wheat and floating wheat, and the other is vegetables, such as shepherd's purse, radish, mustard tuber, yam, lily, lotus root, patrinia, wax gourd and floating wheat. Fruits such as hawthorn, dark plum, longan, orange, grapefruit, lotus seeds, almonds, figs, etc. And condiments such as rhizoma kaempferiae, ginger, cinnamon, clove, pepper, star anise, fennel, tsaoko and the like. , more common in animals, including snakes, livestock, aquatic products and wild animals. The homology of medicine and food makes Chinese medicine have a strong flavor of life, and also strengthens its practicality and experience. People's life contains Chinese medicine, which is produced in people's life.
In the traditional Chinese medicine, there are similarities and differences between medicine and food. Huainanzi? Xiu Shi Xun said: "Shennong tasted the taste of a hundred herbs, and the sweetness and bitterness of the water spring made the people know how to avoid it." At this time, I encountered seventy poisons a day. "It can be seen that there is no distinction between medicine and food in Shennong era, and those who are non-toxic can be exempted." With the accumulation of experience, medicine and food began to differentiate. After using fire, people began to eat cooked food, and cooking technology gradually developed. "Su Wen?" "Tang Lao" said: "The Yellow Emperor asked: What are you doing for the five-grain soup Lao?" "The emperor said: The ancient sages made soup mash, why not use it? Qi Bo said: Since ancient times, sages have made soup mash, thinking it was for your ears! "Grains soup is food, and mash is medicinal liquor and medicine. It can be seen that at this time, food and medicine began to differentiate, and dietotherapy and drug treatment also began to distinguish. Neijing has excellent theories on dietotherapy, such as "great poison cures diseases, ten eliminate six;" "Often poison cure, nine times out of ten; Small poison cures all diseases, ten in and eight out; Non-toxic treatment, nine times out of ten; Whole grains, vegetarian fruits and vegetables, food and nutrition, not too much, hurt its meaning ",this can be called the earliest principle of dietotherapy. "
From the development process, medicine and food were homologous in ancient times. After thousands of years of development, medicine and food have been separated. If we look at the future prospects, we may return to simplicity, taking food as medicine and replacing medicine with food.
According to the dietary standard of China's ancient theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements, medicine and food are homologous and divided into five flavors: sour, sweet, bitter, pungent and salty, and hot, cold, flat, warm and cool, which have various effects and changes on human internal organs with their unique properties. For example, after food enters the human body, "acid is in the liver, sweet in the spleen and stomach, bitter in the heart and small intestine, bitter in the lungs and large intestine, salty in the kidney and bladder". The other five properties, such as raw food, are cold to human body, but their properties will change according to different food conditioning methods, such as raw radish is cold, boiled water is flat, pepper is hot, and so on. Food changes according to the conditioning methods, such as scalding, boiling, roasting, smoking, frying and steaming. Also known as "natural chemical change".
Chinese medicine diet theory, that is, the theory of the relationship between medicine and diet. In traditional Chinese medicine, medicine and food are homologous, complementary and mutually utilized, and there is no strict boundary between medicine and food. It is a remarkable feature of traditional Chinese medicine to combine the two to preserve health and treat diseases. "Tonifying food" has long been discussed in China's ancient medical book Huangdi Neijing, and the influence of the smell of drugs and food on the rise and fall of Yin and Yang is expounded in Su Wen-Yin and Yang. Zhang Zhongjing, a medical sage, is the first monograph on "dietotherapy" in his medical practice. It can be seen that Chinese medicine, like Chinese medicine, pays attention to the four characteristics of cold, heat and cold and the five flavors of pungent, sweet, sour, bitter and sensuous. The ancients said: qi and blood are reasonable, and all diseases are not born; The imbalance of qi and blood leads to all diseases. Everything is food. The correct diet can turn everything into the unity of food and medicine, because everything can be eaten or taken properly because of the place, body and illness, and the normal needs and metabolism of the human body can be rapidly strengthened. Many facts have proved that everything is medicine and everything is vegetable. The homology of medicine and food means the homology of medicine and food.
Speaking of dietotherapy, it originated very early. Legend has it that ancestors tasted grass, opened up food sources and invented drugs, so there is a saying that medicine and food are homologous. It used to be said that food is the foundation of living, and medicine is the speed of saving lives. Comparing diet with medicine, people think that although there are many kinds of animals, plants and processed products that can be eaten, their five colors, five flavors, cold and heat, and reinforcing and reducing properties all belong to yin and yang and five elements. In this sense, it is no different from the application of medicine. Therefore, doctors also pay attention to the suitability, taboos and modulation methods of diet, and have accumulated a lot of valuable knowledge of treating diseases with diet, which is also discussed in ancient medical books and has special works.
Traditional Chinese medicine medicated diet therapy has profound cultural and historical origins, theoretical basis and clinical practical experience. Our ancestors understood the close relationship between food and medical care very early. The earliest pharmaceutical monograph in China, Shennong Materia Medica Classic, records that jujube, sesame, honey, grapes, lotus seeds, yam, walnuts and other foods have the functions of tonifying kidney, replenishing essence and helping yang. Ancient medical scientists also established the homology theory of medicine and food, invented medicated diet, and skillfully used foods with medical functions to increase nutrition and achieve the purpose of strengthening the body. In the long-term practice of survival and development, people found that animals and plants have dietotherapy function, forming the initial medicated diet; With the formation of the theory of essence, yin and yang and the theory of five elements in TCM, medicated diet has been further developed under the guidance of TCM, and the ideas of four-season tonic, dialectical food, nourishing the dirty with the dirty and nourishing the shape with the shape have been formed one after another. In addition, the appearance of ancient dietotherapy made medicinal diet formally integrated into traditional medicine. The homology theory of medicine and food laid the theoretical foundation of Chinese medicine dietotherapy.
Dietotherapy includes two main methods. First, the preparation and cooking of food can give full play to its medical functions. First, mix the appropriate drugs. Although drugs were used, food was given through technical treatment. In recent years, some Chinese medicine hospitals have set up dietotherapy, and some places have also set up medicated diet halls and medicated diet halls, which combine Chinese herbal medicines for healing and strengthening the body with traditional dishes in China to form a medicated diet with Chinese medicine characteristics, which has a preventive effect and is delicious in color and fragrance. All kinds of health drinks, tea, sugar and tonic medicinal liquor are deeply loved by the masses.
China people are full of food wisdom and pay attention to the concept of "medicine and food are homologous". The so-called "medicine and food are homologous, food depends on its strength, and medicine helps it to eat" refers to delicacies with different pharmacological effects and different effects. Dietary health care pays attention to the principles of matching meat and vegetables, blending five flavors, moderate diet, good cooking and four seasons taboo. China's so-called "food is the sky for the people" and "food is the sky for the people" means that "food is the sky for the people" and "people feed their five internal organs". If humans lose the ability to eat, their health will be damaged, because diet and medical care have the same healing power to the human body.
The homology of medicine and food is a dietotherapy article that gave birth to China's medical logic theory.
Cultural thoughts have already penetrated into the hearts of people of all ethnic groups in China. It can not only maintain life and health, but also achieve the purpose of treatment.