Almost every day, a patient asks me, “What should I take?” Nowadays, when many people encounter major or minor illnesses, this is the question that immediately comes to their mind. It seems that food is really medicine, can cure all diseases. In fact, from the point of view of Chinese medicine, although it is said that “medicine and food have the same origin”, but in practical application, food and medicine are still two different things, can be described as “the same source different stream”. We know that Chinese medicine has “four gases and five tastes”, four gases are cold, hot, warm, cool, is given by the sky; five tastes are acid, bitter, sweet, pungent, salty, is given by the earth. Tang Rongchuan, a famous doctor of the Qing Dynasty, said in the “Questions and Answers on the Materia Medica”: “Life is the sky and pro-earth, that is, the five movements of heaven and earth to give birth to five organs and six qi. Although all things are different from people, but no one is one of the heaven and earth to be born, especially things get a gas of the bias, people get the whole ear of heaven and earth. If the person’s gas bias win bias decay is born disease, and the use of drugs a gas bias, to adjust my body’s strengths and weaknesses, and make it return to peace, there is no disease! People get the most complete given by heaven and earth, so the human body has all the four gases and five tastes; things only get a part of the things given by heaven and earth, so there is bias, only one or several of the four gases and five tastes. When the body’s four qi and five tastes are incomplete or discordant, it will produce disease, and this partial nature of things can precisely complement or harmonize the body’s incompleteness, thus achieving the effect of curing disease. Therefore, grass, wood, birds and animals, gold and stone, anything that can rely on this partiality to cure diseases can be said to be medicine. Food is different, food in the four gases and five tastes than drugs, that is much more peaceful. Of course there are sour foods, but can it be compared to the five flavors? Of course there is bitter food, but it can be compared to yellow? Surely there is hot food, but can it be compared to the sophora? Therefore, if we want to combine food and medicine, it is not “four qi and five tastes”, but “five qi and six tastes”, and the four qi should add a “flat” qi, that is, not cold, not hot, not warm, not cold. Heat is not warm or cold kind of gas; five tastes inside to add a “light” taste. When our ancestors selected food, especially when selecting staple foods, they paid great attention to the selection of these bland smelling foods, so that after eating them, they would not break the original peace in the body. Drugs are drugs, food is food, they have a division of labor, can not be confused Usually when there is no disease, relying on a bland diet to maintain health; when there is a disease, you have to rely on the bias of drugs to correct the body’s disease. But now many people just the opposite, usually no disease when not pay attention to diet, always think about eating some health drugs, health care drugs, to the time of the real disease and do not want to take drugs, always think about what to eat to cure the disease. People, why do you always like to screw up? We must not think that eating food to eat not bad people, think that food therapy is how safe and universal, in fact, many diseases are eaten out. Diet only in the case of bland, can make people healthy, too spicy, too hot, too acid, too salty, too cold, too greasy things, are the source of disease. That’s why people often say: “Fish produces fire, meat produces phlegm, green vegetables and tofu keep safe.” Once your diet goes against the principle of “bland and light”, the problem will come. Therefore, when you are sick, you should stop asking “What should I eat?” and ask: “What can’t I eat now?” Because in sickness, there are more taboos about eating. Serious injuries and illnesses, do not rush to eat large fish and meat to nourish, which is tantamount to “by the invasion of soldiers and theft of food”, the more tonic the heavier the disease; hot weather in the summer, qi and blood in the table, the stomach cold, this time can not use too much cold, cold, greasy food; and in the winter, qi and blood in the, and to eat less spicy food, so as not to cause excessive sweating The body’s internal emptiness is also not to eat greasy food, generally speaking, eat some white rice porridge, pickles is the best, if you have to eat meat, glutinous rice, etc., only to fear that the evil to be stuck in the body, there is no way out; skin diseases, especially facial acne, do not eat spicy, especially do not eat river shrimp, seafood …… People often ask: “Health, what should I eat? How should I go about it?” In fact, this question itself is a misconception. Our life is busy enough tired, can not add to the chaos; we eat enough, enough mixed, enough irregular, and then eat what? Therefore, health can not do addition, but subtraction, to reduce the burden on the body. In the diet, when you reduce to a daily light meal, each meal is just rice, steamed buns, vegetables, radish, tofu and so on, you will find that your body is very fresh, the spirit is also very fresh. Blandness is the root of diet. There is a song that says, “Blandness is the real thing.” So is the healthiest diet, and so is the happiest life life.