Taste and efficacy of fruits from a Chinese medicine perspective

The Qing Dynasty physician Wang Shixiong wrote the “Suixiju Dietary Recipes”, which excerpted the taste, efficacy and contraindications of some fruits. Plum: Sour and warm. Dipped in salt and eaten raw can warm the gall bladder and produce fluid. If eaten in excess, it hurts the teeth and generates phlegm and heat. Phlegm-damp disease such as phlegm cough, fullness and women with menstrual disorders should not eat. Apricot: sweet, sour, warm. When ripe, it can moisten the lungs and produce body fluid. Eating more will produce phlegm and heat, and move the persistent disease. Not suitable for maternity and pediatric patients. Peach: Sweet, sour and warm. When eaten when ripe, it nourishes the heart and blood, quenches thirst and fills hunger. If eaten in excess, it generates heat, which can cause canker sores, worms, dysentery and other diseases. Among them, water peach is suitable for consumption as it generates heat. Plum: sweet, sour and cool. When eaten ripe, it clears the liver and cleanses heat, activates blood and generates fluids. If eaten in excess, it helps to produce phlegm and induce malaria and dysentery. Avoid for people with weak spleen and stomach. Apple: sweet, cool. It can promote the appetite, moisten the lungs, and satisfy the hunger and wake up the wine. Jujube: Fresh is sweet and cool. Beneficial to the intestines and stomach. Sun-dried is sweet and warm. Nourish the spleen and stomach, nourish the camp and fill the liquid, moisten the lungs and calm the mind. The red color is called red dates, appetizing the stomach and nourishing the heart, strengthening the spleen and replenishing blood. If you eat more, it will give birth to worms, phlegm, help heat, and damage teeth. Pear: sweet, cool. Moisten the lung, clear the stomach, cool the heart, cleanse heat, rest wind, phlegm, calm the cough, nourish Yin and moisten dryness, disperse knots and intestines, eliminate carbuncles and gangrene, stop thirst, treat stroke incoherence, phlegm fever, frightened madness, summer temperature and other diseases. Its juice is “born to drink manna”, spleen and stomach weakness often feel cold in the abdomen and long ejaculation avoid eating. Persimmon: Fresh product is sweet and cold. Nourishes the yin of the lungs and stomach. The dried product is sweet and flat. Strengthening the spleen and stomach, moistening the lung and astringent intestines, stopping bleeding, filling hunger, eliminating noma and treating hemorrhoids. Treats regurgitation and erratic flow, and heals intestinal wind. Easy to eat more persimmon stone. Orange: Sweet, flat. Moistens the lung and quenches thirst. If eaten, it produces phlegm and drinks. Not to be eaten by patients with wind-cold cough and phlegm. Walnuts: sweet, warm. Moisten the lung, benefit the kidney, benefit the intestines, dissolve deficient phlegm, cure strain and asthma, and stop deficiency pain. It has the effect of strengthening the waist and feet, warming the kidneys, dispersing wind and cold, opening the blood vessels, replenishing the deficiency of production, and moistening the skin. But help fire and phlegm, if not cold, should not eat more. Watermelon: sweet, cold. It clears the spleen and stomach, relieves summer heat, relieves irritation and thirst, awakens the wine and cools the camp, and has the reputation of “born white tiger soup”. Can treat throat paralysis, mouth sores, fire poison, cholera, diarrhea and dysentery. If you eat more, it will accumulate cold and help dampness, loose stools, and should not be eaten after illness and childbirth. Sugar cane: sweet, cool. It clears heat, harmonizes the stomach, moistens the intestines, clears alcohol, and dissolves phlegm. It can cure paralysis, summer dysentery, stop hot cough and vomiting. It is a great tonic for spleen and yin, helps the throat, strengthens the muscles and bones, calms the wind, and nourishes the blood. The pulp is called “Tien Tien Fu Pao Tang”, with good efficacy of green-skinned sugarcane. Purple-skinned sugar cane is warm in nature. Mushroom: sweet, bitter and cold. It can break the blood, promote lymphatic flow, slough off the fetus, and benefit the orifices. Excessive consumption can cause sores, move blood, produce wind, and damage teeth. Not to be eaten by pregnant women, canker sores and blood loss. Rhizoma: Fresh is sweet and cool. Clear heat. Eating more of it will damage Yang and help dampness, so people with cold stomachs and weak spleens should not eat it. Cooked sweet, flat. More food stagnation, chest and abdominal distension is contraindicated. Longan (cinnamon): sweet, warm. Nourishes the heart, calms the mind, calms the spirit, benefits the spleen and nourishes the yin. It is not suitable for those who have not cleared external sensation, have internal stagnant fire, have stagnant drink, and are full and not hungry. Hawthorn: sour, sweet, warm. It is used to awaken the spleen, eliminate meat and food, break blood stasis, disperse knots, relieve distention, resolve alcohol, resolve phlegm, remove noma, and treat diarrhea and dysentery. If you eat more, you will lose your breath and teeth and get hungry easily. Citrus: Sweet, cold. Clears heat and quenches thirst. If you eat more, it will stop drinking and make you feel cold and sick. Olive (green fruit): sour, sweet, flat. Appetite and body fluid, eliminate phlegm, eliminate thirst, cool the bile, clear the throat. Loquat: sweet, flat. Moistens the lung, cleanses heat and generates fluids; more consumption will produce phlegm and help dampness.