How to prevent disease and fitness through diet and healing for children? Many parents have misconceptions about children’s diet and blindly believe that the more “good things” they give their children, the better, resulting in a decline in their children’s health and even illness.
Children’s diet is popular
In the growth and development and the whole life process, if you can maintain their own balance of yin and yang, the human body will be healthy; out of balance, the body will produce disease or adverse consequences. This is one of the most basic concepts of Chinese medicine in understanding the normal physiology and pathogenesis of the human body.
According to Chen Liang, children are in the process of growth and development every moment, and the old balance of yin and yang is constantly replaced by a new balance, which is the most fundamental difference between children and adults. In this process, although the dynamic balance of yin and yang can be regulated by themselves to a certain extent, children’s internal organs are delicate, their functions are not well developed, and their ability to resist diseases is not as strong as that of adults, so under the influence of external factors such as virus attack, sudden climate change, cold and warmth disorders, unclean diet, diet disorder, hunger and satiety disorders, excessive injury to the mind (such as excessive and premature intellectual development), and playing with things (such as playing amusement machines for a long time), children are prone to The lecture was attended by many parents.
During the lecture, many parents raised their hands to ask questions, mostly around “what should children eat and how to eat”, showing a great interest in children’s food therapy. Chen Liang said that medicinal food therapy uses the different biases of the natural properties of food or medicine to influence and balance the deviations of yin and yang in the human body, in order to achieve the purpose of health care and disease prevention. Because of its high safety, non-toxic side effects, edibility, children are easy to accept, so it is welcomed by many parents.
Many misconceptions about children’s health care
”Chen Liang told reporters that although parents attach great importance to children’s dietary health care, but there are many misconceptions.
Misconception 1: Tonic is harmless. Some parents believe that eating tonic harmless, more tonic to enhance the child’s body, the child grows faster, so ginseng, bird’s nest, wormwood constantly, chicken, duck, fish, meat meals have, resulting in children over-supplementation, or obesity, even precocious, or anorexia, thin and sickly.
Misconception two: the pursuit of curative effect. For example, the blind pursuit of curative effect of short, flat, fast, some people obviously healthy without disease, but also hope to get health care from the so-called “health products”, but the results are not what you want. “There is a kind of anti-food tablets, many parents let their children eat when they do not digest, but from the clinical point of view, half of them are eating the wrong, like spleen deficiency diarrhea of children can not eat this.”
Misconception 3: Simple mechanics. Many parents wonder, “The same formula, other children eat quite well, but my child ate why there are problems?” Chen Liang believes that this is too simple thinking, do not know that there are differences in children’s physique, the party is not the right symptoms, natural problems.
Myth 4: Ignore safety. “Synthetic things are best to let children eat less, cure with medicine if used too much can also hurt the muscle. In fact, the diet is the best thing, do not always let children take medicine, eat more nothing good.”
Three principles of children’s dietary health
How to make children have a healthy body through meals? Chen Liang introduced three major principles.
First, the principle of overall conditioning. People and nature are a whole, “people should obey the sky”, in order to pursue the inner balance of yin and yang, the coordination of the five elements, to maintain a good state of physiological, psychological and social life.
Second, the principle of balanced diet. The Neijing says: “Five grains for nourishment, five fruits for help, five animals for benefit, five dishes for enrichment, the smell combined and served to replenish essence and benefit qi.” In summary, for a healthy, disease-free child, meals should be rich and balanced. “Many parents let their children eat meat every day and not green vegetables, and as a result, an unbalanced diet disrupts the child’s internal balance and results in dry stools and bad breath. Children need to eat meat in addition to coarse fiber, as long as they eat well, sleep well and poop well, children will certainly grow well.”
Third, the “three reasons” principle of appropriate. The first is appropriate to the person. Chen Liang believes that children have different physiological and pathological characteristics from adults, it is appropriate to “flat tonic”, should not be “severe tonic”, “indiscriminate tonic”, the purpose of nourishment is to maintain a good state, to promote the normal growth and development process. The purpose of nourishment is to maintain good condition and promote normal growth and development process.
Children’s dietary health care must understand the physical condition of children, which can be divided into four common types: cold, hot, deficiency and real.
Cold physique: pale face, light red lips; hands and feet are not warm, afraid of cold; dry mouth and thirst, weak digestion, little food.
The amount of urine is light, the stool is thin, or easy to diarrhea.
Heat type physique: Children’s bodies are pure Yang, and “liver often has surplus”, so they are prone to heat type physique. Such as red face, red lips, eye droppings; easily excited, irritable, irritable; dry mouth, thirsty, like to eat cold drinks; urine short and yellow, constipated stools.
Deficient physique: white face, light red lips; short spirit, easy fatigue, easy sweating; poor appetite, soft or rotten stools; weaker physique, poor resistance to disease, easy to feel external evil.
Solid physique: rosy face, strong body, full of spirit, full of energy, lively and active; good appetite, like to eat cold drinks; easy to dry stools, urine color is more yellow.
Secondly, the time is appropriate. Chinese medicine believes that “spring and summer Yang”, “autumn and winter Yin”. Chen Liang especially reminded, Shenzhen spring and summer is long, autumn and winter is short, the use of air conditioning is also long, so you need to pay attention to the increasing number of “air conditioning disease”.
Third, the local conditions. Shenzhen is located in the south of the Lingnan, climate characteristics of more wet and hot, Shenzhen, this “hot” although suitable for parents to start a business, but the climate here also need to adapt to parents and children, and adapt to the climate of the important link, is a reasonable diet. Guangdong people often drink herbal tea, soup, porridge, is the use of food therapy to make the body’s internal environment to better adapt to the geographic and climatic environment.
Evidence-based food for the body type
”Children’s diets should be discriminatory and targeted at different physiques in order to achieve health care and disease prevention.” Chen Liang pointed out that medicinal food should be guided by professionals (herbalists, pharmacists), while food therapy is different, and every parent can master some basic knowledge of food therapy through learning.
The first thing to know about food therapy is the nature and taste of the food. Chen Liang said, when studying the role of food, Chinese medicine, with special emphasis on the taste of food, sex, taste is the most important part of food performance. The so-called “nature”, also known as “qi”, generally also known as “four qi” or “four sexes”, that is, cold, hot, warm, and The “nature” is also called “qi”, generally also known as “four qi” or “four nature”, namely cold, hot, warm, cool, as well as flat. The nature of food is outlined from the reactions that occur when food acts on the body, and is consistent with the effects of food consumption.
Generally speaking, the food that has the effect of clearing heat and draining fire, detoxifying and calming the liver, and functions to inhibit and damage the body’s yang energy (such as the yang energy of the spleen and stomach, the yang energy of the heart and kidney) is cold in nature, such as watermelon, bitter melon, purple cabbage, roo, pear, etc..
On the contrary, foods that have the effect of warming the middle and dispersing cold, helping Yang to replenish fire and benefit Qi, or can help heat and dry fire and deplete the body’s Yin (such as stomach Yin, liver Yin, lung Yin) are warm, such as ginger, onion, leek, garlic, chili, mutton, etc.
There are fewer foods that are too cold or warm. Some foods are very insignificant in their cold and hot nature and can be called flat.
Taste, also known as taste, there are pungent, sweet, sour, bitter, salty “five flavors. In practice, through the taste organs perceived by the astringent, light, numb, fresh taste.
Generally speaking, sour taste, including sour and astringent taste, has astringent sweat, diarrhea, astringent essence and other effects, such as plum, Hu Xie Zi.
Sour or sweet and salty taste, but also often have the role of thirst, digestion, such as plum, sour angle, prickly pear, vinegar, etc..
Bitter taste, has the effect of clearing heat and draining fire, cough and asthma, diarrhea, such as bitter melon, green fruit, wolfberry seedlings, dandelion, etc.
Sweet taste, has the effect of tonic deficiency, and the middle, slowing down the pain, such as chestnuts, sweet almonds, pumpkin, grapes, dates, etc., and a variety of animal meat, offal.
Sweet and light taste has a diuretic effect, such as coix seeds, winter melon, etc.
Pungent taste, including aromatic, spicy taste, sweating and relieving the surface, moving Qi, invigorating blood, resolving dampness, appetite and other effects, such as onion, ginger, rose, jasmine, pepper, etc.
The salty taste, mainly has the effect of softening the hardness and dispersing the knots, such as seaweed, nori.
In addition, the acidity of vinegar, the sweetness of sugar, the pungency of spices and the saltiness of salt are also indispensable condiments, which have the function of seasoning and appetite enhancement.
Parents master the four properties of food cold, hot, warm and cool, you can master the basic principles of children’s food therapy, and the most important principle, is to fit the child’s constitution. Chen Liang believes that many digestive tract diseases in children in the past were starved out, but now it is eating good food to eat out. “The so-called ‘conditioning’ is the application of specific dietary formulas to balance the yin and yang in the child’s body. Even if the body is deficient, you can not arbitrarily severe tonic, large tonic, to the flat tonic, slow tonic. For example, people with qi deficiency do not use ginseng but princely ginseng and sage.”
TIPS
Performance classification of common foods
”Food therapy is a kind of health care, eat the right, children less sick, or light, eat the wrong, will aggravate the disease.” Chen Liang pointed out that to choose a meal according to the child’s constitution, parents do not have to master the preparation of medicinal food, because it requires the guidance of herbalists or medicinal dieticians professionals, but it is best to understand the properties of some foods, especially to master the food (or medicinal food) cool (cold) warm (hot)
（However, it is best to understand the properties of some foods, especially the cool (cold) and warm (hot) properties of foods (or medicinal foods). The reporter asked him to classify the properties of some common foods.
Cereals
Cool (cold): wheat, barley, buckwheat, millet
Warm (hot): glutinous rice, sago, sorghum
Plain: japonica rice, corn, potatoes, taro, sweet potatoes, peanuts, sesame, oats
Beans
Cool (cold): mung beans, tofu, peas
Plain: soybeans, black beans, red beans, broad beans, soy milk
Vegetables
Cool (cold): celery, spinach, hollow cabbage, yellow cabbage, Chinese wolfberry, cabbage, amaranth, bean sprouts, lotus root, rape, kale, bamboo shoots, white radish
Warm (hot): mustard, leek, coriander, bean curd, garlic, onion, ginger, onion
Plain: Chrysanthemum coronarium, carrot, cabbage, cauliflower
Melon and fruit
Cool (cold): bitter melon, loofah, winter melon, cucumber, gourd, tomato, eggplant, mushroom, seaweed, kelp
Warm (hot): pumpkin, chili
Plain: shiitake mushroom, monkey head mushroom, silver fungus, wood ear, tea tree mushroom
Fruits
Cool (cold): apples, plums, pears, mandarins, bananas, watermelons, persimmons, grapefruit, lemons, olives, pineapples, sugar cane, loquats, cantaloupes, poppy peaches, oranges, mangoes, groundnuts
Warm: lychee, kumquat, durian, longan, papaya, walnut
Plain: grapes, pomegranates, peaches, apricots, yellow skin, lotus seeds
Animal meat
Cool (cold): pig skin, pig brain, rabbit meat
Warm (hot): pig liver, pig blood, beef, beef bones, dog meat, mutton
Plain: pork, pork heart, pork lung, pork belly, pork intestine, pork kidney, pork feet, pork bone, beef liver, beef tripe, pigeon meat
Poultry meat
Cool (cold): duck meat
Warm (hot): chicken liver, chicken meat
Plain: black-bone chicken, goose meat, quail meat
Milk and eggs
Cool (cold): duck egg, skin egg
Warm (hot): goat’s milk
Plain: milk, eggs, quail eggs
Aquatic products and frogs
Cool (cold): crabs, snails, mussels, frogs
Warm (hot): grass carp, scallop, eel, shrimp, sea cucumber, tamari, woolly fish
Plain: carp, carp, white eel, silverfish, yellow croaker, cuttlefish, sea bass, turtle, turtle, oyster, jellyfish, mud carp
Seasoning category
Cool (cold): tea
Warm (hot): cinnamon, pepper, wine, brown sugar
Plain: salt, sauce, vinegar, rock sugar, white sugar
What is medicinal food therapy
Medicinal food therapy is a cross-disciplinary discipline that combines Chinese medicine with traditional Chinese food culture and culinary science. “Most of the raw materials used for the production are both food and medicine, and although there are differences in the methods used for processing and cooking, there is an inseparable link between them, so in practical application they are often together called In practical application, they are often combined as medicinal food and food therapy.
In short.
Medicinal food = Chinese medicine + food + cooking techniques + processing methods (strict preparation and concoction), which need to be carried out under the guidance of professionals (herbalists or medicinal dieticians).
Food therapy = food + cooking techniques + processing methods (proper preparation), which parents can master through learning.