🌿 Folk Prescriptions

To prevent lung cancer, quitting smoking is essential. Beyond that, daily care for the lungs is crucial. For healthy individuals, embracing the concept of dietary therapy by incorporating nutrient-rich tonics into everyday meals can naturally strengthen lung health. Autumn and winter bring dry, cold weather—precisely when the lungs are most vulnerable. At this time, choosing recipes that nourish and moisturize the lungs is like dressing your lungs in a warm, soothing layer.
Recipe One: Southern Apricot Pork Lung Soup
Ingredients: Apricots come in sweet (southern apricot, Nanxing) and bitter (northern apricot, Beixing) varieties. Southern apricot is a seed of the apricot tree, with a sweet, neutral, non-toxic nature. It contains amygdalin, fatty oils, sugars, proteins, resins, vicine, and apricot oil—making it a gentle, moistening agent effective for relieving coughs and soothing the lungs. With over 50% fatty oil content, its moisturizing effect is particularly strong.
Pork lung, with a sweet, neutral nature, treats lung deficiency cough and hemoptysis, offering lung-strengthening benefits.
Preparation: Thoroughly rinse a pig’s lung multiple times. Cut into slices, squeeze by hand to remove foam from airways. Then add 15–20 grams of southern apricot (ensure you use southern, not northern apricot), place in a clay pot with water, and stew. Season to taste.
Function: Suitable for general people suffering from dry cough due to autumn-winter dryness. Effective for dry cough without phlegm, constipation, and dry throat caused by impaired lung Qi in cold seasons.
Recipe Two: Codonopsis and Polygonatum Old Duck Soup
Ingredients: Codonopsis (usually Northern codonopsis), sweet and slightly cold in nature, enters the lung and stomach meridians. Contains alkaloids, starch, and codonopsin. It nourishes yin, clears lungs, benefits the stomach, generates fluids, removes false heat, and treats dry cough.
Polygonatum, sweet and slightly cold, enters the lung and stomach meridians. Its moist texture contains convallatoxin, convallarin, kaempferol glycoside, quercetin glycoside, vitamin A, starch, and mucilage. It nourishes yin, moisturizes dryness, and relieves constipation.
Old duck, sweet, warm, non-toxic, enters the spleen, stomach, lung, and kidney meridians. Functions include nourishing yin, enriching blood.
Preparation: Use one old duck (must be old duck), pluck feathers and clean internal organs thoroughly. Add 30–50 grams each of codonopsis and polygonatum to a clay pot, simmer gently for over one hour, then season.
Function: Treats lung dryness and dry cough. Effective for post-illness weakness, fluid deficiency, and intestinal dryness leading to constipation. Also a highly nourishing recipe.
Recipe Three: Lotus Seed and Lily Bulb Stewed Lean Pork
Ingredients: Lily bulb, slightly bitter and sweet, neutral in nature, enters heart and lung meridians. Contains colchicine and other alkaloids, starch, protein, fat, and various vitamins. It moistens lungs, stops cough, nourishes yin, clears heat, calms the heart, and harmonizes the middle energizer.
Lotus seed, according to *Shennong Bencao Jing*, “mainly supplements the center, nourishes spirit, and strengthens vitality.” *Compendium of Materia Medica* states lotus seeds “connect heart and kidney, thicken intestines, solidify essence, strengthen willpower, supplement deficiencies, benefit hearing and vision, and eliminate cold-dampness.”
Lean pork: Traditional Chinese medicine holds that all parts of pigs offer benefits. Lean pork provides abundant animal protein, which pairs well with lily bulbs and lotus seeds, producing enhanced effects.
Preparation: Select about half a catty (250g) of lean pork, add 30g each of lotus seeds and lily bulbs, plus sufficient water, steam over water until cooked. Season to taste. (Note: “steaming over water” means covering the container with a lid and steaming in a steamer.)
Function: This dish is nutritionally balanced. Besides moisturizing and nourishing the lungs, it treats neurasthenia, palpitations, and insomnia. It also serves as a nourishing food for recovery after illness. Overall, it’s a wholesome, safe daily dish.
Additionally, you may use 60–100g each of lotus seeds and lily bulbs, add sugar and water, and stew as a sweet dessert. Not only is it deliciously sweet, but it also offers high nutritional value and similar benefits.
Recipe Four: Rock Sugar Tremella Porridge
Ingredients: Tremella (also known as white fungus or snow fungus), sweet and bland, neutral in nature, enters lung and stomach meridians. Contains protein, fat, carbohydrates, crude fiber, and inorganic salts.
Functions: Nourishes yin, moistens lungs, nourishes the stomach, and generates fluids. Rock sugar, sweet and neutral, enters spleen and lung meridians. Tonifies the center, benefits qi, soothes the stomach, moistens lungs, stops cough, and resolves phlegm.
Preparation: Use 10–12g of tremella. Rinse a few times, soak in cold water (just enough to cover) for about one hour. Once swollen, remove impurities. Place tremella and rock sugar in a bowl, add cold water, and steam over water for 2–3 hours.
Function: Nourishes yin, moistens lungs, generates fluids, and quenches thirst. Useful for dry cough in autumn and winter, and excellent as a tonic for weak constitution.