🌿 Folk Prescriptions

TCM emphasizes "dietary restrictions" in treatment. The term "dietary restriction" has two meanings: first, whether the medicinal herbs and food have conflicting properties; second, whether certain foods may trigger adverse reactions to the disease.
During early stages of colds, while taking herbs that release exterior and dispel cold, one should avoid raw, cold, and greasy foods. If children are irritable, fever persists, and show signs of thirst and dry stool, they may eat fruits or drink fruit juices such as watermelon, pear juice, or mung bean soup. During recovery from colds, after fever subsides, children often overeat and feel constantly hungry—this is precisely when one must avoid binge eating and greasy, rich foods, as doing so may cause relapse or prolonged illness. For example, children with diarrhea must avoid raw, cold, and greasy foods, and their diet should be light. Another type of dietary restriction is avoiding "stimulating foods"—foods that may trigger or worsen conditions like skin sores, rashes, cough, or asthma. These are mostly seafood such as ribbonfish, yellow croaker, carp, crucian carp, crabs, shrimp, meats like lamb, dog meat, chicken, donkey meat, horse meat, and vegetables like leeks, shiitake mushrooms, celery. These foods are mostly sweet and warm, with aromatic-drying properties, easily causing internal heat upon consumption.
Another category involves food-drug interactions. Just as there are eighteen antagonisms and nineteen fears among herbs, similar prohibitions exist between drugs and food. For example, softshell turtle shell (Bie Jia) should not be taken with amaranth greens; Schizonepeta should not be taken with fish or crab; Heavenly Gate Root (Tian Men Dong) should not be taken with carp; White Atractylodes (Bai Zhu) should not be taken with peaches, plums, or garlic; Coix seed (Tu Fu Ling) and Clematis (Ling Xian) should not be taken with honey. After taking tonics, avoid radish seeds and extremely cold or cool foods.
The final category involves individual constitution-based restrictions. Children with weak spleen and kidney should avoid raw, cold, sticky, and slippery foods; those with weak spleen should avoid spicy, aromatic, and drying foods; children with heat symptoms should avoid fried, grilled, or roasted foods; those with lung disorders should avoid spicy foods; those with edema should avoid salty foods; those with jaundice should avoid greasy foods. Of course, spoiled or unclean foods, raw meat, wild mushrooms, and underripe fruits are also prohibited.