🌿 Folk Prescriptions

From a TCM perspective, diet in spring is a matter of great importance to ancient health practitioners. This season sees yang energy rising and vitality flourishing, yet it is also when pathogens and microorganisms multiply and revive, making diseases prone to spread. Proper diet can boost immunity and prevent illness.
Principle: Increase sweetness, reduce sourness
As noted by renowned Tang Dynasty physician Sun Simiao in *Qianjin Fang*, "In spring, reduce sourness and increase sweetness to nourish the spleen and stomach." This means reducing sour foods and increasing sweet ones to support the spleen and stomach qi.
TCM holds that spring corresponds to the liver. Easily, liver qi becomes excessive, negatively affecting the spleen and stomach, impairing normal digestion and absorption. Sweet-tasting foods nourish the spleen and stomach, whereas sour tastes enter the liver and are astringent in nature. Overconsumption hinders the rise of yang energy and liver qi dispersion, further intensifying already excessive liver qi, causing greater harm to the spleen and stomach. This is one reason why chronic gastritis and gastric ulcers often recur in spring.
Sweetness vs. Taste
In TCM, "sweet" refers not just to taste but primarily to food's ability to nourish the spleen and stomach. Among such foods, jujubes and yam rank first.
Modern research shows regular consumption of yam or jujubes boosts immunity. Cooking jujubes, yam, rice, and millet together into porridge not only helps prevent recurrence of gastritis and gastric ulcers but also reduces risk of influenza and other infectious diseases—making it ideal for spring consumption.
Beyond jujubes and yam, other sweet-tasting foods include rice, millet, glutinous rice, sorghum, coix seed, cowpea, broad bean, soybean, cabbage, spinach, carrot, taro, sweet potato, potato, pumpkin, black fungus, shiitake mushroom, longan, chestnut, etc. Individuals can choose based on personal preference, preferably consuming more. Also, limit intake of cold-natured foods like cucumber, winter melon, and mung bean sprouts—they hinder the rise of yang energy in spring. Instead, eat more warming foods like scallion, ginger, garlic, chives, and onion, which help expel cold and disperse dampness.
Additionally, in northern China, spring is often windy and dry, causing many to suffer from sore throat, bad breath, and constipation—common signs of "internal heat." Moderately eating nourishing-yin and moistening-dryness foods like honey, pear, banana, lily, rock sugar, sugarcane, and white radish can provide relief.
People with gastritis must pay extra attention to diet
Spring is the season when chronic gastritis, gastric ulcers, gallstones, and hepatitis are most likely to recur. Thus, those with these conditions should be particularly careful with their diet. It is best to drink yam porridge or millet porridge regularly. Avoid acidic foods like hawthorn and plum.
For those with gallstones or hepatitis, besides following the principles of "reducing sourness and increasing sweetness" and "nourishing yang," they should also limit fatty foods to prevent recurrence of liver and gallbladder diseases.
Nourishing Yin and Moistening Dryness Recipes
Honeyed Radish Juice: 500g white radish, washed, peeled, chopped, and juiced. Take 60ml juice each time, mix with 20–30g honey, stir well, and consume three times daily.
Honey Steamed Lily Bulb: 50g lily bulb, 50g honey. Wash lily, separate petals, soak in clean water for half an hour, drain, place in bowl, add honey, steam over water for about one hour.
Honey-Preserved Snow Pear: 500g snow pear, washed, remove stem and core, place in pot, add adequate water, boil until seven-tenths cooked. When water nearly evaporates, add more water and 250g honey, simmer slowly until fully cooked and syrup reduced. Cool, store in bottle or jar. This food effectively moisturizes, generates body fluids, and relieves thirst.
Sugarcane Juice Rice Porridge: 500g fresh sugarcane, peel off, cut into pieces, juice extracted. Cook 60g rice into porridge, add 60ml sugarcane juice after boiling, bring to a boil again before serving.
Lily Bulb Lotus Seed Porridge: 30g dried lily bulb, 30g lotus seed, 30g rock sugar, 100g rice. Wash lotus seed, soak in water to soften. Wash dried lily and rice, add to pot with lotus seed, add sufficient water, bring to boil over high heat, then simmer over low heat. Add rock sugar when nearly cooked, cook slightly longer.
Lily Flower Yam Porridge: 10g lily flower, 30g yam, 30g rice, appropriate rock sugar. Wash yam, peel, slice thinly. Wash rice, add to pot with yam, add water, cook into porridge. Add washed lily flowers when porridge near completion. After boiling twice, add rock sugar, cool before eating.
Sweet and warming foods are most suitable for spring consumption.