🌿 Folk Prescriptions

First Strategy: Increase Vegetable Intake to Boost Fiber
During festivals, social engagements rise and physical activity decreases, leading many to suffer from constipation or irregular bowel movements. Increasing fresh vegetable intake post-festival helps replenish dietary fiber. Aim to gradually adjust your diet with plant-based meals throughout the day. Breakfast must include vegetables—fresh greens like celery, lettuce, mustard greens, and carrots are best consumed as main dishes. These vegetables, rich in chlorophyll, beta-carotene, vitamins, and fiber, balance nutrition with meat, fish, and eggs, and help regulate the gastrointestinal tract.
Second Strategy: Drink More Porridge and Eat Whole Grains
After a festival filled with fatty meats and rich foods, the intestines become greasy. Excessive oily foods overload the stomach, causing digestive strain, inflammation, even gastric dilation. It may also trigger intestinal dysfunction, leading to indigestion and diarrhea. Post-festival, quickly switch to light foods to help the digestive system recover.
Experts recommend drinking more porridge and soups—such as fresh leafy vegetable soup or millet porridge—for several days. Adding pickled vegetables enhances their “cooling” effect, allowing your overstressed gastrointestinal tract to rest and recover.
Also, during these few days, prefer whole grains as staple foods—such as moderate additions of corn, oats, etc.
Third Strategy: Drink Tea to Counteract Greasiness
Cantonese people traditionally drink tea, which is beneficial for overloaded digestive systems after overindulging in food. Tea clears grease from the gastrointestinal tract, helping it return to normal function.
TCM believes tea tastes bitter, sweet, and cool, with functions of generating saliva, quenching thirst, clearing heat and toxins, aiding digestion, stopping diarrhea, calming the mind, and enhancing alertness. Tannins in tea stimulate intestinal motility and gastric juice secretion, thus increasing appetite, promoting smooth digestion, and helping relieve constipation without medication. Caffeine in tea stimulates the central nervous system, boosts metabolism, increases alertness, and helps concentrate mental energy, effectively relieving fatigue. However, those with neurasthenia or insomnia should avoid tea after evening hours to prevent sleep disruption.
Fourth Strategy: Eat Fruits to Aid Digestion
Fried foods are delicious and often favored during holidays, but overconsumption overwhelms the digestive system, causing spleen-stomach heat stagnation, leading to constipation or bloating. Excessive sweets contribute to spleen deficiency and damp accumulation, resulting in diarrhea. Experts suggest choosing fruits wisely to restore digestive balance.
For example, eat more bananas. Scientific studies show bananas contain natural antibiotics that inhibit bacterial growth, increase lactobacilli in the colon, and promote intestinal movement—helpful for bowel cleansing and detoxification. TCM holds that bananas clear heat toxicity, calm nerves, alleviate feverish thirst, hemorrhoids, and constipation.
Additionally, grapefruit contains abundant dietary fiber, promoting intestinal movement, offering special benefits for bowel clearance, preventing colds, and detoxifying alcohol.
Orange juice and papaya effectively regulate digestion, both having the ability to clear heat stagnation. Drink a few glasses of orange juice or eat papaya during this period, but wait 1–2 hours after meals—drinking immediately after eating adds extra burden to the stomach.
Moreover, apple juice helps regulate the gastrointestinal tract; sugarcane has functions of clearing heat, moistening lungs, quenching thirst, promoting urination, relieving constipation, detoxifying alcohol, and eliminating bad breath—helpful for nausea and vomiting. Tomatoes taste sweet and are slightly cool, helping generate saliva, quench thirst, and aid digestion.
Restoring Gastrointestinal Health After Festival
New Year celebrations are joyful, inevitably involving rich feasts and drinking. Yet some forget moderation. Overeating and irregular routines first signal distress through the digestive system. Therefore, post-festival health recovery should begin with gut adjustment.
Xiao Huang, aged 28, returned home with his new wife for the New Year. After continuous banquets hosted by relatives and friends, even a young and strong man like him felt overwhelmed: bloating, nausea, lack of appetite, and persistent stomach pain after meals. After enduring several days, he finally went to the hospital in Guangzhou and was diagnosed with chronic gastritis.
Lao Zhang, over 50, already had high blood pressure. During the reunion dinner, he drank alcohol out of excitement, causing blood pressure spikes, intestinal vascular spasm, leading to acute pancreatitis and subsequent intestinal obstruction. He was hospitalized on Lunar New Year’s Day.
Dr. Liu Fengbin, Director of the Department of Gastroenterology at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, stated that February 5th, the first day after the holiday, saw one-third of patients visiting the department due to improper festival diets. The most common cases were: (1) indigestion caused by overindulgence in greasy foods; (2) acute gastroenteritis triggered by raw, unclean, or repeatedly refrigerated foods. Dr. Liu warned that prolonged overeating harms the gastrointestinal tract and may trigger gastric diseases. If left untreated, recurrent episodes could turn into chronic conditions.
Relief Strategy 1:
Food Stagnation — Eliminate Dampness and Resolve Stagnation, Temporarily Stop Tonics
Rich family dinners with oily dishes like fish, pork, rice cakes, and fried snacks, if consumed without restraint, easily lead to TCM-defined “damp-heat” and “food stagnation.” Mild cases present bloating, constipation, poor appetite; severe cases may involve vomiting, lethargy, and low-grade fever—commonly referred to as “food stagnation.” Internal heat can also trigger external infections, leading to colds.
To address such post-festival ailments, first control diet—eat light to allow the gastrointestinal tract to rest. Plain vegetables and congee are ideal choices. Commonly used herbal medicines include Baohe Wan, Baoji Wan, Jianwei Xiaoshi Pian, and Fuke’an for clearing heat and relieving pain. Digestive aids like yeast tablets, polyenzyme tablets, Dajie capsules, and metoclopramide (Ma Ding Ling) can also be kept at home.
Dr. Liu suggests using TCM dietary methods to clear heat and dampness. For instance, eat radishes to aid digestion, or add herbs like Xi Huang Cao and Plantain Grass to soups for clearing heat and removing dampness. Those accustomed to winter tonics should pause temporarily.
Relief Strategy 2:
Acute Gastroenteritis — Treat According to Symptoms, Drink “Sugar-Salt Water”
Eating raw, unclean, or previously refrigerated foods can cause acute gastroenteritis. Dr. Sun Guining, Chief Physician of the Department of Gastroenterology at Guangzhou General Hospital of the Guangzhou Military Region, advises against using prokinetic drugs for vomiting and diarrhea, as they may worsen diarrhea.
Alongside targeted use of anti-inflammatory drugs like berberine and antispasmodics like atropine, it’s essential to drink plenty of fluids to prevent dehydration and electrolyte imbalances (e.g., sodium and potassium). Drinking too much plain water may dilute blood, causing “water intoxication.” A better option is 0.9% saline solution or sugar-salt water (100 ml water + 11 g sugar + 0.9 g salt). Vitamin B complex helps regulate nerve function, aid digestion, and relieve fatigue—so supplementing with multivitamin B post-holiday is advisable.
If diarrhea is mild, dietary adjustments alone may suffice. But if diarrhea reaches six or seven times per day, seek medical help promptly. Diabetic patients experiencing acute gastroenteritis symptoms should see a doctor immediately, as this may trigger diabetic ketoacidosis—a potentially fatal condition.
Special Note:
Do Not Attempt Rapid Colon Cleansing
Some young people enjoy fasting for rapid colon cleansing, but doctors discourage this practice. While temporary fasting under medical supervision via IV fluids may be acceptable, self-imposed fasting for cleansing risks dehydration and hypoglycemia, disrupting internal balance. Especially discouraged for those with weak constitutions.
Additionally, certain groups require special care. Dr. Sun Guihua notes that diabetics already have vulnerable nerve endings and weaker gastric motility, making them prone to “gastroparesis”—a digestive motility disorder causing belching, nausea, and even vomiting undigested food after eating. Thus, such individuals must adjust and treat earlier than average people if they overindulge during holidays.
(Expert Interviewees: Dr. Liu Fengbin, Director of the Department of Gastroenterology, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine; Dr. Sun Guining, Chief Physician, Department of Gastroenterology, Guangzhou General Hospital of the Guangzhou Military Region. Article by Lin Qingqing)
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Dietary Recipes for Digestive Relief
During the Spring Festival, excessive consumption of foods that generate heat and phlegm—like sweets, pastries, and fried items—can impair the spleen and stomach, leading to poor appetite. Irregular eating habits, overindulgence in greasy, cold, or hard-to-digest foods damage spleen-stomach function, or result from pre-existing spleen-stomach weakness and impaired transformation and transportation, causing food stagnation and loss of appetite. Here are several recommended dietary recipes to aid digestion and resolve stagnation:
· Papaya and Carp Tail Soup
Ingredients: 1 papaya, 100 grams carp tail.
Method: Peel and chop papaya. Clean carp tail, fry briefly in oil, add papaya and a few slices of ginger, pour in sufficient water, and simmer for about one hour. Season and serve.
Function: Nourishes and aids digestion. Helps with food stagnation, abdominal distension.
Papaya, also known as “Wanshouguo,” tastes sweet and is slightly cold when ripe. Its papain enzyme aids food digestion and absorption, effective for indigestion. Its lipase breaks down fats into fatty acids, facilitating fat digestion. Papain also promotes and regulates pancreatic juice secretion, beneficial for digestive disorders due to pancreatic insufficiency. Carp tail tastes sweet, is warm in nature. Functions: warms the stomach, harmonizes the middle, and resolves food stagnation.
· Barley Sprout and Hawthorn Drink
Ingredients: 10 grams barley sprouts, 6 grams hawthorn, 10 grams brown sugar.
Method: Remove impurities from barley sprouts and stir-fry until golden. Stir-fry hawthorn until charred. Boil both in adequate water for 30 minutes, filter, collect about 250 ml of juice, add sugar, and consume in divided doses.
Function: Resolves food stagnation, harmonizes the stomach, suitable for food retention and loss of appetite.
Barley sprouts taste sweet, are slightly warm. Function: aids digestion, harmonizes the stomach. Modern research shows barley sprouts mildly stimulate gastric acid and pepsin secretion, aiding digestion. They contain amylase, invertase, and proteolytic enzymes—all digestive enzymes useful for treating loss of appetite, indigestion, overeating, and food stagnation.
Hawthorn tastes sour and sweet, slightly warm. Function: strengthens the spleen, opens the stomach, resolves stagnation, enhances appetite, especially effective for resolving greasy meat accumulation. Modern pharmacological studies confirm hawthorn contains lipase and increases gastric enzyme secretion, promoting digestion.
· Red Radish Tea
Ingredients: 250 grams red radish, a little brown sugar.
Method: Boil red radish in water, add a little brown sugar, and drink as tea frequently.
Effect: Promotes qi flow and aids digestion. Suitable for children with food stagnation, indigestion, abdominal distension, uncontrollable vomiting or diarrhea, and irritability.
Red radish tastes sweet, is neutral in nature. It tonifies the spleen and stomach, aids digestion, clears intestinal heat, detoxifies, and relieves cough. Useful for indigestion and food stagnation.
· Three Fresh Digestive Drink
Ingredients: 20 grams fresh hawthorn, 30 grams fresh radish, 6 grams fresh green tangerine peel, appropriate amount of rock sugar.
Method: Wash and slice hawthorn, radish, and green tangerine peel. Combine in a pot with adequate water, bring to a boil over high heat, then simmer over low heat for 30 minutes. Discard residue, collect juice, add rock sugar, and boil until dissolved. Take 3 times daily, 20–30 ml each time. One course lasts 3 days.
Function: Strengthens the spleen, promotes qi flow, opens the appetite, aids digestion, disperses stagnation. Suitable for children with food stagnation.
Tangerine peel tastes pungent and bitter, is warm in nature. It regulates qi and strengthens the spleen, used for abdominal distension and lack of appetite due to spleen-stomach qi stagnation.