🌿 Folk Prescriptions

Spring diet should be tailored to the specific climatic characteristics of spring.
1. Light Diet to Prevent Fire: Spring easily triggers fire symptoms—dark yellow urine, constipation, yellow tongue coating. Liver fire rises, further depleting lung yin, making one vulnerable to tuberculosis and other pathogens. Thus, spring diet should be light.
2. Pungent and Sweet Foods to Support Spring Yang: Early spring sees the initial rise of yang energy. Pungent and sweet foods help support this yang energy. Recommended foods include pungent-sweet items like scallions, ginger, dates, peanuts, wheat flour, buckwheat, corn, soybean milk, tofu, red beans, oranges, kumquats, bananas, apples, pears, and seafood or eggs. Those with yin deficiency and internal heat may choose duck meat, seaweed, mung beans, sugarcane juice, water chestnuts, and lilies to clear heat. Avoid sour, astringent, greasy, raw, or cold foods. Focus on foods rich in vitamins B and E to nourish the spleen and stomach.
3. More Sweet, Less Sour to Prevent Liver Overactivity: TCM holds that spring is the season when the liver governs the five zang organs. It is advisable to consume more pungent and sweet foods, while minimizing raw and cold foods to avoid damaging the spleen. To prevent "liver overactivity harming the spleen," one should moderately increase sweet-tasting foods and reduce sour ones. Sour foods enter the liver, sweet foods enter the spleen. Excessive sour intake can disrupt gastric acid secretion, impairing digestion and absorption. Thus, limit sour, astringent, and greasy foods to enhance spleen function. To prevent liver overactivity harming the spleen, eat more neutral-sweet foods like jujubes.
4. Regional Adaptation for Appropriate Tonification: Spring climate affects people differently across China. Northern regions remain cold, so warming tonification is still appropriate. As weather warms and yang energy rises, reduce warming tonics. Suitable choices include longan, red dates, chestnuts, lychees, yam, pig stomach, beef, ox stomach, sheep stomach, chicken, and quail. Southern regions face frequent rainy days, alternating cold and warm spells. Humidity increases during rain, affecting the spleen. Thus, tonify the spleen and remove dampness—foods like crucian carp, green fish, eel, white kidney beans, lotus seeds, and soy milk are suitable. On warmer days, opt for cooling tonics like tremella and lotus seeds.
5. Combat Spring Drowsiness with Vitamin C: Modern medicine suggests increasing intake of vitamin C-rich foods and fresh vegetables in spring. Deficiency in vitamin C contributes to spring drowsiness. Eating more carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, sweet peppers, celery, ma lan, and spring bamboo shoots is highly beneficial for spring dietary care.