🌿 Folk Prescriptions

Some traditional habits quietly dictate meal order—for example, eating fruit after meals or drinking soup before meals. What sequence is most rational and scientifically sound?
Fruits: Before meals? After meals? Between meals?
1. Before meals: Consuming fruit before meals can quickly replenish glucose, especially beneficial during hypoglycemia. Fruits are rich in dietary fiber, which induces satiety after consumption, reducing appetite and thus decreasing intake of protein, starch, and fat during main meals.
2. After meals: Many people habitually eat fruit immediately after meals. However, consuming large amounts of fruit right after eating causes rapid blood glucose spikes, increasing pancreatic burden, disrupting digestion, and impairing nutrient absorption.
3. Between meals: This is the optimal time to eat fruit. Generally, between 9–10 a.m., 3–4 p.m., or two hours before bedtime. Healthy individuals may consume 1–3 servings daily. Diabetics may have one serving of low-sugar or moderate-sugar fruits like watermelon, kiwi, apple, or pear between meals when blood sugar is stable, about 200g.
Drinking Soup: Before meals? After meals?
First, let’s examine types of soups:
1. Clear Soup: Made primarily from vegetables and melons, such as cabbage soup, loofah soup, winter melon soup, etc. Ingredients include seasonal vegetables, winter melon, loofah, cucumber, dried mushrooms, dried vegetables, tofu, etc. These soups generally have no contraindications.
2. Concentrated Soup: Rich, long-simmered broths made from bones and skinless meat, or from pork bones, chicken feet, skin-on poultry, and fatty meats, high in saturated fats. These soups contain abundant purines and should be avoided by gout patients. They may also irritate the gastrointestinal tract, so not suitable for those with weak digestive systems, elderly, children, or pregnant women.
3. Other Soups: Any soup containing fruits (e.g., papaya, apple, jujube, red dates, lotus seeds), herbs (e.g., Codonopsis, Angelica), root tubers, or dried beans, especially those with sweet or starchy textures, may raise blood sugar if consumed excessively. Thus, they should only be consumed in moderation.
Drinking a small amount of soup before meals helps replenish bodily fluids, lubricates and protects the mouth, esophagus, and gastrointestinal tract, aids in dissolving food, and promotes digestion and absorption. However, excessive soup before meals dilutes digestive juices, impairing digestion and absorption. Additionally, since stomach volume is fixed, large amounts of soup occupy space, reducing intake of main meals and compromising nutritional balance. Therefore, it is advisable to drink a moderate amount of clear or other soups before meals.