🌿 Folk Prescriptions

China has long had the tradition of tonic supplementation during winter. With the arrival of the Winter Solstice, households are once again preparing for winter tonics. However, how can one supplement scientifically? Why must supplementation be individualized? How can women scientifically supplement based on age, constitution, and physiological characteristics? Many people know little about this.
As a result, products like ginseng lozenges, kidney-tonifying capsules, deep-sea fish oil... have flooded the market, and women's bags and office desks are filled with various supplements.
In fact, scientific winter tonics first require "knowing how to supplement," which means mastering the secrets of women's scientific tonification. Experts recommend focusing on three key points:
Supplementing vitamins is not just about taking a few capsules; it's a long-term process. If your body isn't healthy, the vitamins you take may only be wasted. Nutritionists have designed a nutritional menu to transform "capsule beauties" into real "V-beauties"—vitamin beauties.
【Key Point One】Herbal Tonics Are Less Effective Than Food Tonics
Experts remind: It's better to start with food tonics than to rely heavily on supplements during winter. Only food tonics truly strengthen the body's resistance. Women can choose different food tonics based on their constitutions, categorized into four types:
Neutral Tonics refer to foods with balanced nature suitable for both healthy individuals and patients, helping maintain health and life—such as grains, legumes, dairy, fruits, and vegetables. These foods have mild properties and can be consumed by those with yin deficiency, yang deficiency, qi deficiency, or blood deficiency.
Warm Tonics refer to foods with warm or hot nature, such as beef, lamb, eel, sweets, red dates, longan, lychee, and spicy ingredients like scallions and ginger. Women who feel cold in winter often eat these to boost warmth, improve cold sensitivity, and enhance physical strength.
Cooling Tonics refer to foods with cold or cool nature, such as pears, raw lotus root, celery, lilies, mung beans, cucumbers, soft-shelled turtles, and snails—these have heat-clearing effects.
Warm-Dispersing Tonics refer to foods with pungent and hot flavors, such as chili peppers, cinnamon bark, mustard, coriander, and Sichuan pepper. These foods help warm yang and dispel cold, commonly used in winter for warming and removing dampness.
With improved living standards, eating is no longer just for the stomach but also for the taste buds. For many women enjoying a comfortable lifestyle, good taste alone isn’t enough—what matters most is nourishing the body. Nutrients should be complete, calories and fat minimal, ideally with special benefits… We’ve gathered so much information on healthy eating, allowing discerning women to enjoy delicious meals from head to toe…
【Key Point Two】Winter Tonicing Should Follow Medical Advice
Professor Qiu Yongshu, Secretary-General of the Shanghai Medical Expert Consultation Center, emphasized when discussing women’s winter tonics: Scientific, individualized tonics are essential. Always follow medical advice. If suffering from gynecological conditions, seek professional treatment at specialized gynecological hospitals. In today’s era of highly specialized medicine, only qualified physicians, advanced techniques, and professional equipment can effectively relieve women’s pain and promote health.
【Key Point Three】Supplementation Must Be Individualized
To achieve maximum benefit from winter tonics, one must target specific constitutions. Here are several recommended tonics:
Women engaged in prolonged desk work or frequent computer use
Common symptoms: eye fatigue, dizziness, dry eyes.
Tonic guidance: Animal liver contains abundant vitamin A. Regular consumption of pig, cow, sheep, chicken, and duck livers benefits eye health. However, women with high cholesterol or triglycerides should eat less or avoid them.
Carotene-rich vegetables: Eating 3 carrots per week maintains normal vitamin A levels. Additionally, sweet potatoes, oranges, tangerines, and persimmons contain higher vitamin A levels and can be consumed moderately.
Dairy and egg products: Such as milk, chicken eggs, duck eggs, pigeon eggs. Egg yolks in poultry eggs are particularly rich in vitamin A.
Goji berries: Rich in carotene, excellent for eye health. Best consumed as tea during winter.
Winter worm summer grass combined with old turtle drinking has benefits for spleen strengthening, calming the mind, and skin whitening—ideal year-round tonic for white-collar women.
Recommended Pharmacological Dish:
Clear Eyes Vegetable Chrysanthemum 6g, Scrophularia 6g, tea leaves 6g. Steep or decoct and drink daily. Clears liver fire and improves vision, preventing blurred eyesight.
Women who frequently stay up late
Common symptoms: extreme fatigue, reduced work efficiency, memory decline
Tonic guidance:
Fish: Cod, sardines play crucial roles in brain cell function, especially in neural transmission and development.
Milk and yogurt: Rich in protein and tryptophan, beneficial for brain nourishment.
Sesame and walnuts: Contain B-complex vitamins, vitamin C, and amino acids. Fat content exceeds 40%. Unsaturated linoleic acid, lecithin, and alpha-linolenic acid are structural components of the human brain.
Whole grains: Millet, corn, and wheat contain proteins, fats, calcium, iron, and vitamin B1. They help prevent neurasthenia and their plant fiber promotes smooth microcirculation in the brain.
Fruits: Oranges, tangerines, mandarins, lemons, and other citrus fruits are alkaline foods. Regular consumption helps eliminate acidic metabolic waste in the brain.
Recommended Pharmacological Dish:
Intelligence-Enhancing Brain Cake: 30g walnut kernels, 20g lotus seeds, 10g black sesame seeds, 10g goji berries, 200g corn flour, 200g yam powder, plus appropriate rock sugar. Prepare as cake. Consuming this enhances intelligence and brain function.
Women with pale complexion, pale lips and tongue
Common symptoms: dizziness, blurred vision, palpitations, insomnia, forgetfulness, numbness in hands and feet, dry stools, delayed menstruation.
Tonic guidance:
Lamb: Lamb is sweet and warm in nature, tonifies qi and replenishes deficiency. Rich in nutrients including protein, fat, calcium, phosphorus, iron, and tender, flavorful meat.
Recommended Pharmacological Dish:
Angelica Ginger Mutton Soup: 30g Angelica, 60g ginger, 500g mutton. Wash and slice angelica and ginger. Remove tendons from mutton, blanch briefly in boiling water, cool, then cut into appropriate-sized pieces. Place mutton, ginger, and angelica in a clay pot with water, simmer until mutton is tender. Drink soup and eat mutton. This formula nourishes blood, regulates menstruation, warms and relieves pain.