"Medicinal Cuisine" Can Be Harmful Too?
Winter has arrived, and many hotels are promoting “medicinal cuisine” and “tonic hot pot” to attract customers. However, relevant professionals warn that medicinal cuisine is not suitable for everyone. Improper consumption may not only fail to provide nourishment and fitness benefits but could also harm health.
Currently, many hotels claim that the Chinese herbs in medicinal cuisine can assist in treating certain diseases or offer health benefits, suggesting that eating medicinal cuisine “cures illness if you’re sick, enhances health if you’re healthy,” which attracts numerous customers. Ms. Li, a traditional Chinese medicine physician at a hospital, and her friend dined at one hotel where the server strongly recommended a homemade medicinal dish. After asking about the herbal ingredients, Ms. Li discovered that several herbs used were pharmacologically opposite to the claimed tonic effects. Consuming this dish would not only fail to nourish but might even damage health, so she declined to eat it.
Recently, the industrial and commercial authorities have received consumer complaints about a mushroom stew recommended by servers, said to enhance complexion and digestion. After eating just half, the customer experienced abdominal discomfort. Some restaurant operators privately admitted that most staff members lack knowledge of herbal pharmacology. They simply add popular tonic herbs like ginseng, Angelica, and Goji berries into food to create so-called medicinal cuisine. Due to the absence of strict standards in preparation techniques and ingredient specifications, and lacking expert evaluation, the actual tonic effects remain uncertain.
Experts believe that some restaurants arbitrarily mix medicinal recipes, sometimes violating pharmacological principles, posing serious health risks. For example, ginseng is a beneficial tonic, but its nature is warm and moist, suitable for qi deficiency and spleen weakness, but unsuitable for people with yang-heat constitution or certain chronic conditions. Similarly, Angelica can nourish blood and promote circulation but is not appropriate for all individuals. Consumers are therefore advised not to blindly consume so-called medicinal cuisine. Instead, they should carefully choose based on the properties of the dish and their own constitution to avoid turning tonics into health hazards.