🌿 Folk Prescriptions

Vegetables and fruits play a crucial role in human anti-aging efforts. Researchers from Tianjin Environmental Medical Research Institute measured and compared the antioxidant activity of 66 common vegetables and fruits in China. Results showed that lotus root and hawthorn had the strongest anti-aging effects.
Autumn is precisely when fresh lotus root hits the market. Though grown in mud, lotus root emerges pure and white like jade. Its flesh is crisp and tender, rich in nutrients, containing abundant carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, and minerals.
Lotus root serves both as fruit and delicacy, suitable for raw or cooked consumption. Whether raw or cooked, it holds significant medicinal value. Traditional Chinese medicine considers raw lotus root cold in nature, sweet and cool entering the stomach, capable of eliminating stasis, cooling blood, clearing heat, quenching thirst, and stopping vomiting. It is suitable for thirst, drunkenness, hemoptysis, and hematemesis. Postpartum women avoid raw cold foods, except lotus root, due to its excellent stasis-clearing properties. Hence the folk saying: "Fresh young lotus root surpasses any physician."
Cooked lotus root changes color from white to purple, offering nourishing stomach, nourishing yin, strengthening spleen, and boosting qi—making it an excellent food remedy. Lotus root powder, processed from lotus root, is highly nutritious and easily digestible, with benefits including nourishing blood, stopping bleeding, regulating digestion, and improving appetite—ideal for elderly and weak individuals.
"Su Xi Ju Yin Shi Pu" states: "Choose plump, white lotus root. Raw, it is fresh and tender; cooked, best for adults and elders. Slow-cook in a clay pot with mulberry wood fire until very soft, add refined white honey, dry and consume—it best nourishes heart and spleen." Modern nutritional studies confirm lotus root contains no cholesterol but abundant dietary fiber. Per 100 grams, it has 44 mg vitamin C, 0.73 mg vitamin E, 243 mg potassium, 39 mg calcium, and various trace elements—proving it a healthy food for the body.
Traditional dietary health wisdom holds that raw lotus root, sweet and cold in nature, has functions of generating body fluids, cooling blood, clearing heat, stimulating appetite, quenching heat-induced thirst, and detoxifying alcohol. Cooked lotus root, sweet and warm in nature, nourishes spleen and stomach, supplements heart and blood, promotes wound healing, and stops diarrhea. Raw lotus root can be washed, peeled, sliced thinly, seasoned with vinegar and sugar—crisp, sweet, and tangy. Cooked lotus root has many preparation methods. For example, wash and peel lotus root, fill holes with glutinous rice, steam until soft, slice thickly, sprinkle with sugar and a little osmanthus—known as "Osmanthus Glutinous Rice Lotus Root," a classic southern Chinese snack. Cut lotus root, green and red peppers, soaked black fungus, and lean meat into strips, stir-fry with scallions, ginger, garlic, and seasonings over high heat—creating the colorful, fragrant, delicious, and nutritious dish "Five-Color Lotus Root Threads." Late autumn is harvest season for lotus root. Moderately increasing lotus root intake indeed offers health benefits.
Often, people discard lotus root nodes during consumption. Yet lotus root nodes are excellent hemostatic remedies. They are sweet, slightly astringent, neutral in nature, rich in tannins and asparagine, specifically treating various bleeding conditions such as hemoptysis, hematemesis, hematuria, melena, and uterine bleeding. Locally, six or seven lotus root nodes are crushed, mixed with red sugar, and boiled for consumption—highly effective for stopping bleeding.