Medical nutrition in China.

Fundamentals of clinical nutrition.
Therapeutic nutrition is a special food made from Chinese medicinal plants and food products that have undergone culinary processing and combine both medicinal properties and excellent taste. Thus, food acquires a medicinal value, and the action of drugs is enhanced by food, that is, food helps drugs to manifest their power. Consumers of such food have the opportunity, while enjoying the excellent taste, at the same time to strengthen their body and get rid of diseases. Health food is the way to health.
In the old days, when people obtained food by gathering, they created and developed medical pharmacology and dietary treatment. When they began to use fire and culinary arose, then conditions appeared for the creation of medical nutrition. About two thousand years ago, the famous physician Zhang Zhongjing collected many recipes for medicinal dishes (Chinese koptis soup with gelatin, pork skin soup, dove soup with lilies, lamb soup with ginger and Chinese angelica, etc.), some of His recipes are still popular today.
China has a very long history of medicinal cooking, its origins are in the distant past, it has always performed the function of protecting people's health. In the past few years, the preparation of medicinal dishes has again gained extraordinary popularity, restaurants specializing in medical nutrition have appeared; more and more literature has been published on this subject. Chinese medical nutrition is welcomed not only in China, but throughout the world, playing an increasing role in health care.

Preparation of medicinal dishes
Since the composition of medicinal dishes includes medicinal components, their preparation differs from the preparation of both prescription drugs and ordinary food. When selecting medicinal components, attention should be paid to the choice of raw or processed preparations; When choosing a cooking method, one should pay attention not only to the shape, color, smell and taste of the components, but also take into account the medicines included in the recipe and their properties in order to avoid cooking errors that affect the therapeutic effect.

The main methods of preparing medicinal dishes include stewing, simmering, baking, steaming, boiling, frying, frying in oil, soaking, boiling in soy sauce, etc.
First, let's acquaint readers with these methods.
Quenching (dun). When extinguishing, the drug and food are simultaneously placed in a saucepan, the required amount of water is added, brought to a boil over high heat, the foam is removed, then the dish is brought to readiness (the dish is ready when the food becomes soft) over low heat. This method is used in cases where the medicinal component does not contain or contains a small amount of volatile substances, but many polysaccharides, alkaloids and glycosides. For example, the recipe for Shi-quan-da-bu-tang soup (one0-ingredient tonic soup) includes small-haired codonopsis, coconut poria, white-flowered peony, sticky rhehmannia, astragalus and other medicinal plants that just belong to the indicated type, and in in the process of long quenching, many active medicinal components pass into the liquid.
Longing (men). When languishing, vegetable oils are first placed in the pan, then medicines and products for frying in oil are simultaneously added there, when the products are fried until half cooked, ginger, onion, salt and other auxiliary means are added to improve the taste and a little broth; cover the pan tightly with a lid and simmer until tender over low heat. For example, stewed duck with bought officinalis and coastal clay. First, kupena and glenia are cut into pieces and fried over high heat, then rice wine is added to them as a seasoning, ginger and water, then the dish is simmered over low heat until it becomes crumbly. This method is used in cases where the prescription contains medicinal components containing polysaccharides.
Roasting (wei). In fact, the word Wei means two concepts: the first is similar to stewing (dun), the second is all the prepared components of the dish, which are laid on rice straw paper and rolled into a tube, both ends of the tube are closed and evenly smeared with yellow clay and placed in cooling charcoal, where the dish is baked until cooked. This method is used when the medicinal component contains volatile substances (common fennel, snakehead, etc.).
Steam cooking (zheng). Medicinal components and products are mixed together, added flavoring seasonings, all this is placed in a cup and placed in a double boiler, where they are brought to readiness. In turn, steaming depends on what is wrapped and where the food is placed. So, in one case, for example, he-e feng-gu, the brisket is wrapped in lotus leaves, after mixing the components, the whole mass is covered with rice flour on top and then placed in a double boiler; in another, the finished mixture of components is wrapped in leaves and then only placed in a double boiler. There is also a method of closed cooking, for example, chong-tsao-ya “Duck with Cordyceps”, in which the bowl with the food placed in it is covered with a damp cotton cloth before placing it in a double boiler. There is also a method, for example, tianma yuitou “Fish heads with gastrodia”, in which the finished dish is given one form or another, for which the products are first placed in one cup, and then, after the products have been steamed, the cup is overturned into another containerhaving a specific shape. There is also a method, for example, tianqi zhengji "St.
Cooking (zhu) is one of the most frequently used methods of preparing medicinal
dishes: medicines and products in the right proportion are placed directly in the pan, water is added, everything is brought to a boil over high heat, then the fire is reduced and the food is cooked until cooked over low heat. This is how most cereals are prepared.
Roasting (chao). First you need to prepare food and medicine, then heat a pot or pan, pour vegetable oil and, turning the pan over high heat, put food and medicine in it and bring it to readiness, stirring vigorously with a spoon. This method is often used to prepare foods that change color from long cooking.
Fried in oil (bian). Approximately the same way as roasting (chao).
Reprimand (ao). With this method, the mixture of products is first heated over high heat, brought to a boil, and then boiled for a long time over low heat. This method is recommended in cases where, during fast cooking, nutrients do not have time to go into the broth, and slow boiling creates the necessary conditions for this.
Cooking in soy sauce (lu). Initially prepared medicines and food are soaked in soy sauce, then begin to cook over medium heat, gradually increasing the heat so that the soy sauce soaks the food. Thus, the dish is brought to readiness. This method is used to prepare pork with bamboo (yu-zhu zhu-sin), marinated duck with cloves (ding-hsiang lu-ya).
29.2. Features of medicinal dishes
Medicinal dishes skillfully combine medicines and food, they are not like ordinary medicines and are not like ordinary food, they have the following three features:
And medical nutrition, being part of the Chinese pharmacopoeia, is guided by the teachings of Yin-Yang and the five elements, the internal organs of Zang-Fu and the channels of the human body, the differentiation of symptoms and signs, etc.; foods and medicines that make up medicinal dishes are selected in accordance with the principles of Chinese medical formulation so that they have a healing effect;
And the basis of the preparation of medicinal dishes is the traditional culinary art. Medicinal components are absorbed into food products so that the healing effect of herbs is combined with the wonderful taste of the products into a single whole. First, in accordance with the Chinese pharmacopoeia, the source products are selected, a medicinal healing dish, one of the traditional methods of heat treatment is used: stewing, stewing, baking, frying, steaming, etc., as a result, people can gorge themselves on food that looks perfect, smell, taste and form;
And the purpose of medicinal dishes is to enrich food with useful substances, so that, while enjoying food, a person is simultaneously protected from diseases, and also maintains and strengthens his health. People eat ordinary food to satisfy their hunger, to prolong life, to enjoy both the sight and the taste of food; take medicine to cure diseases and prolong life. In clinical nutrition, these two goals are combined: while enjoying the look and taste of food, one can at the same time recover from diseases and strengthen the body.
29.3. Science and principles of clinical nutrition
In clinical nutrition, nutrition and treatment are unity and opposite. The body's source of nutrition is food, and the nutrients necessary for the body are proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, as well as fiber and water. By eating food, people feed, sustain life. If a If we talk about healthy people, nutrition and health are the same for them: all foods that have nutritional value contribute to the preservation of health and taste good. However, doctors predict that in the future, a great breakthrough in health care will come not with the discovery of new drugs, but with a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle for more and more people. In recent years, with the development of science and technology, people's nutrition has also changed: people have switched from consuming natural foods with a low percentage of fats and salts, rich in potassium and fiber, to refined foods with a high content of fats and salts, but low in potassium and fiber. As a result, amazing phenomena arose: many infections disappeared, but they were replaced by diseases associated with nutrition (the so-called diseases of civilization, or modernization - arteriosclerosis, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, constipation and some types of cancer), in China they