Medicinal food

Medicinal Food

With today’s fast-paced lifestyle and high work pressure, the concept of New TCM Health Preservation has emerged. This modern approach integrates contemporary living habits with the traditional principles of Chinese medicine, offering a more convenient and flexible way to incorporate medicinal food and health-preserving teas into daily life.

While rooted in ancient traditions, Chinese medicinal diets now also embrace modern nutrition and food science. Together, they play an important role in addressing people’s growing health needs.

What is Medicinal Food

A TCM diet is prepared under the guidance of Traditional Chinese Medicine theory, combining herbs and foods in carefully balanced formulations. These meals may be prepared using traditional Chinese cooking techniques or modern food processing methods, resulting in distinctive flavors, aromas, and health effects.

In TCM, medicine and food complement one another, working together to promote health, restore balance, and support overall well-being. Over thousands of years, this dietary therapy has become deeply woven into daily life.

Medicinal diets serve different purposes depending on the stage of health:

• Prevention before illness: Adjusts diet according to body constitution and seasonal changes, nourishes vital energy, balances yin and yang, harmonizes qi and blood, and strengthens disease resistance.

• Prevention after illness onset: Provides early intervention to ease discomfort, or acts as a supportive treatment as the illness develops.

• Prevention during recovery: Helps stabilize therapeutic effects and restore balance after treatment.

The effectiveness of medicinal diets depends on tailoring them to the individual, the season, and the region. As the saying goes, “Dietary therapy plans should be tailored to the season, the population, and the place.”

Famous Medicinal Foods

The tradition of combining medicine with food has a long history. The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine highlights the preventive and therapeutic benefits of diet. Many everyday ingredients—such as Sichuan peppercorns, ginger, honeysuckle, hawthorn, and cassia seeds—are examples of foods that double as medicine in daily life.

Substituting Tea

Medicinal teas are another way TCM combines food and medicine. For example, plum soup is a traditional herbal tea made with black plum, hawthorn, tangerine peel, licorice, and other ingredients. It is known to quench thirst, promote qi, and stimulate appetite. Based on the traditional formula, modern versions are adapted to suit seasonal needs and today’s dietary habits.

Many tea substitutes use common ingredients such as red beans, coix seed, chrysanthemum, gorgon fruit, longan, red dates, and wolfberry. Others may include Chinese medicinal herbs like polygonatum, epimedium, and eucommia.

Feiyan Green Diet Tea

Feiyan Tea is one of the most popular herbal slimming teas. Caffeine-free and 100% natural, it offers both a rich flavor and significant health benefits.

This tea is especially suitable for people with a cold, phlegm damp constitution—those who tend to gain weight easily, even with little food intake. Its main ingredients, tangerine peel and dried lotus leaves, help expel dampness, remove excess moisture, and reduce weight.

Feiyan Tea may also ease symptoms related to cold damp obesity, such as chills and headaches.

Weight Loss Principle

• Aromatic compounds dissolve fat, remove turbidity, and prevent fat buildup.

• Vitamins B1 and C, together with natural compounds in the tea, stimulate gastric secretions, improve digestion, and support fat reduction.

• Tea polyphenols act as antioxidants, enhance metabolism, and activate enzymes that break down fat cells, aiding in weight management.

Benefits of Feiyan Tea

• Promotes fat breakdown and weight loss

• Expels dampness and excess moisture

• Helps lower lipids and supports cardiovascular health

• Relieves symptoms of cold damp obesity

• Boosts metabolism and provides antioxidant protection