There are lots of early-intervention foods that can treat colds and flus in Chinese medicine.
THE KEY IS EARLY TREATMENT.
Waiting until symptoms have lingered more than a day, it will be difficult to treat with food cures, however if you can catch the symptoms early enough then foods can provide a cheap, effective relief for winter colds.
How does Chinese Medicine view cold and flus? If your not familiar with the unique concept click here. Otherwise read on for our Easy Winter Flu Busters:
1) SPRING ONIONS
Spring onions have a pungent nature, which pushes the wind-cold pathogens to the exterior, promote sweating and releasing of the wind-cold.
spring onions are the weaker of these three pungent foods, but they are very easily available, if you feel aversion to cold or wind – a bit of a cold feeling and sometimes some tiredness that often occurs in the first few hours of getting a wind-cold strike, then you can pile on th spring onions to your next meal as a way to use pungent to warm up and disperse the cold.
2) GINGER
The nature of this herb (and food) is warm and pungent. It can promote sweating and release pathongens this way. Ginger tea can be taken in the following scenario:
Initial Wind-Cold attack symptoms – feeling tired, cold (Chinese medicine calls this aversion to cold – where you feel like you want to rug up, put more clothes on, don’t want to be outside or anywhere near a draft), shivery, perhaps you will have a mild fever at this stage but not a lot of sweating yet. NO SORE THROAT (although the throat may feel like glands are swollen, there is no pain in the throat or loss of voice). If you have a sore throat then you have likely been sick more than a few days, and drinking ginger tea alone won’t help much. If there are more complicated symptoms like a cough or sore throat then seek a herbalist to prescribe a pulse based formula for your individual situation.
Ginger tea :
Take 5 slices of fresh ginger (which you can get from any supermarket or fruit & Vege place) + 1 teaspoon of brown sugar or honey and add hot water. Cover the cup with a plate to allow it to steep for 5-10mins. Drink it all down, and get as warm as possible. Rug up, put on jackets etc to promote sweating. If this dosen’t work in about 30 mins, then drink another cup of the tea. If this still dosen’t work then see your Chinese herbalist they will be able to prescribe you a stronger herbal formula to do the same thing.
3) CINNAMON
Cinnamon is a key herb in many classical herbal formulas, it’s pungent nature is often buffered or moderated by other herbs in the formula, but in the initial stage of feeling a bit snifflly, having a teaspoon or two of cinnamon with your food (i.e. mixing into your porridge) could be a way of warding off the sniffles if you get onto it quick enough. Similarly to the use of ginger above, if symptoms of a common cold have progressed beyond the first 1/2 day or 1 day then seek a chinese herbalist.
NOTICE: this information is provided in public interest of keeping people healthy as possible. Common sense should always be applied. Too much of anything can be hazardous to health. This information is not intended as a substitute for medical advice or diagnosis by a health practitioner. If you have a health condition, you should check with your health care practitioner before using foods as medicine treatments, if you are in any way unsure about the suitability of the food agents, herbs or recipies for your body. In an medical emergency always contact emergency services, call 000 in Australia.
This article is written by Marie Hopkinson, the Chinese Herbalist at Perth Natural Medical Clinic . Marie is available for consultation by calling or booking online here: www.pnmc.com.au