Diet taboos for those with high levels of moisture in the body

Sweet and greasy foods that are high in sugar and viscosity, cold drinks and cold foods, and thick foods that are heavy in oil and salt. As for the sayings such as "you can't eat fruits" and "you can't eat spicy food" spread online, you have to judge based on your own physical constitution, and there is no unified standard answer.

I met a girl a while ago, who was in her early twenties. Her eyelids were swollen every morning as if she had been bitten by mosquitoes, and her eyelids were swollen. Her stools were stuck to the toilet and could not be flushed three times. Even when she climbed the third floor, her calves felt too heavy to lift. She went to an old Chinese medicine doctor who told her that it was a typical case of spleen deficiency and dampness, and he prescribed a prescription to remove the dampness. As a result, she went home and drank a cup of iced milk tea with mango pandan every day. After half a month of drinking, she did not get better at all, but gained three pounds in weight. Don't think this is an exception. Eight out of ten people I've come into contact with who have severe dampness suffer from "can't control their mouths". They know clearly that they are damp, but they always eat foods that increase the burden on the spleen.

Let’s talk about the sweet and greasy food that is most easily ignored. Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that "sweet taste enters the spleen." A small amount of sweet food can nourish the spleen. However, if it is excessive, it will block the spleen's transportation and transformation function. Water and dampness will not be discharged and will accumulate in the body. Foods such as milk tea, cream cakes, glutinous rice dumplings, donkey rolls, candied fruit, and high-sugar tropical fruits all fall into this category. From the perspective of modern nutrition, high-sugar foods will increase the body's inflammatory response. People with heavy moisture tend to have a slow metabolism. If the excess sugar cannot be consumed, it will be converted into fat accumulation, making the body feel heavier. I used to help a boy who works in design adjust his diet. He used to order a cup of full-sugar pearl milk tea every afternoon. He changed nothing else but replaced the milk tea with sugar-free oolong tea. Within a week, he said his face was no longer swollen when he woke up in the morning, and even the bloating in his waist and abdomen caused by sitting for a long time at work was much lessened.

After talking about sweets, let’s talk about iced drinks and cold foods that many people can’t live without in summer. This point is actually quite controversial. Many people think that "Western medicine never said you can't eat ice. I feel very comfortable eating ice when it's hot, so why should I pay so much attention to it?" Objectively speaking, if your spleen and stomach function is particularly good, it is indeed okay to occasionally eat a popsicle or drink a glass of iced Coke in the summer, but if you are already suffering from moisture, it is best to eat less. Traditional Chinese medicine says that the spleen "likes warmth and hates cold." If cold things enter the stomach, it will directly damage the spleen yang. The spleen is the "master switch" that transports water and transforms dampness. If the switch is broken, dampness will naturally not be discharged. Modern medicine also has related research: long-term eating of food with too low temperature will cause the gastrointestinal vasoconstriction, reduce the activity of digestive enzymes, decrease the digestive function, slow down the metabolism, and the water in the body cannot be discharged, which will lead to edema and phlegm. I was particularly impressed by a young man who bought two popsicles downstairs every day after get off work for a month. Not only did he feel bloated and lose his appetite, but his aunt’s girlfriend ate the popsicles he handed her and she squatted on the ground in pain and couldn’t stand up. Later, the two of them stopped making ice pops and drank warm Poria water every day. In less than two weeks, the young man said his legs were no longer heavy when he woke up in the morning, and his girlfriend’s aunt’s pain was much less.

In addition to sweets and ice, there is another type of food that people tend to overlook, which is heavy-flavored food. Let’s talk about the hot pot, barbecue, braised food that everyone often eats, as well as the heavy oil and salt-heavy rice bowls and maocai in takeout. They taste delicious when eaten, but the burden after eating is not small. Eating too much salt will lock water, and eating too much oil will increase the metabolic burden. Both traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine agree that high oil and salt will retain water in the body and increase moisture. You must have experienced it yourself. After eating a particularly salty hot pot meal, you can weigh two pounds the next day. In fact, that is not weight gain, but water that has not been expelled from the body.

Of course, there are now a lot of debates about the dietary taboos of people with heavy moisture. The most common one is "can you eat fruits if you are heavy with moisture?" In fact, there is really no need to kill all fruits at once. Tropical fruits with high sugar and high viscosity, such as mango, durian, and jackfruit, should be touched as little as possible. However, fruits with low sugar and moderate water content such as apples, oranges, and strawberries at room temperature are perfectly fine to eat half a piece at a time. Don't just stuff them into your mouth right after they are taken out of the refrigerator. Some people also asked if they can eat spicy food? Some people say that eating spicy food and sweating can eliminate moisture, while others say that eating spicy food can stimulate the spleen and stomach and increase dampness. This also depends on your physical constitution: if you have a strong spleen and stomach, you will not feel uncomfortable eating spicy food. Occasionally eating spicy food and sweating can indeed take away a little moisture from the body surface. ； But if you have a weak spleen and stomach, and you get stomachache and diarrhea when you eat spicy food, it will hurt your spleen and make the dampness worse, so don’t join in the fun.

In fact, after all, there are not so many rigid rules for dietary taboos involving heavy moisture. The core thing is not to make your spleen too tired. Occasionally, it’s okay to have a craving for a piece of cake or a sip of ice. Just don’t eat every meal every day. After all, keeping in good health is not like going to jail. You don’t have to be so wet that you have no fun eating, right?