Edited by Mu Jian
A production from New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV)
Coughing is a common symptom. There are many causes of coughing. Fight your coughing and colds with 5 effective foods.
1. Plain rice porridge
Benefits: Stop cough, reduce wheezing, fight the cold.
A bowl of hot plain rice porridge is a simple remedy to fight cold and cough. The top layer of sticky rice porridge contains concentrated nutrients to treat cough and wheeze. Other white foods such as white rice, barley, gingko and dried lily bulbs are good for the lungs too.
2. Ginkgo Millet Porridge
Benefits: Relieve coughing, reduce phlegm.
Add 30 grams of gingko seeds and 100 grams of millet into 800 ml of water with some rock sugar to make a thick millet porridge. Gingko seeds help to relieve cough and reduce phlegm. The famous Chinese physician, Li Shi Zhen, found that gingko seeds can effectively remove oily stains on dishes.
3. Roasted oranges with salt
Benefits: Relieve coughing.
Roasted salted oranges help to relieve coughing. Prepare it by sprinkling some salt on the orange and grill it in the oven. Traditionally, the oranges were baked using a fire stove but this method can be easily achieved using an oven.
4. Steamed oranges with sugar
Benefits: Relieve coughing and reduce phlegm.
Put peeled oranges in a bowl and sprinkle it with some sugar and steam them in a pot. Both steamed sugary orange and roasted salted oranges have a sweet-bitter taste which helps to reduce phlegm and relieve cough.
5. Steamed pears with sugar
Efficacy: Relieve coughing and reduce phlegm.
This is a remedy I often use to treat coughing when I was a child. Remove the inner seed from the top of the pear, sprinkle some sugar in it and cover it. Then steam it in an electric pot. After steaming, remove the outer skin and the pear can be eaten as whole. This remedy makes the phlegm less thick so that it is easier to spit out.
When there’s a drastic change in weather, this is a good remedy for the family and young children. However, this remedy is not suitable for a chesty cough, especially if you have watery, foam-like sputum.
Causes of cough are usually from the lungs and stomach
Based on traditional Chinese medicine records, the causes of cough are often related to the function of our organs. There are lung-related coughs, stomach-related coughs, heart-related coughs but the most common ones are from the stomach and lungs. Therefore, finding the exact causes of the cough is of utmost importance.
There is a saying in traditional Chinese medicine, “impaired digestion, dampness in the spleen, and congested lungs will cause serious cough”. This leads to chronic cough.
Other methods to prevent cough are to avoid excessive “wind”, “heat”, “dampness”, “dryness” and “cold”. For example, excessive direct wind from the electric fan should be avoided. Excessive heat from hot weather and hot showers also cause the body to accumulate too much heat which can be harmful.
Secondly, try to avoid certain food such as uncooked oranges, bananas, duck meat and ice cubes. Also, try to avoid watermelon, mangos, uncooked pears, rock melon when you are having a cough.
Lastly, quit smoking and avoid second-hand smoke as well.
