The ancients in China recorded: "Insects and livestock can't eat people, but what they want to eat, taste the food of herbs, observe its bitterness and taste, and teach people to eat grains." In a sense, the diet of ancient people is a process from meat to vegetarian, and then to vegetarian. Therefore, from the perspective of health preservation, modern people think that eating big fish and meat all day is a "good life", but they are actually repeating the same mistakes. In fact, eating a good staple food, five grains for nourishment, five animals for benefit, five fruits for help, and five vegetables for filling are the foundation of food supplement.

Eating a good staple food, with meat and fruit, is still an unscientific nutritional mix. There is another important aspect-vegetables. Huangdi Neijing emphasizes "five dishes as stuffing". The "five dishes" here refer to sunflower, leek, epimedium and onion, and now refer to all kinds of edible vegetables, which can nourish the human body, enrich the dirty qi and make the body healthy.

Many people think that if you want to live a long and healthy life, you must be vegetarian, that is, eat more vegetables, fruits and whole grains. Actually, it is not. Nutritionists believe that the human body needs to supplement a lot of high-quality protein and essential amino acids every day. Vegetarian food is rich in protein except beans, and the content of protein in other foods is low, so its nutritional value is low, so it is difficult to meet the human body's absorption and utilization of nutrients. Therefore, it is unscientific to be absolutely vegetarian, nor can you live a long and healthy life. Only by combining vegetarian food with meat in daily diet can we ensure that the body absorbs comprehensive nutrition and thus embark on the road of health and longevity.

The collocation of meat and vegetables means that when eating vegetables, the collocation of meat and vegetables should be reasonable Meat refers to meat food, as well as vegetables and fruits. Health education in traditional Chinese medicine has always been based on vegetarianism, but paying attention to vegetarianism does not mean not eating meat dishes, because meat plays an important role in the growth and development of human body, especially teenagers. Zhang Mu, a physician in the Qing Dynasty, once said: "Generally speaking, meat can replenish meat, so it can replenish the body, smooth the skin, moisten the stomach and produce fluid." It is pointed out here that meat nourishes internal organs and external skin, which is beneficial to reproduction. However, if you are partial to gypsum beam hypertrophy, it will be harmful, easy to help wet, produce phlegm heat, and lead to some diseases. For example, the pathogenesis of diseases such as "exhaustion of servants, weakness, and fullness of qi" is due to "fat nobles are also diseases of plastering beams" (Su Wen commented on the theory of deficiency and excess); The cause of "spleen furuncle" is "eating is sweet and fat", which leads to sweet taste, full of anger and even thirst (Su Wen Bing Qi Lun). This is consistent with the view of modern medicine that animal fat contains a lot of saturated fatty acids and cholesterol. Overeating can lead to hyperlipidemia, atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, diabetes, gallstones and obesity.

Therefore, health experts in past dynasties have emphasized that too much fat and greasy products are drugs that will spoil the intestines, and advocated eating more "five grains of vegetables and fruits, which are natural and harmonious and have the effect of nourishing yin." Therefore, "five dishes for stuffing" is the experience of "dietotherapy" effect of health care for thousands of years in the Chinese nation, not just to fill the stomach. Many dietary golden rules circulated among the people in China are related to the health care function of vegetables. For example, if you don't eat green for three days, you will see stars in your eyes, if radishes are on the market, doctors will go to the countryside, if you eat ginger in four seasons, all diseases will be swept away, if you eat radishes in winter and ginger in summer, there is no doctor's prescription, and if you eat three slices of ginger early, it is better to take soup.

From the perspective of modern nutrition, it also advocates the collocation of meat and vegetables, mainly vegetarian. Because of the reasonable collocation of meat and vegetables, it can meet the nutritional needs of human body. Vegetarian food not only has nourishing function, but also has the function of dredging gastrointestinal tract and helping digestion. Vegetarian food contains more vitamin C, vitamin E and a lot of cellulose. Vitamin c can promote the absorption of oxygen by cells and is beneficial to cell repair; Vitamin e can promote cell division and delay cell aging; Cellulose can promote gastrointestinal peristalsis and facilitate defecation, which has become an important factor in the prevention and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases.

Someone once summed up the five benefits of vegetarianism, that is, increasing nutrition can help digestion, prevent some nutritional deficiencies, prevent obesity, help dredge blood vessels and prevent cancer. Especially fresh vegetables, dried fruits and berries. It has high biological activity and is a good food to prolong life. Generally speaking, a reasonable dish is that the total amount of vegetables is more than twice that of meat dishes. Through the actual investigation in longevity areas, it is proved that people who mainly eat various vegetables and fruits can live longer. Among the elderly over 100 years old in China, most people's eating habits are also characterized by the combination of meat and vegetables.