Since then, human beings have developed healthier, longer and wiser, leapt to the position of "the spirit of all things" and began to write the history of civilization on the earth.
"Shennong tasted the taste of a hundred herbs, and the sweetness and bitterness of the water spring made the people know and avoid it." Primitive people gradually divided natural products such as animals, plants and minerals into food, medicine and poison through long-term attempts, which opened the study of ancient health and nutrition.
In slave society, people improved cooking utensils and invented soup, and soup medicine came into being. When Zhixia was in Shang Dynasty, the brewing industry was developed, and "wine" could promote blood circulation and guide medicine, which was called the skill of all kinds of medicines. In the Zhou Dynasty in the 5th century BC, there were "food doctors" who were engaged in food preparation. They are the earliest nutritionists in the world, responsible for the diet design of kings, making all kinds of delicious food and healthy diet, and presiding over the "way of keeping in good health". At that time, this position was above the "disease doctor" (physician) and "medical doctor" (surgeon).
Zhouyi, Shangshu and Shanhaijing in the Zhou and Qin Dynasties successively put forward the viewpoint of diet control, and even collected dozens of health drinks and foods.
During the Warring States Period, Huangdi Neijing was written, which made a systematic exposition on diet health preservation and dietotherapy, strengthened the viewpoint of diet moderation and harmony of five flavors, advocated that "smells should be combined to replenish essence", and put forward that violating the principle of diet taboo would do harm to human body. Specifically put forward diet conditioning and food hygiene, which laid the foundation for the theory of diet health preservation in later generations.
Doctors in the Warring States period attached great importance to diet to prevent and treat diseases. Bian Que's point of view is: "As a doctor, you should know the source of the disease, know what disease it is, treat it with food, and then take some medicine if the diet is not cured." .
The "Fifty-two Prescriptions for Diseases" unearthed in Mawangdui, Changsha contains about13 of all medicines for medicinal diet and food supplement. There are many prescriptions in the book, including food and medicine. There are 365 kinds of drugs in Shen Nong's Herbal Classic in Han Dynasty, among which many foods, such as jujube, lotus root, yam, honey and coix seed, are listed as top-grade drugs for strengthening the body and prolonging life.
Zhang Zhongjing, a medical sage in the Han Dynasty, paid attention to "eliminating pathogenic factors and strengthening the body resistance", and often used food in treatment, "preserving body fluid and protecting stomach qi". For example, the first party "Guizhi Decoction" in his masterpiece Treatise on Febrile Diseases contains food ingredients such as jujube, ginger, cassia twig and licorice. He asked patients to drink hot porridge after taking this prescription to help them take the medicine. Among more than 300 prescriptions in his works, about 1/3 contains food ingredients.
Sun Simiao, the drug king of the Tang Dynasty, has a special chapter on "treating diseases by eating" in his Prescription for Preparing a Thousand-Daughter for Emergency, which introduces in detail the theory of diet and the health care and disease prevention functions of cereals, meat, fruits and vegetables 154 foods. He exercises and keeps healthy. After he 100 years old, he was alert and observant, and wrote books. Materia Medica for Dietotherapy contains 227 kinds of food, and introduces the performance, utility, cooking methods and eating principles of food in detail. The theory of "dietotherapy" in Taiping Shenghui Fang in Song Dynasty recorded dietotherapy methods for 28 diseases.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, a large number of diet health books appeared. Materia Medica, Dietary Spectrum of Interesting Life, Dietary Menu in Garden and Dietary Guide elaborated the performance, function, indications and dietary structure of food from different angles. Herbal Medicine for Disaster Relief and Brochure of Wild Vegetables have expanded the sources of food. Compendium of Materia Medica contains 1000 kinds of food, among which there are no less than 200 kinds of food with health care and medicinal properties, and there are hundreds of prescriptions for health preservation and dietotherapy.
Medicine and food are homologous, with a long history!