Porridge, also known as "rice", is one of the quintessence of China's food culture and has a history of several thousand years in China. Li Shizhen, a great physician in the Ming Dynasty, said in Compendium of Materia Medica that porridge is "extremely soft and greasy, which is compatible with the stomach and a recipe for diet". Lu You, a famous poet in the Song Dynasty, even thought that eating porridge could prolong life. Huang Yun's "Porridge Spectrum" in the Qing Dynasty also said that porridge has five major contributions according to health preservation: "one saves money, two tastes are complete, three moistens, four separates, and five digestions." It is recognized by the medical profession that porridge can tonify yin, promote the growth of gastric juice, strengthen the spleen and stomach, and tonify deficiency, which is most suitable for nourishing people.

Porridge culture is a very important school in China food culture. The relationship between porridge and China people is as thick and sticky as porridge itself.

The ancients said that elephants are invisible. The big taste will be weak. Just like the simplicity after luxury, just like the pursuit of green in the rushing steel forest, I still drink porridge after I get rich, and I long for a bowl of ordinary porridge after reading all the delicious food. It is also a feeling that people return to seclusion from the splendor of life, and another return to nature in the realm of life.

With the spread of strong humanistic atmosphere, porridge began to become one of the flavors of the city. Porridge culture is also like cooking porridge. In thousands of years of slow cooking, the skills and humanistic connotation have gradually matured.

Why is porridge nutritious?

Protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, starch and other nutrients needed by human physiology mainly come from various foods that people eat daily. These foods are decomposed into small molecules with simple structure, which can be absorbed by the human body.

Therefore, the softer the food, the easier it is to be digested and absorbed by the human body, that is, the higher the nutritional value of the food.

As far as porridge is concerned, because porridge is boiled at a relatively low temperature for a long time, it is beneficial to reduce the decomposition and destruction of protein and fat, reduce the loss of some vitamins, and make some minerals escape and dissolve in the soup, which can make porridge more nutritious. Moreover, one of the biggest characteristics of porridge is that besides the main raw material is grain, it is supplemented by dark vegetables and fruits rich in protein or vitamins and bone marrow. After being decocted by different processing methods, it is not only nutritious and delicious, but also has the effects of nourishing, eliminating diseases and strengthening the body.

Children and the elderly should drink more porridge.

For children, the elderly and the infirm with low level of digestion and absorption, eating porridge is more meaningful for nutrition and health promotion. When people reach old age, the functions of various organs of the body gradually decline, especially the functions of taste, chewing, digestion and absorption, and they are prone to various chronic diseases. Therefore, according to the physiological and psychological characteristics of the elderly, eating porridge for the elderly is more conducive to nutrition and health.