"Seven Meat and Eight Vegetables" is a subversion of China's traditional dietary rules. "Eight meats" means "eight treasures" and represents the meat system of the court. According to the Book of Rites, there are eight treasures: rice covered with meat sauce, yellow rice with meat sauce, roast pig, tenderloin,
Fermented beef, roast beef, beef roasted rice, beef mutton pork, roast dog liver. As for the theory of "seven elements", it is not clearly recorded in ancient literature. In the folk, it generally refers to vegetables, radishes, sweet potatoes, taro, pumpkins, mushrooms and tofu.
In the context of China, the juxtaposition of "seven and eight" often means disorder. Words like "seven meats and eight vegetarian dishes", such as "patchwork, seven ups and downs, too many cooks, falling apart", all have more or less chaotic and unruly meanings. As a common saying, "seven meats and eight vegetarians" originally meant to break the dietary taboos of vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism, and later it was extended to make things messy, out of control, or make people dizzy and at a loss.