One advantage of barley and red beans is that they won't be sticky no matter how they are cooked. Red beans and barley cooked to the end are covered with reddish soup, and most of the effective components of barley and red beans are in the soup. Put more water when cooking porridge, and these soups will be enough for us to drink for half a day, just as tea. If it is summer, you should try to finish it in the morning, because it will go bad in the afternoon.
As for the efficacy, it is really serious. Coix lachryma-jobi seed, called "Coix lachryma-jobi seed" in Chinese medicine, is listed as the top grade in Shennong Herbal Classic. It can eliminate dampness and benefit the stomach, eliminate edema, strengthen the spleen and benefit the stomach, and can strengthen the body and replenish qi if taken for a long time. Red beans, known as "adzuki beans" in Chinese medicine, also have obvious diuretic and detumescence effects and spleen and stomach strengthening effects. Because they are red, they can nourish the heart. Modern people have great mental stress, lack of heart-qi, improper diet, little exercise, spleen deficiency and dampness. To eliminate dampness, nourish the heart and strengthen the spleen and stomach, barley and red beans are the only ones. Boiling it into porridge is intended to make its effective components fully absorbed by the human body, while not causing any burden to the spleen and stomach.
The "detumescence" effect of coix seed and red bean is also very interesting. We must not think that swelling is edema. Look at people nowadays. At least 5-6 people in 10 are fat and swollen, which is called bloated. In Chinese medicine, obesity or edema means that the body is wet. Water can't flow with qi and blood and stay between human cells, which makes the human body expand rapidly. So is edema, so is obesity, but the degree is deep and shallow. Drugs or foods with strong dampness-removing properties can discharge these residual water in the human body, and can also reduce swelling. Therefore, red beans must be used to treat edema, and practice has proved that barley red bean porridge has a good weight loss effect, which can not only lose weight, but also does not hurt the body, especially suitable for middle-aged and elderly people and obese people.