In ancient times, it was called "Ling", also known as water chestnut and sand horn. It is an aquatic plant, belonging to the family Trapae or Lysimachiaceae. It is one of the famous native products in China and has been cultivated for more than 3,000 years. The common varieties are Yuanbaoling, Heshangling, Lanjiaoling, Bailing, Hong Ling, Wuling and so on. The meat of water chestnut is thick and sweet, suitable for both old and fresh, and both raw and cooked are good, no less than chestnut. Raw food can be used as fruit, and cooked food can replace grain. The nutritional value of water chestnut is comparable to that of chestnut. Every 100 grams of fresh water chestnut meat contains 3.6 grams of protein, 0.5 grams of fat and 24 grams of sugar. It also contains niacin, riboflavin, vitamins, calcium, phosphorus, iron and other nutrients, and contains a variety of amino acids. It is regarded as a fruit of health preservation and a good medicinal diet for autumn tonic.

Water chestnut is a cool food, which can help the gastrointestinal disinfection and antipyretic. Chinese medicine believes that eating water chestnut can "make up the five internal organs in peace, and not be hungry and intellectual man fit". Ancient people thought that taking water chestnut can make you fit, that is, water chestnut has the function of losing weight and bodybuilding, which may be related to the fact that water chestnut does not contain fat that makes people fat in the world. Water chestnut also has many medicinal functions. In Compendium of Materia Medica, Li Shizhen said: Eating water chestnut can "tonify the spleen and stomach, strengthen the thigh and knee, strengthen strength and benefit qi", and said that "water chestnut porridge is beneficial to the gastrointestinal tract and relieve internal heat." It is beneficial for the elderly to eat regularly. Eating in summer also has the effects of "running water, removing summer heat and detoxifying".

Water chestnut is also an anticancer medicinal food. According to the report of modern pharmacological experiments, water chestnut has the miraculous effect of preventing cancer. Japan uses water chestnut as the main ingredient to make an anticancer drug-WTTC (9 grams of Coix seed, 9 grams of wisteria and 9 grams of terminalia chebula, 60 grams of water decoction). In recent years, some people have used the fruit of water chestnut as an adjuvant treatment for esophageal cancer, breast cancer and uterine cancer. The research results of experts and scholars in Taiwan Province show that the main reason why water chestnut has anti-cancer function is that it contains an anti-cancer substance called AH- 13, which obviously inhibits the degeneration and tissue proliferation of ascites cancer cells.