What are the benefits of eating taro?
Taro, also known as taro and soil cheese, is a common food for both food and vegetables. In ancient China, whenever there was a shortage of rice and a famine, the government often used taro instead of grain to help the victims, because taro was not only adaptable, but also had a high yield.
Taro can not only serve as food, but also be used as medicine to treat diseases. Tao Hongjing pointed out that taro is "pungent, flat and toxic" in "A Record of Famous Doctors", and thought that it has the effect of "widening the stomach, filling the skin and sliding in the middle"; "Herbal Medicine in Southern Yunnan" says that taro is "sweet and hemp". To say that taro is toxic means that it is slightly toxic when eaten raw, but not when cooked. "Food Materia Medica" also says that taro "cures vexation and heat, quenches thirst, makes people fat and white, stimulates appetite, and relieves constipation". It can be seen that taro can not only invigorate the spleen and stomach, quench thirst, but also make people's gastrointestinal tract smooth and skin white.
People with bad stomach should eat more taro, which can strengthen the spleen and promote digestion, promote digestion and absorption, and enhance human nutrition. Because taro enters the spleen and stomach meridian, it can replenish the spleen and enhance the digestive function of the spleen and stomach. Spleen is the transporter of human acquired nutrition and the "acquired foundation" of human beings. First of all, the spleen produces blood and the spleen and stomach are strong, so the human body is full of qi and blood biochemistry and strong and healthy; Secondly, the spleen governs the ascending of the clear and the stomach governs the descending of the turbid. If the spleen and stomach are weak, it will lead to the spleen failing to ascend the clear and the stomach failing to descend the turbid, and people will feel dizzy and lose appetite and constipation, while taro can stimulate gastrointestinal peristalsis, increase the stool volume, and make people defecate smoothly and get rid of constipation. Finally, people with spleen dominating meat and weak spleen and stomach are mostly sallow and emaciated, and eating more taro will enhance their digestion and absorption functions, which is naturally "fat and white".
In addition to eating, external application of taro can also be beneficial to health. Taro has the function of disinfection and detumescence. Shen Kuo recorded such a story in Mengxi Bi Tan, saying that Liu Tang, a hermit in Wangwu Mountain, saw a bumblebee stuck by a spider web at home and couldn't get away. At this time, Okumo climbed over and wanted to have a full meal, but he wanted to be stung by a wasp, and his toxic attack made the spider's body swell and he was dying. Who knows that the spider desperately climbed into the taro field outside the house, bit the stalk of taro, and then wiped the wound of bee sting on the stalk of taro. Soon, the swelling disappeared and the spider was "full of energy" again. This is the earliest record that taro can treat bee stings. In fact, not only taro stalks, but also taro itself has the function of disinfection. In the folk, if someone is stung by a bee, the most common way is to apply taro stalks or taro slices to the affected area, and the effect is amazing.