Dietary health care is an important part of health care culture, and what to eat and how to eat are the basic problems of dietary health care. Only by knowing how to eat is good for your health can you find the entrance to the road to longevity. This question was answered as early as Huangdi Neijing. As the earliest extant classic of traditional Chinese medicine, Neijing not only recognizes that diet is the material basis for human survival, but also finds that diet also affects human health and affects the occurrence, development and prognosis of diseases. This paper puts forward the idea of balanced diet such as "moderate diet", "moderate cold and heat" and puts forward the principles and methods of diet therapy after illness, which still has important guiding value for today's health care.

1 A balanced diet is the guarantee of health.

Neijing pointed out: "Yin and Pingyang are secret, and the spirit is the rule; Yin and yang are separated, and the essence is absolutely. " It is pointed out that the coordination and balance of yin and yang is the foundation of human health. At the same time, it is pointed out that "heaven eats people with five flavors, and earth eats people with five flavors". Both five flavors and five flavors are necessary conditions for maintaining life, among which five flavors (that is, diet) are necessary conditions for maintaining the balance between yin and yang and the basis for ensuring good health. In this regard, Neijing proposed that if you want to live a long and healthy life, you should follow the principles of "harmony with five flavors", "moderate diet" and "moderate cold and heat".

1. 1 Harmony with Five Flavors-Balanced nutrition, mixed ingredients.

Clinically, we are often asked, "Doctor, what do you think is suitable for me to eat? Which foods are better for me? " Let's see how the Neijing answers.

There are many kinds of food-Neijing says: "Five grains are for nourishment, five fruits are for help, five animals are for benefit, five dishes are for filling, and the smells are combined to supplement the essence." Emphasis should be placed on eating a variety of foods such as cereal, meat, fruits and vegetables to cultivate healthy qi and maintain or repair body functions. The "five" here refers to the specific five types of grains, fruits, meat and vegetables, and it is also an imaginary number, emphasizing that the edible varieties are mixed and good, so as to provide us with comprehensive nutritional elements. Scientific discovery shows that if we want to maintain our health, we should eat more than 30 kinds of different foods every week, and in a longer period of time, we should make corresponding adjustments and change the types of food. The more kinds, the more balanced it is, the better. Accordingly, we can't restrict ourselves from eating or only eating certain foods or health care products because of the need of disease prevention and health care.

Don't be partial to the five flavors-while doing a variety of diets, you should also be partial to the five flavors of sour, bitter, sweet, pungent and salty. Because "five flavors enter, acid enters the liver, pungent enters the lungs, bitter enters the heart, salty enters the kidney, and sweet enters the spleen, which means five enters." It is also said that "five flavors of husband enter the stomach, each of which is happy. Acid enters the liver first, bitterness enters the heart first, sweetness enters the spleen first, pungent enters the lung first, and salty enters the kidney first. Long-term increase in gas, things are often also; The gas increases and dies, and the reason for death is also. " It is pointed out that foods with different tastes have reinforcing and reducing effects on different viscera, such as sour foods corresponding to the liver, while pungent foods corresponding to the lungs, etc. When eating a certain or several flavors of food, it may lead to the enhancement of the function of the corresponding viscera and pathological changes, so it is emphasized that "harmony with five flavors" should not be partial to a certain type of food or flavor.

1.2 Diet is moderate-regular and quantitative, and life is regular.

We all have to eat every day. Now when we mention the principle of diet, we can think of the phrase "eat well in the morning, eat enough at noon and eat less at night". This sentence is a brief summary of diet and health preservation, and it also embodies the principle of "diet with restraint" put forward by Neijing. Restraint means not only that three meals should be timed, but also quantitative, and neither of them should be too hungry or too full.

Spleen and stomach are the foundation of the day after tomorrow, and the source of qi and blood biochemistry. If the diet is irregular, it will easily damage the spleen and stomach, affect the biochemistry of qi and blood, and further lead to abnormal functions of other zang-fu organs and pathological changes. We should "learn from Yin and Yang, be harmonious with the number of tricks, eat and drink regularly, live regularly, and not work rashly", so as to ensure that "form and spirit are in harmony, and we will go to the end of our lives when we are 100 years old" (Su Wen, On Ancient Naivety). Therefore, diet should be controlled, meal time should be fixed, not too hungry and too full, and life should be regular and quantitative, so as to ensure the normal transportation and transformation of spleen and stomach, active blood and biochemistry, and sufficient vital qi.

1.3 Moderate cold and heat-no burning heat, no surging cold.

In addition to "harmony with five flavors", the Neijing also makes a concrete discussion on the influence of cold and hot food on the body. For example, Ling Shu Shi Zhuan warns people that "those who eat and drink have no burning heat and no surging cold" and "Su Wen Yin Yang Ying Xiang Da Lun" say: "Shui Gu's cold and heat are harmful to the six houses." Eating too cold and hot will damage the oral esophagus, even the spleen and stomach, and even the internal organs. Secondly, it is pointed out that in the state of disease, the cold and temperature of diet should also be adapted to people, places and times. For example, it is suggested that "cold is far from cold, cold is far from cold, warm is far from warm, and hot is far from hot, and food should be the same", and it is pointed out that people who suffer from febrile diseases should not take hot diet in summer, while those who suffer from deficiency-cold diseases should not eat cold and cool food in winter.