In the ancient medical book “ben cao shi yi jing”, it presented that the food and medicine have the same source as well as herb and diet have the same function. For hundreds of years, the medicated diet has always been an important part of the food culture of Chinese nation. People who learn Chinese in China should know that the medicated diet is the diet style that to combine the Chinese medical herbs with food and regard taking herbs as a diet.
The medicated diet has a long history. As early as in the Western Zhou Dynasty, there were special “shi yi (dieteticians)” to manage the diet of the emperors. According to the body conditions of the emperors, the dieteticians blend the food, adding nourishing herbs to the food materials. As a result, the delicious herbal food became the daily diet.
When it came to the Eastern Han Dynasty, the doctor Zhang Zhongjing wrote a book named “Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases” which recorded some famous typical formulas for the medicated diet. Some students who study Chinese in China may know that the famous doctor Sun Simiao in Tang Dynasty recommended to prevent and cure diseases by the way of medicated diet.
In Song Dynasty, much importance was attached to the medicated diet by the common people. In the two books “tai ping sheng hui fang” and “sheng ji zong lu”, there are special chapters to introduce the formulas of the medicated diet. More importantly, foreigners who study Mandarin in China should know that there were some books about the formulas especially for the aged people, which is 600 hundred years earlier than that of the western countries.
In Yuan Dynasty, the book “yin shan zheng yao” written by Hu Sihui was regarded as a classic about the medicated diet in traditional Chinese food culture. It recorded 94 food formulas, 35 soup formulas and 29 prescriptions for resisting the aging.
The science of medicated diet still continued to develop in Ming Dynasty. The medical book named “Compendium of Materia Medica” is what the students who learn Chinese in China know. And the record about the medicated diet was more detailed. When it came to Qing Dynasty, more books about the medicated diet were published and the research stepped further.
After knowing the history of the medicated diet, we can see that the medicated diet was greatly emphasized in each dynasty since it was proposed. In modern society, we continue to focus on the medicated diet to keep health.