According to the Chinese Medical Code, jujube is sweet and warm, belongs to the spleen and stomach meridian, and has the effects of tonifying the middle energizer, nourishing the blood and calming the nerves, and easing the medicinal properties, so it has been a health tonic for autumn and winter since ancient times. But does a small red date really have so many effects? Might as well look down.
Can red dates really replenish blood?
The saying that red dates enrich blood has a long history. Like Ejiao and Lycium barbarum, it is a warm tonic for "mom". Many women keep red dates and eat them on special occasions. However, can red dates really "replenish blood"? Many nutritionists have questioned this.
They think that anemia needs blood supplement, and iron deficiency anemia is the most common anemia in clinic, and iron supplementation can keep up. Therefore, according to the extremely low iron content of red dates (the average iron content of dried red dates is only 2 mg per100 g), many nutritionists earnestly advise anemia patients not to dream of eating red dates to replenish blood.
From this perspective, red dates do have only one purpose, that is, to gain weight. However, the problem-solving ideas of traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine are two systems. The people that Jujube can treat are not patients with iron deficiency anemia, but patients with blood deficiency.
Chinese medicine believes that the spleen can transport the delicate Shui Gu of the human body and transform it into blood. If the transport function of the spleen is unbalanced and the biochemical source is lost, it will lead to blood deficiency.
The basic symptoms of blood deficiency are: sallow complexion, emaciation of muscles, dry skin, bad hair and even numbness of limbs. Patients with iron deficiency anemia are only one kind of people with blood deficiency, not all of them.
The reason why red dates can treat blood deficiency begins with the spleen. First of all, it can warm the yang and strengthen the spleen, help the recovery of spleen and stomach function, improve the absorption efficiency of the human body, and thus achieve the purpose of blood production. Secondly, red dates can strengthen the spleen and replenish qi, and reduce the amount of bleeding (of course, it is only an auxiliary health care function).
To sum up, jujube is actually a medicine that warms yang blindly, benefits qi and strengthens the spleen and stomach, and enriching blood is an additional effect it obtains while restoring the function of the spleen and stomach. It has little effect on improving anemia, but insisting on taking three or five red dates every day can really improve the symptoms of blood deficiency, and the best health care function is to cook soup or stew soup.
Red dates and wheat tea
Longan jujube sweet water
Where are the best red dates?
Jujube is a unique plant in Asia. Almost all 170 kinds of jujube in the world are produced in South Asia. Among them, China's jujube is naturally the best. Since the Han Dynasty, there has been a record of large-scale cultivation of jujube, which has been listed as one of the "five fruits" (peach, plum, plum, apricot and jujube) since ancient times.
Jujube, as a kind of fruit with thousands of years of cultivation history, is widely distributed in northern China. Its drought-resistant and waterlogging-tolerant characteristics make jujube have good yield in relatively arid Xinjiang, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shandong and other regions.