Senile constipation: sweet potato 100g (peels it and cut it into pieces), rice 100g: boil them together and drink it as porridge. It can strengthen spleen and stomach, replenish the deficient, supplement qi, reinforce the Yin qi of kidney, and loosen the bowels. 

 

Yang Li, Chief Expert of TCM in health preserving, a professor at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Science, tells us that the best food during White Dew is sweet potato and millet.

Sweet potato: number one vegetable against cancer

Sweet potato is both a starch and a vegetable. It can be cooked in many ways. It can also be taken as fruit.

According to Chinese medicine, sweet potato can nourish the spleen and qi. It can “prolong life and reduce the risks of disease.”

From the perspective of modern science, the mucoid material in sweet potato can help maintain the elasticity of the cardio blood vessels and prevent atherosclerosis. It can also keep the smoothness of the respiratory tract, alimentary canal and articular cavity. Dietary fibers in sweet potato can stimulate the wriggle of the intestines and stomach, thus relieving constipation and helping the discharge of toxins, especially useful efficacious for a person who has senile constipation. It also could reduce the incidence of intestinal cancer.

In the list of 20 anti-cancer vegetables, released by Japan National Cancer Research Center, sweet potato is number one.

Moreover, sweet potato is low-fat and low in calories, so having sweet potatoes is helpful to lose weight.

However, one had better not have too many sweet potatoes. For people whose spleen and stomach are hampered by dampness, whose qi is stagnated and food is retained, they are warned not to eat sweet potatoes in case of symptoms such as heartburn, acid regurgitation and abdominal distension.

Folk prescription: Post-partum blood deficiency and constipation: prepare 500-1000g sweet potatoe; cut it into pieces, and throw it into the pot and cook them thoroughly, then add three pieces of ginger, some brown sugar into it. Boil them for a little while and it is done. It can nourish the qi, the middle-jiao and blood and generate fluid.