History of Chinese Food Therapy

Chinese medicated diet has a long history. The ancient legend "Shennong Tastes a Hundred Grasses" shows that early in remote antiquity the Chinese nation began to explore the function of food and medicaments, hence the saying "Traditional Chinese medicine and diet both originate from the practice and experience in daily life." In the Zhou Dynasty, one thousand or more years B.C., Royal doctors were divided into four kinds. One of them was dietetic doctors who were in charge of the emperor’s health care and health preservation, preparing diets for him. In The Yellow Emperor’s Internal Classic, a medical classic in TCM which appeared approximately in the Warring States Period, several medicated diet prescriptions were recorded.

In shennong's Herbal Classic, which was published approximately in about the Qin and Han Periods and is the extant earliest monograph on materia medica, many sorts of medicaments which are both drugs and food were recorded, such as Chinese-date (Fructus Ziziphi jujubae), sesame seed (Semen Sesami), Rhizoma Dioscoreae (Shanyao), grape (Vitis),walnut kernel (Semen Juglandis), lily bulb (Bulbus Lilii), fresh ginger (Rhizoma Zingiberis Recens), Semen Coicis (Yiyiren), etc. In the book Treatise Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases written by Zhang Zhongjing, a noted medical man, in the East Han Dynasty, some noted medicated diet recipes were recorded, such as Soup of Radix Angelicae Sinensis (Danggui) Root, Fresh Ginger and Mutton (Danggui Shengjiang Yangrou Tang), Soup of Lily Bulb and Yolk (Baihe Jizihuang Tang), Decoction of Pig-skin (Zhufu Tang), etc., all of which now still have important values. 

Sun Simiao, a well-known doctor in the Tang Dynasty, listed and discussed such questions as dietetic treatment, dietetic treatment for senile health care and health preservation, etc. in his books Prescriptions Worth a Thou: and Gold for Emergencies and A Supplement to Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold for Emergencies. These two books were substantial in medicated diet prescriptions. According to history books, up to the period of the Sui and Tang Dynasties about more than sixty kinds of books on dietetic treatment had been published. But unfortunately most of them are lost. The book Dietotherapy of Materia Medica by Meng Xian in the Tang Dynasty has a great influence on later generations. It is the extant and earliest monograph on dietetic treatment.