List of dietary taboos

There are no dietary taboos that apply to all people. 90% of the general taboos about "eating the same food poisoning/causing cancer" spread on the Internet are rumors. The taboos that you really need to pay attention to are only related to your individual physique, basic diseases, and consumption. The very few hard taboos that do not distinguish between groups are basically related to drugs and toxic ingredients in food.

Don’t laugh, there are really many people who come to me and ask me, “Will I be poisoned by arsenic after eating crayfish and drinking lemon tea?” Last time, a little girl was so scared that she went to the emergency room. After a complete set of examinations, nothing happened. The doctor calculated: to reach the toxic dose, you have to eat more than 100 kilograms of shrimp contaminated with heavy metals in one meal, and then pour dozens of bottles of high-concentration vitamin C. How can normal people eat like this? Similar things like "eating tofu and honey together can cause deafness" or "eating crabs and persimmons together can cause diarrhea". These problems are either caused by extreme consumption, or they are intolerant to one of the foods. There is really no need to blame the "food conflict". A few years ago, my mother bought a copy of the Food Compatibility Table for the refrigerator, but she sold it as scrap after I learned about it. Now she eats hot pot mixed with cold fruit and juice without any problems.

Of course, this does not mean that all dietary taboos are made up. Those that really need to be taken seriously are mostly tied to underlying diseases. For example, gout patients should not take chances with beer, animal offal, or thick broth. Among the patients I have dealt with, there are patients who drank half a bottle of cold beer in summer and were so painful that they hit 120 in the middle of the night. There are subtle differences between Chinese and Western medicine on this point: Western medicine is strictly based on the purine content. During the stable period, you can eat a small amount of cooked pork with medium purine. Traditional Chinese medicine will mostly remind you to avoid cold seafood and iced drinks to avoid accumulation of dampness and cold that aggravates symptoms. Whichever one you listen to is actually fine. The key is to test uric acid after eating, and your body will react most accurately. Last week, a diabetic patient asked me if he could never eat watermelon in his life. When I asked him to keep his blood sugar stable, he should eat about 100g of it at room temperature at two or three o'clock in the afternoon. Don't dig out half of it and hold it in your arms. He went back and tested his blood sugar and it didn't spike at all. He had heard others say that people with diabetes should never touch watermelon, so he had been craving it for three months.

Except when you are sick, you should pay attention to it. The usual taboos are basically "A is like honey and B is like arsenic". For example, the recently popular iced American style is used to reduce swelling. Friends with spleen deficiency should not follow the trend. I have a constitution where I would have diarrhea for two days after drinking half a cup. Later, I simply switched to the hot American style and nothing happened. ； People who are lactose intolerant and have diarrhea after drinking pure milk do not have a problem with the milk. They can just switch to zero-lactose milk or yogurt, and there is no need to put milk on a lifelong blacklist. There is also the debate about "can I eat ice during menstruation" that has been debated for many years? Some girls around me are fine with eating popsicles in winter, and some are so painful that they break into cold sweats when they take a sip of room-temperature milk tea. It all depends on personal feelings. If you feel uncomfortable, don't eat it. There is no need to insist on saying "I can eat it if others can".

Speaking of which, we have to mention the issue of "fading" that everyone has been arguing about for many years. There is currently no unified conclusion: Western medicine does not have the concept of "fading". It believes that the so-called "itching of wounds and aggravation of allergies after eating hair" is essentially a food allergy or high oil and sugar aggravating the inflammatory reaction.； Traditional Chinese medicine believes that food that stirs wind, produces phlegm, produces poison and aids fire. People with damp and hot constitutions, trauma, or rashes should avoid foods such as beef, mutton, seafood, and leeks. In fact, there is no need to worry about who is right and who is wrong. If you are never allergic to seafood, eating some steamed seabass to supplement protein after surgery will help you recover faster. If you are allergic, then it is the safest choice not to touch it.

Of course, there are also a few hard taboos that must be observed regardless of your physical constitution. For example, you must not touch any alcoholic food or drink for 7 days before and after taking cephalosporins, including liqueur chocolate and Huoxiang Zhengqi water. This can really kill people. During my internship, I encountered someone who took cephalosporins and drank two sips of Huoxiang Zhengqi water and was sent to the emergency room. This must be mentioned. There are also sprouted potatoes, uncooked green beans, and fresh daylilies that are inherently toxic. It is common sense not to touch them regardless of your physical condition.

Don't randomly search the Internet for general dietary taboo lists. The more you search, the more you feel that you can't eat anything. I once had a client who didn't even dare to eat rice and vegetables together after searching. It was purely because he was scaring himself. It's easy to make your own dietary taboo list. Just take a small book and write down what you feel uncomfortable eating on any given day. It's much more reliable than the general lists on the Internet that list dozens or hundreds of items. After all, only your stomach knows whether you feel comfortable or not when eating, right?