Red Date, Goji Berry, and Black-Bone Chicken Soup，From *Proven Tea, Decoction, and Soup Recipes for Common Ailments*,Nourishes yin and blood; preserves youthfulness and promotes weight gain. Suitable for simple emaciation; particularly beneficial for conditions such as a sallow, lackluster complexion, increased facial wrinkles, and reduced skin elasticity, as well as anemia, malnutrition, fatigue and weakness, and loose, unformed stools.
as the formula is predominantly warm, avoid prolonged use in those with yin deficiency, dry mouth, or restlessness with heat in the palms and soles; those who are robust with internal accumulated heat are not suited to this formula; warming tonics readily stir heat and burden the spleen; caution is advised where dampness-heat or food stagnation accumulates in the middle
Commentary
With jujubes as the sovereign, nature warm, flavor sweet, channeled into the Spleen, Stomach, Heart, it tonifies qi, nourishes blood and calms the spirit, and harmonizes the formula, and this opening sets the main therapeutic direction. These are joined ministerially by goji berries (nature neutral, flavor sweet, channeled into the Liver, Kidney, nourishes the liver and kidney, and brightens the eyes), and black-boned chicken (with neutral nature and sweet flavor, having Liver, Kidney tropism, nourishes the liver and kidneys and supplements qi and blood), reinforcing the sovereign’s main effect. Finished with glutinous rice, harmonizing the stomach and supporting dietary nourishment, and scallions, harmonizing the stomach and supporting dietary nourishment, and ginger, acting as the envoy to harmonize the various ingredients, the formula attains a regulated, neither-excess nor-deficient balance. Viewed as a whole, the formula addresses the spleen-stomach weakness presentation, treating both root and branch.