A Historical Overview of Medicinal Porridge Therapy in TCM

Medicinal porridge refers to thin gruel made by boiling rice together with medicinal herbs. Medicinal porridge therapy is a dietary supports method guided by traditional Chinese medicine theory, which involves selecting appropriate traditional Chinese medicinal herbs, combining them with grains, adding certain seasoning ingredients, and boiling them together into porridge for the helps maintain and supports of wellness.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and herbal medicine constitute China’s traditional medical system, with a remarkably long history of discovery and application of herbal medicines. Through long-term life practices, our ancestors continuously created and accumulated a wealth of knowledge about herbal medicines. Through countless practical experiences, they gradually summarized and improved this knowledge, forming a unique pharmacological therapy within Chinese medicine. With social development and medical progress, medical experts throughout history have created numerous valuable medicinal dietary therapy recipes, including medicinal porridges, medicinal wines, medicinal cakes, medicinal rice dishes, medicinal teas, medicinal ointments, and medicinal vegetables, among others. Medicinal porridge therapy represents a relatively effective dietary supports method that combines the use of medicines and food, integrating medicinal and dietary components. It can both nourish the body and helps maintain and supports wellness, thus being widely welcomed by the general public. According to preliminary research, medical books throughout history have recorded approximately 500 medicinal porridge recipes, including both single-herb and compound medicinal porridges; porridges made from both plant and animal-based medicines; and porridges aimed at supports wellness as well as those for health maintenance and wellness. Indeed, there is a wide variety of types with diverse functions, awaiting further exploration and improvement to better serve in protecting people’s health through this ancient and unique therapy.

Porridge holds a significant position in people’s lives and has a long history spanning thousands of years in China. As early as in the Book of Zhou, there is a written record stating, “The Yellow Emperor was the first to cook grains into porridge.” However, the earliest instance of using medicinal herbs and grains to cook porridge for supports wellness can be found in the Records of the Grand Historian·Biographies of Bian Que and Cang Gong written by Sima Qian, a great historian of the Han Dynasty. The biography states: “When the King of Qi was formerly the Marquis of Yangxu, he was seriously ill. All the doctors considered it as a case of syncope. I, Chunyu Yi (Yi refers to Chunyu Yi, a medical scientist of the Western Han Dynasty), took his pulse and diagnosed it as numbness, with the root cause located under the right rib, as large as an overturned cup, causing shortness of breath, reverse qi flow, and inability to eat. I immediately gave him Huoji porridge to drink, and after six days, the qi descended; then I had him take pill medicine again. After another six days of going in and out, the wellness was supports.” Additionally, among the fourteen medical texts unearthed from the Han tomb at Mawangdui in Changsha, there are records of using Qingliang rice porridge to supports snake bites and boiling rice juice with heated stones for oral administration to supports anal itching and pain. According to research, these unearthed ancient medical books were approximately written during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. This means that recipes such as “Huoji porridge” and “Qingliang rice porridge” are the earliest recorded medicinal porridge recipes in China, and these two historical documents are the earliest literary records of medicinal porridge therapy. The earliest medical book in China, the Huangdi Neijing, states, “Medicines are used to eliminate wellness, while foods follow to nourish,” and “Grains, meats, fruits, and vegetables are used to nourish and complete the supports.” Medicinal porridge is precisely a food therapy method that uses medicines to supports wellness and porridge to strengthen the body. This exposition in the Neijing serves as the earliest theoretical foundation for medicinal porridge therapy. Thus, it can be seen that our ancestors employed this ancient therapy of medicinal porridge for helps maintain and supports wellness as early as more than two thousand years ago.

Zhang Zhongjing, a renowned physician of the Han Dynasty known as the “Sage of Traditional Chinese Medicine,” made outstanding contributions to the formation and development of traditional Chinese medical theory. In clinical practice, Zhang extensively elaborated on the application of medicinal congee and accumulated a wealth of experience. His classic work, Treatise on Febrile wellness, contains numerous well-known formulas that combine rice with medicinal herbs, such as “Baihu Decoction,” “Taohua Decoction,” and “Zhuye Shigao Decoction.” Regarding this, Ben Cao Meng Quan praised, “In formulas for supports febrile wellness, polished round-grained rice is often added, each with its specific purpose and not confined to a single application. For example, in the formula for Shaoyin syndrome, Taohua Decoction, it is added to harness its sweetness to support the vital qi; in Zhuye Shigao Decoction, it is frequently used to leverage its sweetness to replenish deficiencies; in Baihu Decoction, which acts on the Lung meridian (LU), it is used similarly to licorice root to moderate the formula’s effects and helps maintain rapid descent through the body.” This demonstrates that Zhang Zhongjing was adept at using polished round-grained rice, often with ingenious purposes, and can indeed be considered a pioneer in the use of medicinal congee.

Sun Simiao, a renowned physician of the Tang Dynasty revered as the “King of Medicines” by later generations, possessed profound knowledge and over 80 years of extensive medical experience. He compiled two monumental works, Qian Jin Fang (Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold) and Qian Jin Yi Fang (Supplementary Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold), which include a dedicated section on “Dietary Therapy.” These works document folk supports such as using rice bran porridge to helps maintain beriberi caused by vitamin B deficiency, lamb bone porridge to warm and nourish yang qi, and Fangfeng porridge to “dispel wind from the limbs.” The book Shiliao Bencao (Dietetic Therapy Herbal), authored by Meng Shen, the prefect of Tongzhou during the Tang Dynasty, has long been lost. However, in modern times, a fragmented manuscript titled “Residual Volume of Shiliao Bencao” was discovered in the Dunhuang Caves in Gansu Province, containing four porridge recipes: “Tea Porridge, Persimmon Porridge, Zanthoxylum Porridge, and Sichuan Pepper Porridge.” Notably, Shi Yi Xin Jian (Dietetic Therapy Insights), written by Zan Yin during the Tang Dynasty, compiles 57 medicinal porridge recipes. These recipes are systematically categorized into nine groups based on conditions: stroke, cold pain in the Heart and abdomen, five types of dysphagia, seven types of strangury, frequent urination, five types of dysentery with red and white discharges and intestinal slipperiness, five types of hemorrhoidal bleeding, various wellness during pregnancy and postpartum in women, and various pediatric wellness. The book provides detailed descriptions of the composition, dosage, preparation, and efficacy of each dietary therapy recipe, laying a solid foundation for the development of medicinal porridge therapy in later generations.

By the Song Dynasty, medicinal porridge therapy had seen significant development. Many doctors and the general public widely adopted medicinal porridge for wellness helps maintain and supports, accumulating extremely valuable medicinal porridge recipes for dietary therapy. The authorities of the Song Dynasty attached importance to this dietary therapy method and extensively collected relevant recipes in the officially compiled and published works Taiping Shenghui Fang and Shengji Zonglu. For instance, volumes 96 and 97 of Taiping Shenghui Fang are dedicated to “Dietary Therapy,” selecting and listing 27 categories such as stroke, edema, cough, beriberi, as well as tonifying deficiency and damage, weak Spleen and stomach with poor appetite, and conditions in children, pregnancy, and postpartum, containing a total of 129 medicinal porridge recipes. Another example is Shengji Zonglu, also one of the medical masterpieces of the Song Dynasty, which was compiled by collecting medical recipes contributed by folk practitioners and doctors at the time, combined with secret recipes from the “imperial library.” Volumes 188 to 190 of this work collected a total of 113 medicinal porridge recipes, which were categorized and introduced in detail. For example, Cistanche and Lamb Kidney Porridge for supports consumptive wellness, Phytolaccae Radix Porridge for edema, Ginger Porridge for nausea and vomiting, Tonifying Deficiency and Upright Qi Porridge for chronic diarrhea and dysentery, and Meliae Radix Porridge for ascariasis, all of which showed relatively ideal therapeutic effects in clinical practice. In addition, Chen Zhi, a geriatrician of the Song Dynasty, included 43 tonifying medicinal porridge recipes suitable for the elderly to nourish and prolong life in his work Yanglao Fengqin Shu.

Effective food therapy porridge recipes were not only favored by the general public but also quite popular among the royal court. Hu Sihui, the imperial dietetic physician in the Yuan Dynasty court who was in charge of the dietary preparations for the nobility, compiled a book titled Proper and Essential Things for the Emperor’s Food and Drink based on his years of experience, incorporating knowledge from various herbal texts and renowned medical practices. This book contains numerous medicinal porridge recipes for nourishment and strengthening, prolonging life, and helps maintain and supports wellness. For example, the Qima porridge, which is used to “nourish the Spleen and stomach and boost vital energy,” is essentially a thin porridge made with mutton and millet; there is also the Goji berry and lamb Kidney porridge for “supports declining yang energy and the five types of fatigue and seven types of injury,” the Chinese yam porridge for “supports consumptive wellness and persistent coldness with night sweats,” as well as the “Hemp seed porridge,” “Purslane porridge,” and others. Li Dongyuan, one of the four renowned physicians of the Jin-Yuan period who is well-known in the history of Chinese medicine and the founder of the “Spleen-Stomach Theory,” often advocated for strengthening and nourishing the Spleen and stomach in his medical practice. Therefore, he also conducted research on medicinal porridge therapy and specifically introduced 28 of the most commonly used medicinal porridge recipes in Volume 5 of Food Herbal. These include recipes such as Mung bean porridge, Poria porridge, Hemp kernel porridge, Perilla seed porridge, and Bamboo leaf decoction porridge. Additionally, Zou Xuan expanded upon Chen Zhi’s Book on Supporting Elderly Relatives from the Song Dynasty by extensively collecting and incorporating various sources to write the New Book on Supporting and Nourishing the Elderly, which records a total of 77 medicinal porridge recipes. This provides valuable information for food therapy and nourishment for the middle-aged and elderly in later generations.

Li Shizhen, a well-known pharmacologist of the Ming Dynasty, spent a long time among the people and, drawing on previous experiences of using medicinal congee, selected and recorded 62 medicinal congee formulas in his work Compendium of Materia Medica, dedicating a special section to discuss them. Notably, the Puji Fang (General Treatise on the Therapy of wellness), compiled by Zhu Di, the Prince of Zhou in the Ming Dynasty, and others, represents the largest collection of medical formulas since the Han and Tang dynasties. Volumes 257 to 259 of this work are devoted to dietary therapy, organized by wellness categories, and collect a total of 180 medicinal congee formulas, providing comprehensive and detailed discussions on each formula. It is the book that records the most medicinal congee formulas before the early Ming Dynasty. In addition, records of medicinal congee can also be found scattered in other relevant books and periodicals of the Ming Dynasty. For example, Liu Bowen, a founding hero of the early Ming Dynasty, recorded 30 medicinal congee formulas in Duoneng Bishi; Gao Lian, a playwright, included 38 formulas in Zunsheng Bajian; Zhu Quan, a qin player and theatrical theorist, collected 10 formulas in Quxian Shenyin; and Wang Xiangjin, a scholar who passed the imperial examination in the Wanli era, recorded 18 congee formulas in Erruting Qunfang Pu, among others. From this, it is not difficult to see that the use of medicinal congee for wellness maintenance and support was quite common in the Ming Dynasty.

By the Qing Dynasty, medicinal porridge therapy had further developed. Huang Yunhu’s book Porridge Recipes compiled 247 porridge recipes, representing the most extensive collection of porridge formulas to date. He categorized all porridges into grains, vegetables, woody fruits, plant medicines, floral medicines, and animal-based types, briefly describing the functions and indications of each porridge formula. However, there were shortcomings: the book merely listed porridge names without specifying dosages or preparation methods, and all recipes were single-ingredient formulas, omitting many effective compound medicinal porridges from previous practitioners. In terms of classification, the Qing Dynasty also saw improvements, with medicinal porridge documented more widely in medical texts. For example, Cao Tingdong, drawing on both prior knowledge and his own experience, selected 100 medicinal porridge recipes suitable for promoting health and supports wellness in the elderly. In his compiled work Constant Words for the Elderly, he classified medicinal porridges into three categories: “superior grade,” “medium grade,” and “inferior grade.” Fei Boxiong’s Food Inspection Herbal further categorized them according to wind, cold, summer heat, dampness, dryness, fire, qi, blood, yin, yang, phlegm, and other factors, documenting 29 medicinal porridge recipes. Additionally, Zhang Mu’s Dietary Discrimination Records included 55 recipes, He Kelian’s Health-Preserving Food Inspection contained 32, You Cheng’s Evergreen Book for Longevity recorded 46, and other works such as Wu Yiluo’s Essentials of Compound Formulas, Zhang Lu’s Original Meanings of the Classic of the Materia Medica, and Wang Ang’s Collection of Medical Formulas all documented the use of medicinal porridges for supports wellness.

Until modern times, due to the influence of various factors, medicinal porridge therapy was not widely applied in clinical practice. However, some renowned and experienced traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners were still able to innovatively use ancient porridge recipes, achieving remarkable results. For example, Zhang Xichun, a well-known physician in modern times who has passed away, was the first to create rice-free medicinal porridges such as “Zhuyu Erbao Porridge” and “Sanbao Porridge”. Pu Fuzhou, a famous contemporary TCM practitioner, had experience in supports rabid dog bites by boiling porridge with the root bark of Flos Daturae. Professor Yue Meizhong, based on the Astragalus Porridge recorded in “Medical Anecdotes from Cold Studio” by Lu Dingpu of the Qing Dynasty and combined with his own clinical experience, reformulated a compound Astragalus Porridge for the supports of chronic nephritis, achieving satisfactory results. In addition, Professor Zou Yunxiang from Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine favored using Lotus Leaf Porridge to lower blood lipids and blood pressure, and Shen Zhonggui, a renowned TCM practitioner from the Beijing Institute of Chinese Medicine, applied Shenxian Porridge to supports colds, all of which demonstrated good therapeutic effects.

Throughout history, medicinal porridge has a long-standing tradition in China’s medical history. With the increasing popularity and advancement of dietary therapy, as well as the continuous development of geriatrics, nutrition, and immunology, this ancient and unique medicinal porridge therapy in the treasure trove of traditional Chinese medicine should regain its prominence and serve the cause of human health.