Taoist Medicine Recommends Five Ways to Eat Red Dates for Health Cultivation

Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism

Chinese medicine holds that jujubes nourish the organs, replenish qi and blood, strengthen yang, and promote body fluids, and that eating plenty of steamed jujubes can help prevent asthma to some extent. Taoist medicine recommends the following five further ways to eat red dates for health cultivation.

1. Red Date and Wood Ear Soup

Take 10 red dates, 15 grams of black wood ear fungus, and rock sugar to taste. Soak the red dates in clear water for about 2 hours; the wood ear only needs to be soaked until it softens and expands. Put them in a bowl, add water and rock sugar, and steam in a steamer for about an hour. Eat it once after breakfast and once after dinner each day. It beautifies the complexion, fades spots, and helps lighten dark patches on the face; women may wish to eat it more often.

2. Red Date and Honey Paste

Take two jin (about 1 kilogram) of red dates, wash and pit them, and mash the flesh. Add a suitable amount of water and simmer over low heat, strain to obtain the juice, mix in 500 grams of honey, and stir over the heat into a smooth date paste. Bottle it for later use. Drinking the liquid and eating the dates before bed helps you fall asleep faster and improves insomnia. Take 15 milliliters each time, twice a day.

3. Red Date and Rice Porridge

The ingredients are red dates, round-grain rice, angelica root (dang gui), and white sugar. First soak the angelica root briefly in warm water, then add water and decoct it into a thick liquid. Remove the dregs, add the rice, red dates, white sugar, and a suitable amount of water, and cook into porridge. This porridge suits people with constipation or deficient qi and blood.

4. Red Date and Ginger Tea

Prepare half a jin (about 250 grams) each of red dates and fresh ginger; then pound licorice root, cloves, and agarwood into powder and add a little salt. Take 15 to 25 grams at a time, decocted and drunk in the early morning or steeped in water and drunk as tea, several times a day. It nourishes the stomach.

5. Red Date and Job's Tears Soup

Take 15 red dates, a handful of Job's tears (coix seed), 15 grams of ginkgo nuts, and 10 grams of dried longan flesh, and simmer them together in a pot for 40 minutes. Then add 6 boiled and shelled quail eggs and cook for about half an hour more. Add brown sugar or rock sugar to taste and eat. Drinking this soup regularly means fewer acne breakouts and keeps the skin moist.