Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism
Wheat is the staple food of people in northern China. Chinese medicine holds that wheat is sweet in flavor and neutral in nature, and that it replenishes qi and blood, nourishes the heart and calms the spirit, clears heat and relieves irritability, and stops sweating and relieves steaming-bone fever.
According to the Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu), the ancients held that “wheat is sown in autumn, grows in winter, sprouts in spring, and ripens in summer; it holds the balanced, harmonious qi of all four seasons, and so it is the most precious of the five grains.” It also says: “Aged wheat boiled into a decoction and drunk stops deficiency sweating.”
Women with visceral agitation (zangzao) and insufficient heart blood, showing insomnia and much dreaming, palpitations and unease, constant yawning, and a tendency to grieve and weep (roughly equivalent to menopausal syndrome), can cook wheat together with jujubes and licorice root and eat them.
People with physical weakness who suffer spontaneous sweating or night sweats should decoct floating wheat (immature young wheat grains that float on the surface when rinsed) with astragalus root and jujubes and drink the decoction.
A decoction of raw malt taken internally can also be used to stop lactation after childbirth.