What are the taboos of boiling Chinese medicine?

As people in modern society are becoming more and more aware of Chinese medicine, many friends will abandon traditional Western medicine when they are sick, and choose Chinese medicine with fewer side effects. Because Chinese medicine itself is a symptomatic and fundamental treatment, it can cure diseases for us. Therefore, it is very normal for them to boil Chinese medicine, so what are the taboos of boiling Chinese medicine? Regarding this issue, please take a look with me in the next period of time.

water

Nowadays, most people use tap water, well water, and spring water to boil medicine, as long as the water is clean. As long as the tap water meets the national drinking standards, it will be fine. If the problem of residual chlorine is taken into consideration, the chlorine content can be significantly reduced by leaving the tap water in a container for several hours before using it to decoct medicine.

temperature

Temperature is an important factor in decocting Chinese herbal medicine to extract its effective ingredients. When decocting medicine, it is generally better to use low heat (slow fire). Because high heat is used at the beginning to boil the herbs, the protein contained in the herbal remedies can often coagulate quickly and affect the analysis of effective ingredients. Therefore, it is best to soak the Chinese herbal medicine in cold water for 15 minutes before decocting the medicine. This will allow the cells of the botanical Chinese medicine to swell after soaking. Then decocting the medicine over low heat will allow the protein to slowly precipitate. This way, the medicinal properties will not be destroyed and the moisture will not be dried up quickly.

time

The duration varies depending on the medicinal properties, but is generally about 30 minutes. However, 20 minutes is enough for diaphoretics and volatile drugs (about 5 minutes after the water boils); for tonic drugs, the decocting time is longer.

Many people are accustomed to determining the length of time to decoct medicine based on the depth of its color, believing that the decoction is considered done only when its color reaches the darkest. This is also wrong. Because the color of some Chinese herbal medicines can become darker as they are boiled, but in fact the active ingredients of the medicine have already been boiled out. If some medicines are decocted for too long, it will cause the escape of certain volatile substances and the destruction of the effective ingredients.

frequency

Chinese herbal decoctions usually need to be decocted twice for each dose (the first decoction is called the "first juice", and the second is called the "second juice"). The amount of water added to the first juice should be enough to cover the surface of the medicine, which is about 2 to 3 times the volume of the medicine; the amount of water added to the second juice can be appropriately reduced. For some medicinal materials that are difficult to decoct to obtain the effective ingredients, such as mineral medicines, shellfish medicines, etc., they need to be decocted three times.

The above paragraphs have revealed some of the taboos of boiling Chinese medicine. I sincerely hope that friends who have carefully read the above content can be more vigilant and pay more attention to these taboos. Of course, I would also like to remind everyone that Chinese medicine has a history and culture of thousands of years. Although it is very good for our body, we must also understand the correct way to consume it.