Do I need to clean the herbs before boiling them?

For friends who have never boiled Chinese medicine, you may see that the Chinese medicinal materials are relatively dirty, and you may think of washing them before boiling them. In fact, this practice is wrong. This is mainly because washing Chinese medicine will cause the loss of its ingredients and affect its medicinal properties. Therefore, we do not need to wash it before boiling it. I hope everyone can remember not to wash the Chinese medicinal materials.

No need to wash when boiling Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine must be boiled in a casserole. Before boiling, add cold water and soak for half an hour. Add more water the first time, usually 3 bowls of water, boil it on low heat and then simmer for 25 minutes. The second time, add 2 bowls of water, boil it and then simmer for 20 minutes. Mix the two decoctions of medicine together and drink it in two doses.

During the production process, Chinese medicinal materials usually need to go through a series of processing, including cleaning to remove impurities, drying and other steps. This way, the sanitary conditions of the Chinese medicine produced meet the standards. However, some medicinal materials cannot be washed, as the efficacy will be lost after washing with water. Many Chinese medicinal materials contain water-soluble sugars and sweet ingredients. After washing with water, some of these ingredients will dissolve in the water, which will cause the efficacy of the medicine to decrease and affect the therapeutic effect.

Generally speaking, do not wash it, because many important ingredients have been processed and washing will damage their medicinal properties. For some medicinal materials, such as vinegar-processed Yuanhu, honey-roasted ephedra, wine-processed rhubarb, and Arisaema consanguineum, auxiliary materials such as honey, vinegar, wine, and bile are added during the processing. If washed with water, some of the auxiliary materials will be lost. Many medicinal materials in Chinese herbal prescriptions are in powder form, and some need to be crushed when preparing the medicine, such as dragon bones, oysters, talcum powder, peach kernels, etc. If they are washed with water first, it will inevitably cause the loss of these medicines and affect the efficacy.

After reading the introduction in this article, we should all know that Chinese medicine does not need to be washed before boiling. This is mainly because washing Chinese medicine will reduce its medicinal properties, so we do not need to wash Chinese medicinal materials in our lives. We also need certain methods to boil Chinese medicine in our daily life. I hope you can learn more about it.