Do I need to wash the Chinese medicine?

Many friends will simply wash the herbs before decocting them, thinking that this will be more hygienic, just like we usually clean the ingredients before eating fruits or cooking, so that we feel it is hygienic. Would the same principle apply when decocting Chinese medicine? Let’s find out whether Chinese medicine needs to be washed before decocting.

Chinese medicinal materials undergo a series of processing before being made into medicinal slices, including removing impurities, drying, and other procedures. The sanitary conditions have already met the standards and there is no need to wash them with water.

In addition, there are several reasons:

1. Many medicinal materials contain water-soluble sugars and glycosides. After washing, some of these active ingredients will dissolve in water and be lost, resulting in reduced efficacy and affecting the therapeutic effect.

2. 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.

3. 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 you wash them with water first, it will inevitably cause the loss of these medicines and affect the efficacy.

It is worth mentioning that Chinese medicine should be soaked in water before decocting. Generally, you should soak it in cold water for 30 minutes to 1 hour to allow the water to penetrate the medicine and dissolve part of the active ingredients of the medicine in the water first so that it can be fully decocted. The amount of water added should generally be enough to soak the medicinal materials and exceed 1 cm.

After learning about it, everyone can find out that Chinese medicine does not need to be washed before decocting, but it needs to be soaked. When decocting Chinese medicine, you need to pay attention not only to whether the herbs need to be cleaned, but also the decocting time, heat and even container are very important. Only by fully mastering the correct method can the medicinal effect be fully released.