Traditional Chinese medicine doctors recently said that Internet myths claiming that drinking milk at night prevents the human body from detoxifying itself and that ingesting ginger is unhealthy are false.
In traditional Chinese medicine, milk is considered neutral and only slightly leaning toward “cold,” unlike “hot” items such as chicken broiled in sesame oil or stir-fried chicken with garlic, which cause “heat” in the liver to become too intense, resulting in an unquenchable thirst, Chinese Meridians Beauty Institute honorary chairman Wu Ming-chu (吳明珠) said.
Traditional Chinese medicine approaches disease as the body being out of tune, Wu said, adding that prescribed treatments seek to return the body to equilibrium by balancing the “hot” and “cold.”
Milk is nutritious and the casein it contains could help induce sleep, she said, but added that people who are allergic or have experienced diarrhea after consumption should avoid milk.
Milk is an excellent source of protein and calcium, John Tung Foundation nutritionist Yu Hsuan Wen (尤宣文) said, adding that it also helps promote the growth of helpful bacteria in the digestive tract.
Wu said the ginger myth started with a purported ancient saying that consuming ginger in the morning was better than drinking soup made from ginseng, while eating ginger at night was the same as ingesting arsenic.
Ginger is a “hot” consumable in traditional Chinese medicine, she said.
Due to its potential to push the human body’s balance toward the “hot” side, ginger was generally considered unhealthy, Wu said, but added that because of changes to modern diets, with an increase in the daily consumption of cold foods and beverages, the constitution of the human body is different than its ancient counterpart.
The occasional consumption of ginger, which is usually classed as either young, raw or aged, can help drive off the cold, she added.
Aged ginger, which is spicier, can push the body further into the “hot” zone, Wu said, adding that people who often feel cold in their hands and feet would be most likely to benefit from ingesting aged ginger.
People who have constant dry mouth, experience constipation or easily develop acne might already have a “hot” constitution, she said, adding that they could worsen their condition by continuing to ingest aged ginger.
Traditional Chinese medicine usually suggests avoiding aged ginger at any time, rather than specifically at night, Wu said, but added that young and raw ginger are relatively mild and their consumption is not restricted, and all people can safely consume them without risk of upsetting their body’s balance.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching