With the advent of spring, all living things in great Nature gain a renewed life, and the climate turns warm and more congenial. In order to improve health and achieve a better sense of well-being, many people turn their attention to adjusting the pattern of their diet. Zhao Zhi-heng, a health-care expert of Tien Municipality, has put forward in this respect the following reminder: For preservation of health by dietary means during the spring season there is the need to adhere to three principles.

Principle I:
The heat content of the body should be replenished, and the power of resistance to diseases of the body should be strengthened. In the time of early spring, the air is still rather chilly. For fending off the cold, the human body has to dissipate a certain amount of energy so as to maintain the basic body temperature required. For this reason, the nourishment for the period of early spring should be made up in constitution principally by foods of high heat content. Hence the principle of high heat content plus high protein content. One must stick to this principle in his/her adjustment of diet for spring. For day-to-day consumption in spring, such edibles as soybeans, sesame seeds, peanuts, and walnuts, in addition to cereals, should be selected, because these foods can supplement, most probably to the full, the amount of energy needed by the body. Moreover, in the selection of foods for consumption in early spring, preference should be given to high-quality items which are rich in protein, such as hen’s eggs, fishes, shrimps, beef, chicken, rabbit and bean products. All of them each contain an abundance of egg amino acids, and egg amino acids have the invaluable trait of being able to make the human body more resistant to cold.

Principle II:
For the springtime diet, the foods to be chosen should have the property of being able to counteract the injurious effects of viruses. In spring, the change in air temperature, from being quite cold to being warm, is considerable. Microbes, such as bacteria and viruses, begin to multiply with greatly increased viability so that they are apt to invade into the human body and induce diseases. Therefore, one must stick to this antiviral principle in making his/her dietary adjustment. Great care should be exercised to make it possible for enough vitamins and inorganic salts to be imbibed from the daily foods provided by the springtime dietary plan. Take for examples bok choy, which is a variety of Chinese cabbage, green rape, hot pepper, spinach, oranges and tangerines, and jujubes. These foods are all rich in vitamin C and have remarkable antiviral effects.

Principle III:
Eat more of sweet foods and less of sour foods so as to benefit the nursing of the spleen and the stomach. Owing to the fact that in springtime a person"s liver is generally hyperactive, the spleen is often adversely affected. For this reason, symptoms of weakness of the spleen and the stomach are apt to appear in spring. If too much of sour foods is ingested, hyperhepatia, i.e. hyperfunctioning of the liver, may be more sure to occur. For improvement of health by dietary means in spring, therefore, sweet and gentle items ought to be selected and sour and puckery items shunned.  Refreshments and drinks should be simple and light, with those foods banned which are greasy, raw and cold, or pungent. Incidentally, spring is the off-season of vegetables, but, fortunately, edible wild herbs and mountain herbs are generally available earlier than the usual stock. They are also rich in vitamins and can be obtained for table use in appropriate quantities.