With the progress of the times and the accumulation of experience, people have a deeper understanding of the properties of herbs. Ancient medical scientists applied the theory of "four properties" and "five flavors" of traditional Chinese medicine to food, believing that every food also has "four properties" and "five flavors".

It is recorded in "Huangdi Neijing Taisu" from the Tang Dynasty: "If you eat it on an empty stomach, it is food; if you eat it for a patient, it is medicine." This is the idea of "food and medicine have the same origin."

Chinese medicine emphasizes diet therapy. Medicinal diet is the product of the combination of traditional Chinese medical knowledge and cooking experience. It is a diet with diet therapy effect made from drugs and food through cooking and processing. The earliest diet therapy theory was recorded in the "Inner Canon of Medicine": "For treating diseases with strong poisons, remove six out of ten; for treating diseases with common poisons, remove seven out of ten; for treating diseases with minor poisons, remove eight out of ten; for treating diseases with non-toxic substances, remove nine out of ten; eat all the grains, meats, fruits and vegetables, but do not eat too much, which will damage the body's health."

"In the alternation of yin and yang, the two sides of the herbs flicker, but they are not easily discovered. Positive or negative, used as medicine or food, poison or good medicine, the herbs are spiritual and look forward to the sonorous answer of human beings."

Everything has two sides, and herbs are no exception. The third episode of the documentary series [Chinese Herbs] tells us about the effects of herbs in different treatments, poison and detoxification, medicine and food from the same source, and two-way regulation. Among them, medicine and food from the same source is the closest to our daily life.

There are 101 sources of medicinal materials that are both edible and medicinal as stipulated by the state:

Cloves, star anise, sword beans, wild ginseng (ginseng vegetable), fennel, thistle, yam, hawthorn, purslane, black snake, black plum, papaya, hemp seed, daidai flower, polygonatum, licorice, angelica, ginkgo, white lentils, white lentil flowers, longan meat (longan), cassia seed, lily, nutmeg, cinnamon, emblica, bergamot, almonds (sweet, bitter), sea buckthorn, oyster, Euryale, pepper, red bean, donkey-hide gelatin, chicken gizzard, malt, kelp, jujube (jujube, sour jujube, black jujube), monk fruit, Prunus mume, honeysuckle, green fruit , houttuynia, ginger (fresh ginger, dried ginger), citrus aurantium, wolfberry, gardenia, amomum, sterculia lychnophora, poria, citron, elsholtzia, peach kernel, mulberry leaf, mulberry, orange peel, platycodon, oxyphylla, lotus leaf, radish seed, lotus seed, galangal, light bamboo leaf, light black bean curd, chrysanthemum, chicory, yellow mustard, polygonatum, perilla, perilla seed, kudzu root, black sesame, black pepper, sophora japonica, sophora japonica, dandelion, honey, torreya grandiflora, jujube kernel, fresh white imperata root, fresh reed root, pit viper, tangerine peel, mint, coix seed, scallion, raspberry, patchouli, roselle