Radish is healthy. Although not everyone likes it. For some, radish causes winds, others have to belch after the consumption. Whether it causes problems or not mostly depends on the way it is prepared. There are so many ways you can prepare and eat radish. As a pickled vegetable (The origin of takuan), stewed in a broth or raw as garnish or salad. This also depends on the cultural area you live in or are influenced by. For example, in the place I grew up, it was unthinkable to cook or stew radish, or to heat it up in some way or other. That is why I didn’t like radish. Until I found out that it can be prepared in so many different and delicious ways. You will find the various processing methods and recipes in another post (How to make takuan). Here, I want to explain in a very simple way how the people of the past understood the nutritious and medicinal benefits of radish applied.
This post is about:
– Concepts
– Key words for understanding the old texts
Concepts
There are basically two different concepts on how to evaluate and categorize radish, which I bluntly describe as the ‘old’ way and the ‘new’ way.
The new way
Today, we measure and analyze the nutrient value of what we consider as food. We divide it into vitamins, minerals, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and so on. An analysis of (raw) radish looks like this:
| Name | Amount | Unit |
| Water | 95.27 | g |
| Energy | 16 | kcal |
| Protein | 0.68 | g |
| Total lipid (fat) | 0.1 | g |
| Carbohydrate, by difference | 3.4 | g |
| Fiber, total dietary | 1.6 | g |
| Sugars, total including NLEA | 1.86 | g |
| Calcium, Ca | 25 | mg |
| Iron, Fe | 0.34 | mg |
| Magnesium, Mg | 10 | mg |
| Phosphorus, P | 20 | mg |
| Potassium, K | 233 | mg |
| Sodium, Na | 39 | mg |
| Zinc, Zn | 0.28 | mg |
| Copper, Cu | 0.05 | mg |
| Selenium, Se | 0.6 | µg |
| Vitamin C, total ascorbic acid | 14.8 | mg |
| Thiamin | 0.012 | mg |
| Riboflavin | 0.039 | mg |
| Niacin | 0.254 | mg |
| Vitamin B-6 | 0.071 | mg |
| Folate, total | 25 | µg |
| […] |
(from: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/1103374/nutrients, accessed July 28, 2021)
The old way: ‘quality’ and ‘property’
In Japan’s past, the people in general had other criteria on how to assess food and medicine (there was no chemical analysis as we know it today). By adopting the medical concept from continental Asia (mainly China, but also India via China), they evaluated everything that had a medicinal benefit to humans in terms of ‘quality’. According to this traditional Chinese/Japanese medical system, every herb or substance has its own character and possesses specific properties. Some herbs, for example, drain or dispel dampness out of the body or regulate the blood or warm the interior. They can do this because they are especially bitter, or warm, or pungent, or salty, or, or, or.
It is a concept you can perceive in many traditional societies around the world. In a more or less elaborate manner. Everything you can find in nature can basically be medicine. Barks, leaves and roots of trees and other plants, herbs, fruits, semen, substances, such as animal (and human) excrements etc., are all materia medica.
How to find out the properties of a plant/vegetable
Today, we explain the ‘influences’ the different herbs or substances have on the body in a bio-chemical way. But how did the scientists of the past discover and evaluate the effects these substances have?
It is as simple as that: they used their own experience (at least, that’s what they said) to find out how a certain substance or herb effects the body. And they relied on knowledge they found in old medical books. That is, they studied the information given in these sources and tried it out. If they discovered new methods or decided to discard old ones, they would comment this in another book.
Depending on the sources and methods they liked or considered as effective, medical schools with varying emphases developed over time. Some physicians preferred to cure diseases by mainly using purgative and laxative substances with the intent to purify the body. Other doctors focused on one source that became their medical bible. Others discarded any written medical records and concentrated only on their own experience or their family’s tradition. The doctors of the past and the people in general understood and interpreted bodily functions differently than we do today. There are many books out there that introduce the philosophical concept behind classical Chinese medicine. Therein, Yin and Yang and the Five Phases (sometimes also called Five Elements) play a prominent role. I’ll skip this. Instead, I’d like to introduce only those concepts or terms that are relevant for understanding the texts. We don’t need to know more about this philosophical concept here, really.
Keywords for understanding the texts
Ki (qi), 'agents', kyo and jitsu
ki (qi)
A key factor is qi, ‘energy’, (in Japanese ki), the vital force that moves the body but which is also present in nature and the air. Ki is also the energy you are born with (in this case called genki, your potential but not yet activated vitality), and ki is also the different energies of the organs that causes them to function, and so on. When all these different ki can run freely through the body, we are healthy and feel energetic. But this energy can also be blocked for various reasons. Unhealthy lifestyle, weakness of certain organs, climate influences, for example, can affect the smooth collaboration of your organs. Food (and herbal medicine, of course) can help to dissolve these obstructions, too much food in turn can also cause stagnations in your body.
‘agents‘
Then, there are ‘agents’ or factors, such as dampness, wind, cold, heat, phlegm etc. that can influence the body in a bad way and prevent a smooth functioning and finally lead to disease. These agents can be of outer origin, such as weather conditions but can also be caused by extreme emotions or the excessive intake of certain foods. But can also be cured by outer influences and the intake of materia medica, and certain foods.
kyo and jitsu
Other important terms in which disease and cures are explained are kyo and jitsu. Kyo can be translated as void, emptiness, or deficiency. Jitsu is the opposite of kyo, a too-much, excess. For example, a weak body is a kyo manifestation, but kyo can also be limited to an organ or bodily liquid, such as blood. The same applies to jitsu. ‘Weak’ or kyo organs have to be nurtured but the excessive functioning has to be calmed or appeased by appropriate methods or medicines.
Of course, the physicians also termed the disease names differently, but this actually doesn’t have to bother us because in these texts they mostly used common names or symptoms that we all understand, such as stuffed nose, catching a cold, vomiting etc.
Character and property of herbs and food, or general materia medica
Character
Anything you eat or drink has an effect on your body. For example, if you consume chili pepper or fresh ginger, you start to feel warm, and when you eat watermelon, your body cools down. So, the people of the past used these effects to classify the food and medicinal herb you take in into different categories. Originally, these were divided into four categories: hot, warming, cooling and cold. These four ‘characters’ are also sometimes designated as four ‘energies’. These days, this classification is enlarged by further three categories, very hot, neutral, and very cold. Dried ginger, for example, is considered as very hot, and licorice as neutral.
Categories
- (very hot)
- hot
- warming
- (neutral)
- cooling
- cold
- (very cold)
Yet, the way food or medicine is processed can change its character. That means, original ‘cold’ food can change into ‘warm’ when being cooked. It makes also a difference whether a vegetable is fresh or dried or fermented.
Toxicity
Another criterion is their toxicity (this especially applies to materia medica). They can be toxic, mildly toxic or non-toxic. Some vegetables, for example, are slightly poisonous in their raw state but become non-toxic when being processed for consumption.
Taste
Of course, everything you eat or drink has its own, specific taste. Traditionally, in the books of the past, the authors discriminated between five different tastes: sour, salty, sweet, pungent, and bitter. (There is no umami in the old texts). Also, some vegetables or herbs possess a very weak taste, and thus are characterized as ‘light’ (or bland, if you want), others, such as an unripe persimmon (kaki), contain tartness and are considered as ‘astringent’. But in many cases, it is hard to distinguish a prominent taste because many plants possess more than only one taste. Apricots, for example taste sweet and slightly bitter at the same time, other vegetables bitter and sour.
How to solve this?
The focus is on efficacy.
The pharmacologists of the past interlinked the taste of a nature product with its efficacy. This connection has been firstly addressed in one of the most important Chinese classics of medicine, the “The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine” (Huangdi Neijing, Han dynasty (200BCE-200CE)) and been systematized during the course of time.
Now, it looks like this:
As with everything that has been systematized and put into a theoretical framework, there are always cases that don’t fit in. There are many exceptions in which taste and efficacy don’t match.
Another criterion: the direction of medical action of the specific herb (or food)
This sounds a bit weird. But haven’t you once experienced the belches after the consumption of raw radish? In classical Chinese/Japanese medicine, this reaction is interpreted as an up moving direction of the consumed food (or medicine).
The doctors of the past discriminated four different directions: upward, downward, floating and sinking. Upward means ascending to the upper body, downward descending to the lower body. Floating means moving towards the outside and dissipating, sinking means moving towards the inside and draining. There are also upbearing and floating medicinals and down bearing and sinking medicinals.
Now, the physicians/herbalists/scientists of the past (who often were all-in-one) also applied this concept to food. That is why many of these old texts that deal specifically with food use this medical vocabulary.
So, let’s move on to the sources. (See post: radish as medicine – the sources (part II))