Introduction: Traditional Chinese medicine tells us that if we have bad breath, we should get treatment as soon as possible. Our modern lives are busy and our lifestyles irregular, making it easy to develop various diseases. Professor Tan Jing, the director of the stomatology department at the First Affiliated Hospital of Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, said that in our daily lives, there is often a strange phenomenon where we don't feel sick, but we have bad breath.
Bitter taste: This is often related to abnormal bile metabolism. Usually, a bitter taste reflects liver and gallbladder heat or phlegm-heat disturbance inside the body. In terms of diet, one should avoid spicy, fried, and grilled foods that are dry and hot. One can consume more cooling soups such as wolfberry leaf egg soup, chrysanthemum Job's tears winter melon sugar water, fresh bamboo shoots stewed with lean meat, etc.
Sweet taste: Digestive system dysfunction can cause abnormal secretion of various digestive enzymes, especially an increase in the amount of amylase in saliva, which stimulates the taste buds on the tongue, causing a sweet taste in the mouth. In traditional Chinese medicine, sweetness in the mouth is associated with spleen heat. A sweet taste reflects heat in the spleen, which can be either real heat or virtual heat. Real heat causes dry mouth and thirst, hard stools, and yellow urine. Virtual heat causes reduced appetite, fatigue, and weakness. In terms of diet, those with real heat should avoid dry and spicy foods and can consume heat-clearing and fire-purgative foods such as tofu cabbage soup, Pueraria fish soup, wild amaranth soup, etc. Those with virtual heat can eat lotus seed sugar water, Huai mountain yam and lotus seeds stewed with duck, Codonopsis pilosula Huai mountain yam stewed with snakehead fish, etc.
Sour taste: In traditional Chinese medicine, sourness in the mouth is associated with weak spleen and stomach qi or heat in the liver meridian. Heat in the liver meridian causes sourness in the mouth accompanied by bitterness, fullness and pain in the chest and ribs, irritability and anger, headache and dizziness, yellow urine, and dry stools. In terms of diet, those with heat in the liver meridian should avoid spicy and fried dry-hot foods and should consume cooling foods such as raw fish slice wolfberry soup, chrysanthemum rice porridge, kelp and sesame soup, etc. Those with insufficient spleen qi should consume spleen-strengthening and stomach-warming foods such as Codonopsis pilosula wolfberry Huai mountain yam stewed with black chicken, pepper stewed pig stomach, crucian carp glutinous rice porridge, etc.
Salty taste: In traditional Chinese medicine, saltiness in the mouth is caused by kidney fluid rising upward. Overwork, old age, and long-term illness can all lead to kidney deficiency. In terms of diet, those with kidney yin deficiency should avoid spicy and dry-hot yang-assisting foods and should consume yin-nourishing and kidney-supplementing foods such as Huai mountain yam wolfberry stewed softshell turtle, Polygonatum officinale Huai mountain yam stewed hen, sea cucumber glutinous rice porridge, Huai mountain yam wolfberry stewed wild duck, etc. Those with kidney yang deficiency should avoid cold and raw foods that harm the kidneys and should consume warming kidney and strengthening yang foods such as deer antler gelatin ginger rice porridge, wolfberry chestnut stewed mutton, Aconitum carmichaeli stewed dog meat, deer antler slices stewed lean meat, etc.
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