Coughs are a common ailment many dismiss as trivial. However, untreated coughs can lead to other health issues and significantly impact daily life and sleep quality. Therefore, we should take them seriously. Below, we explore key information about coughs.
Coughs Following a Cold
Sandy Ginseng, Solomon's Seal, Lotus Seed, and Lily Soup
Ingredients: 50g sandy ginseng,25g each of Solomon's seal root, lotus seeds, and lily bulbs, 1 egg.
Preparation and Dosage: Wash the ginseng root, Solomon's seal root, lotus seeds, and lily bulbs. Place them in a pot with the egg (shell intact) and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the egg, peel it, then return it to the pot and simmer until the herbs are tender.
Eat the egg and drink the soup. Sugar may be added to taste.

Therapeutic Effects: This soup utilizes herbs that nourish lung yin, strengthen the spleen, and harmonize the stomach. The egg, particularly valuable for its nutritional properties, also replenishes yin, alleviates irritability, enriches blood, and calms the spirit. It addresses lung and stomach yin deficiency, hoarseness, and sore throat. Thus, this dish nourishes yin, clears heat, moistens the lungs, and relieves cough.
Indicated for chronic cough due to qi deficiency, dry cough from lung dryness (manifesting as low-pitched coughing, scanty and difficult-to-expel phlegm), physical weakness with poor appetite, dry mouth, and thirst.
Precautions: Not suitable for those with spleen deficiency with excessive dampness, or those with real heat with abundant phlegm, body heat, and bad breath.
Cough-Relieving Luffa Porridge
Ingredients: 500g luffa, 100g japonica rice, 15g dried shrimp, appropriate amounts of ginger and scallions.
Preparation and Serving: Wash luffa with skin intact, cut into chunks, and set aside. Cook japonica rice into porridge. When nearly done, add luffa, dried shrimp, and other ingredients.
Serve for breakfast or dinner.
Efficacy and Indications: Luffa, sweet and cool in nature, clears heat, transforms phlegm, cools blood, and detoxifies. It contains saponins, cucurbitacin, cucurbitacin, xylan, fats, proteins, vitamin E, and other components.
Combined with japonica rice and dried shrimp, it clears heat, harmonizes the stomach, transforms phlegm, and relieves cough.
Used to treat chronic bronchitis with coughing and wheezing, or fever with thirst, thick yellow phlegm, and sore throat. Also effective for initial stages of abscesses or lingering heat toxins after illness.
Precautions: Due to its cold and slippery nature, loofah should be used cautiously for weak infants or those with spleen-stomach yang deficiency, frequent loose stools, or diarrhea. When treating sore throat or abscesses, omit dried shrimp.