Traditional Chinese Medicine believes that pharyngitis occurs primarily due to deficiency of lung and kidney yin, yin deficiency with internal heat, rising deficient fire, or external contraction of wind-heat, where heat toxins scorch the throat. Green tea is cool in nature and has the effects of promoting fluid production, quenching thirst, clearing heat, and detoxifying. Rock sugar is neutral to slightly cool and functions to tonify the middle and boost qi, nourish yin and moisten the lungs, relieve cough, and transform phlegm. Additionally, rock sugar is often added to Chinese herbal medicine to guide out the medicinal effects. Drinking these two together allows the heat-clearing and detoxifying properties of green tea to be fully exerted, alleviating throat pain, and also enables it to display its actions of nourishing yin, moistening the lungs, and promoting fluid production, thereby improving local dryness and discomfort in the throat. Furthermore, among all sugars, rock sugar has the strongest tonic effect; its nourishing action can enhance the body's immunity, fundamentally strengthening the body's ability to combat pharyngitis. Therefore, patients with acute or chronic pharyngitis might try adding some rock sugar when drinking green tea. However, to avoid raising blood sugar, diabetics should refrain from this.
In addition to regularly drinking rock sugar green tea, pharyngitis patients should also pay attention to the following points in their daily diet:
First, the diet should primarily consist of cool and neutral-natured foods, with reduced or no consumption of stimulating foods like garlic, chili peppers, and white wine. These foods can easily induce or worsen mucosal congestion, which is like adding fuel to the fire for the throat.
Second, eat more fresh vegetables and fruits that have heat-clearing and fluid-promoting effects, such as pear, sugarcane, watermelon, radish, sponge gourd, fig, water chestnut, lotus root, winter melon, banana, and lily.
Third, moderately increase protein intake to enhance the body's immunity. The level of human immunity is directly related to the recurrence of pharyngitis, so patients should appropriately increase the intake of high-quality protein like fish, shrimp, meat, and dairy products. When supplementing protein, be careful to eat less overly warm foods such as mutton and dog meat, as they can easily worsen throat discomfort symptoms.