Baoqing coix seed
Baoqing Coix Seed
Dear friends:
Hello, everyone! Welcome to the "Southern Land of Medicinal Herbs" for sightseeing. Today I will introduce to you a famous local specialty of our "Southern Land of Medicinal Herbs" — the Baoqing coix seed, a treasure in every part.
Coix seed, known in ancient times as yiyi, yirenmi, gouzimi, or putizhu, is a grain crop and medicinal crop of high economic value, obtained after hulling. Coix was first recorded in the Shennong Bencao Jing and listed as a top-grade substance. In ancient texts it also had many other names, such as jieli, qishi, ganmi, yizhuzi, yimi, yiren, miren, zhuzhumi, wugumi, huihuimi, yaoyumi, shuiyumi, gouzimi, tiangu, caozhucui, and qishi. Because it comes from the high cold regions bordering Sichuan and Qinghai, it is commonly called chuangu, and because it is a food crop second only to the five grains (rice, millet, wheat, beans, and foxtail millet), people also call it the sixth grain.
Coix seed has a long history of cultivation in China and is one of our ancient grain varieties that serves well as both food and medicine. The history of coix cultivation can be traced back to the primitive society before the Xia Dynasty. In Wang Chong's Lunheng of the Western Han Dynasty, there is a record: "Yu swallowed coix and begot Qi, hence the Xia surname was Tian Si." That is to say, Great Yu begot Xia Qi because he swallowed coix seed, so the Xia Dynasty took the surname Tian Si. Today, about 6 kilometers south of Shaoxing, there is a village called Yuling Village, where the Si clan is said to have lived. Every year on the sixth day of the sixth lunar month, the Si clan holds an ancient and mysterious ritual to sacrifice to Yu, and the atmosphere of high antiquity fills Kuaiji Mountain.
Whether Great Yu really begot Qi because he swallowed coix seed we may leave aside for now, but at least it shows that in the primitive society before the Xia Dynasty, people already knew that coix seed was an edible substance. In fact, folk people recognized coix seed early on, using it as food to make fine dishes, regarding it as a precious Chinese medicine, and applying it widely in medicinal cuisine, where it was also listed as one of the palace diets. Cixi liked to eat "Eight Immortals Cake" made with coix seed to nourish her beauty, while Qianlong liked to eat "Eight Immortals Cake" made with coix seed to achieve longevity. Coix seed had long been regarded as an excellent elixir for prolonging life.
Not only that, even ancient Buddhism seems to have had a deep connection with coix seed. A story is still widely circulated among the people: According to Chinese Festival Food Customs, before Sakyamuni became a Buddha, he traveled throughout the famous mountains and great rivers of India in search of the true meaning of life. When he reached Magadha in North India, he was so tired and hungry that he fainted. At that moment a herding girl saw this and hurriedly took out her lunch, feeding Sakyamuni bite by bite. The herding girl's lunch was a mixture of various foods, including wild fruits she had gathered, among them coix seed. After eating this fragrant and delicious lunch, Sakyamuni immediately recovered his strength. Later he bathed in the Nairanjana River, sat in meditation under the bodhi tree, and on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month attained enlightenment and became a Buddha. From then on, every year on the day of "Laqi," the monks in monasteries would take fresh dried fruits, put them into clean vessels, and cook them all night until dawn. The porridge thus made was offered to the Buddha. At that time, the monks chanted scriptures and expounded the Dharma, and afterward ate the porridge in commemoration. This is the origin of Laba porridge. Buddhism spread widely in China and this custom has continued ever since. As for the ingredients of Laba porridge, in the Northern Song Dynasty almonds, coix seed, peach kernels, preserved fruits, glutinous rice, soybeans, and beans were used; in the Southern Song Dynasty, walnuts, coix seed, pine nuts, and persimmons and chestnuts and the like; in the Yuan Dynasty the porridge was red in color, also called red fermented rice porridge or cinnabar porridge, possibly using red beans, lotus seeds, peanuts, red dates, and other ingredients that produce a red color.
Meng Yuanlao of the Song Dynasty recorded in Dongjing Menghua Lu: On the eighth day of the twelfth month, "the great temples hold the Bathing the Buddha Assembly and send seven-treasure five-flavor porridge to their disciples, calling it 'Laba porridge.' On this day the city residents also cook porridge with fruits and mixed ingredients and eat it." Thereafter, the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties followed this food custom, and it was most prevalent in the Qing Dynasty. A poem says: "In every household Laba porridge is cooked with two kinds of grain, hazelnuts and peach kernels dye it red. I am delighted that my lovely child has reached his birthday, and long enjoy the Buddha's blessing and endless protection." Laba porridge is now also called eight-treasure porridge, and its ingredients are eight things: longan, coix seed, oatmeal, glutinous rice, mung beans, red beans, kidney beans, and peanuts. Thus it can be seen how wide coix seed's uses are and how deeply people understand it.
Coix seed belongs to the grass family, and its nutritional value ranks first among plants of the grass family. Coix seed is both a medicinal crop and a grain crop. According to analysis, its protein content is 17.6%–18.7%, 2.5 times that of rice; its fat content is 11.74%, 2.9 times that of rice; it contains 62.38% starch and 1.3% ash. Every 100 grams contains 132 milligrams of vitamin B1. In addition, it also contains sugar and many amino acids indispensable to the human body, such as lysine, tryptophan, tyrosine, and alanine, and many other nutritional components. It is a very good tonic and also a nutrient-rich medicinal plant, with functions such as moistening the lungs, clearing heat, dispelling wind-dampness, reducing edema, promoting urination, and stopping diarrhea.
The main use of coix seed is as food. Its taste is similar to rice, and it has the characteristic of being easy to digest and absorb. As a grain crop, it can be used to cook rice, make soup, make cakes, and brew fine wine, and its color, aroma, and taste are all excellent. In summer and autumn, cooking it into soup with winter melon can both accompany meals and clear summer heat and remove dampness. Since ancient times people have regarded it as a delicacy and fine soup. A Song Dynasty poet once praised it in verse:
"When first traveling to Chang'an I spoke of coix seed; when cooked, its excellence is no less than that of wild rice. It is as large as gorgon fruit and white as jade, so slippery it seems to flow from the spoon, its fragrance filling the house."
At banquets it is called "dragon pearl rice." Compatriots in Hong Kong and Macao and overseas Chinese make porridge with coix seed, Japan uses coix seed to make high-grade cakes, and in the streets of Malaysia, Singapore, and other places there is often a dessert called coix water, made by boiling coix seed and adding sugar water. It is very refreshing and tastes quite good. Because of its pure quality and low contamination, in recent years it has also been chosen as a staple food. Precisely because of coix seed's effects on the human body, in order to improve the physique of the Japanese people, Japan established a nationwide coix seed association in 1980 to promote the production and sale of coix seed.
Coix seed is not only delicious but can also be used as medicine. As a medicinal crop, coix seed has both therapeutic and tonic effects. Coix seed, coix root, and coix leaf are all good medicines, and can treat heart-induced edema, beriberi, weakness of the spleen and stomach, cough due to lung heat, chronic enteritis, pulmonary tuberculosis, arthritis, muscle spasms, and many other diseases. In ancient Chinese medicine there are records such as "treats contraction and spasm of the tendons and bones, inability to bend and stretch, chronic wind-damp impediment, and directs qi downward" (Ben Jing) and "Coix seed strengthens the spleen, benefits the stomach, tonifies the lungs, clears heat, dispels wind, and removes dampness. Taken as a decoction it promotes urination and treats heat strangury; pounding coix root into juice and taking it with wine is effective for treating jaundice" (Bencao Gangmu). At present, Chinese and Western medicine use coix seed to treat pulmonary tuberculosis, nephritis, tumors, enteritis with diarrhea, heart-induced edema, pleurisy, and chronic arthritis. Recently a kind of "coix seed injection" has also been developed, mainly used for preventing and treating cancer and other diseases.
Because coix seed has very high nutritional value, it is praised as the king of the world's grass family plants. For patients weak from long illness, those in the recovery period after illness, the elderly, postpartum women, and children, it is a relatively good medicinal food and can be taken regularly. Whether used for tonifying or for treating disease, its action is relatively mild; slightly cold but not harmful to the stomach, it benefits the spleen without being cloying. In Europe it is called the grain of life and health; in Japan coix seed is regarded as a typical "anti-cancer food." Modern pharmacological research has proved that coix seed has an anti-cancer effect. Its effective anti-cancer components are coixenolide, coix lactone, and linoleic acid. It is not only a very important anti-cancer substance but also has a tonic effect, can effectively inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells, and can be used in the adjuvant treatment of gastric cancer and cervical cancer. Clinically it is generally recommended that tumor patients use raw coix seed, soak it in an appropriate amount of water for 3 to 4 hours, then cook it and eat it. Eating it for several months in succession can produce a fairly obvious therapeutic effect, and therefore its value has increased greatly. The coixol contained in the root of coix seed, in addition to having the above-mentioned effects of coixenolide, also has the effects of lowering blood pressure, promoting urination, reducing fever, and expelling roundworms, and is suitable for hypertension, urinary tract stones, urinary tract infections, ascariasis, and other conditions. The leaves of coix seed can be decocted in water and drunk as tea; their fragrance is fresh, and drinking it can promote urination. It has the effects of clearing heat, removing dampness, and strengthening the spleen, has special therapeutic effects on rheumatic pain, diarrhea, and arthritis, and is also the best green food for making soup and porridge in the scorching heat of summer. Therefore, coix seed is a multifunctional crop health product, and so it is also called medicinal corn.
Modern research shows that coix seed is a very nutritious food. Its protein content is much higher than that of rice and flour, and it also contains the eight essential amino acids needed by the human body, making it a very good therapeutic food. It has the effect of promoting metabolism and reducing the burden on the gastrointestinal tract, so it is often used as a tonic food for patients who are weak during or after illness. Regularly eating coix seed foods is also effective for chronic diseases and indigestion. Coix seed can also strengthen kidney function and has the effect of clearing heat and promoting urination, so it has therapeutic effects for patients with edema. It is not only suitable for ordinary people to eat, but especially suitable for those with weak spleen and stomach and poor digestive function. People with poor spleen and stomach often feel loss of appetite and reduced digestive ability in summer; therefore, eating more coix seed can promptly replenish physical energy consumed under high summer temperatures and play a role in enhancing immunity. Thus traditional Chinese medicine believes that regularly eating coix seed brings a hundred benefits and not a single harm to the body.
Coix is an annual or perennial herb with a tall plant and stout stems. Its fibrous roots are yellow-white and up to 3 millimeters thick. The culms are erect and clustered, 1 to 2 meters tall, with about 10 nodes; adventitious roots grow from the basal nodes, and there are many branches. The leaves are linear-lanceolate, with rough edges and thick midribs, alternate. The spikelets are unisexual, with male and female flowers in the same inflorescence; the female spikelets are located in the lower part of the inflorescence, and the involucre is ovate to elliptical, white, gray, or blue-purple, hard and glossy, with a slender style; the ovary is ovate. The kernel is also called coix kernel, round-bead-shaped or oblong, white or yellowish-white, solid in texture, mostly powdery, sweet and bland or slightly sweet in taste. The involucre of coix is relatively soft and can be broken by rubbing to crack the shell. The caryopsis is plump and rich in starch, and the rice quality is sticky.
Coix originated directly from the tropical and subtropical regions of Southeast Asia, and is mainly produced in the vast areas of China south of 33 degrees north latitude. Coix prefers warm, humid, and cool climates and avoids high temperatures and muggy heat. It is tolerant of waterlogging and drought, and has little demand for soil; it can be planted in both paddy and dry land, making it a crop with strong adaptability. It can be planted from mountain areas at elevations of 300 to 1,300 meters. According to plant height, involucre color, and the characteristics of seedlings and grains, it is divided into several types: tall-stalk white-shell, tall-stalk flower-shell, tall-stalk black-shell, and short-stalk black-shell. The growth period of coix is 150 to 180 days. Black-shell coix should be planted at an elevation above 1,000 meters, while white-shell and short coix are suitable for planting in low-elevation areas, and there are early-maturing (short-stalk), mid-maturing, and late-maturing (tall-stalk) types. For cultivating coix, fertile, moist, irrigated sandy loam is best.
The main production areas of Baoqing coix seed are Longhui, Chengbu, Suining, Xinshao, Wugang, Dongkou, and other places, so it is generally called Baoqing coix seed. China's coix cultivation has a long history, and for nearly a hundred years Shaoyang has always been the main producing area of "Baoqing coix seed." Baoqing coix seed is renowned worldwide and exported to Southeast Asia for its "plump grains, crystal-white color, and excellent quality." In the old days, coix seed produced in various places was gathered and distributed in Baoqing (present-day Shaoyang City), so Shaoyang also had the fine reputation of being the distribution center of "world Baoqing coix seed."
The cultivation of Baoqing coix seed began in Chengbu in the late Ming Dynasty. The vast mountainous areas here bordering Guangxi have soil and climate conditions suitable for coix's characteristics of liking moisture, loving mist, disliking heat, and fearing dryness, so Chengbu has long had the fine reputation of "home of coix seed." The production of coix seed in Longhui developed rapidly and by the 1980s had become the main producing area of Baoqing coix seed. Coix seed has become a traditional export commodity here. About half of Baoqing coix seed is sold to Hong Kong and Macao markets and to Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, and other countries.
According to The Chinese Longevity Recipe Book: Cooking porridge with coix seed, fried hyacinth beans, and hawthorn, then adding an appropriate amount of brown sugar, is suitable for middle-aged and elderly people with weak spleen and stomach; cooking porridge with mung beans, coix seed, and rice, then adding a little salt for seasoning, can clear heat and detoxify when eaten, prevent heatstroke in hot summer, and treat boils, swelling, sores, and toxins and other diseases; cooking porridge with Chinese yam, coix seed, and rice, then adding an appropriate amount of white sugar, can strengthen the spleen and remove dampness; cooking porridge with codonopsis, coix seed, poria, and glutinous rice can tonify the middle and benefit qi, and is suitable for chronic diarrhea, weakness after illness, and other diseases; cooking hawthorn, coix seed, and rice into a thick porridge, then adding a little salt and scallion white for seasoning, can improve digestion, and is suitable for summer-dampness colds, indigestion, abdominal distension and diarrhea and other diseases, and can also lower cholesterol, making it especially good for patients with coronary heart disease; cooking porridge with lily bulb, coix seed, orange cake, and glutinous rice, then adding an appropriate amount of rock sugar, can tonify the lungs and smooth qi, and can treat chronic cough and asthma, whooping cough, and other diseases; cooking porridge with astragalus, lotus seeds, and glutinous rice can benefit qi and promote urination, and is suitable for weakness after illness, qi-deficiency night sweats, and other diseases; cooking soup with gorgon fruit, coix seed, Chinese yam, and poria plus lotus seeds can strengthen the stomach and regulate the intestines, improve digestion, promote growth and development, and enhance resistance; coix seed soup and sweet coix seed papaya soup can both nourish the skin's moisture and nutrients, and regular drinking makes the skin moist, delicate, radiant, and tender.
Modern research has proved that coix seed has anti-tumor, immunity-enhancing, and blood-sugar-lowering effects. Cooking coix seed with rice into porridge or eating it with rock sugar can increase the appetite of tumor patients and reduce the side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. In fact, coix seed is not only an expert in treating many diseases and fighting cancer, but also has the effects of strengthening the spleen, tonifying the lungs, clearing heat, promoting urination and reducing edema, and removing dampness and relaxing the sinews; at the same time it is also a natural beauty food. The vitamin B1 and B2 it contains can moisturize the skin, reduce wrinkles, and eliminate pigmented spots; at the same time, the proteolytic enzyme it contains can soften keratin and is very helpful for people with rough skin. Regular consumption can keep human skin glossy and delicate, eliminate acne and spots, and improve complexion. Coix seed also contains a large amount of coixol, which has an excellent inhibitory effect on striated muscle and is a natural fine product for nourishing the face and removing wrinkles, so regular consumption has a miraculous beauty effect. For people with facial wrinkles and dull complexion caused by deficiency of both spleen and stomach, cooking porridge with coix seed, Chinese yam, red dates, and millet and drinking it, or frying coix seed until cooked and grinding it into powder to take with water, also has unexpected effects. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the pigmented brown spots occurring on the face are formed because blood deficiency causes weak circulation and insufficient nutrition to the facial skin. Therefore, coix seed and angelica porridge, which has the effects of strengthening the spleen, nourishing blood, transforming stasis, and eliminating spots, is used to treat them; it even has a certain therapeutic effect on warts and other conditions caused by viral infection. Coix seed can not only remove the spots and acne that trouble young people, but also make an obese body slim and healthy. Healthy people who regularly eat coix seed can make the body agile and reduce the chance of tumors.
The high-paced life of modern society has plunged many people into inexplicable distress. Hair loss is a headache-inducing problem in today's society and seriously affects people's appearance. After more than half a century of effort, medical workers in China and abroad have adopted various technological means to prevent and treat it, but the results are still not good, and tens of millions of people are still suffering from hair loss... Yet this unremarkable coix seed has a very good preventive and therapeutic effect on hair loss. The rich nutrition it contains can not only effectively prevent hair loss but also nourish the hair and make it smooth and soft. Coix seed is rich in vitamin B1, which is also very beneficial for preventing and treating beriberi. It is precisely because of coix seed's outstanding functions in many aspects that it has become a worldwide favorite medicinal and edible product favored by people.