Familiar with the famous stomach ache and pain after your 3rd trip through the Chinese Buffet line? Did your last trip to Las Vegas leave you in a ‘Carb Comatose’ from all the Buffets?

Regardless your eating style you may have experienced the same symptoms from weak GI tract or many other reasons. In Chinese Medicine this is known as Food Stagnation. The intestines are very durable but have their limit. When more food is taken in than your body can keep up with then food isn’t moving. The food movement is supposed to be a slow process of churning and decomposition so your body can take in the good, clean and clear and discard the turbid. This process is strained and overworked and cannot perform its functions and intended. We literally end up with non movement of food or Food Stagnation. Signs and Symptoms of Food Stagnation include abdominal distension, abdominal pain, acid regurgitation and brief relief is found from flatulation, vomiting, and burping.

There is no secret that most herbs don’t taste all that well, but of course things that taste terrible usually seem to be great for you. In this case Shan Zha is a berry, more specifically Hawthorn berry. I wouldn’t recommend running out and buying these to eat like some strawberries or anything, they are quite sour, I am saying they are definitely on the tastier end of herbs. Shan Zha tastes pretty sour and has an unusual taste to your palate at first (some describe it like meat) but it is sweet and easily eaten straight up by itself.

Now that early ‘meat taste’ has a bit of importance. Shan Zha has a specific affinity for certain stagnation of foods- meat and greasy foods. What a perfect choice for a Buffet? This herb also has some other great features that make it a great herb. Shan Zha has been clinically shown to be a cardio-tonic- more specifically lowers cholesterol, lowers blood pressure, widens the coronary arteries, etc… What a perfect choice for a Buffet herb?

As usual Shan Zha is best in specific formulas and dried out, but Hawthorn is available in raw berry form and in drinks found at your local Asian Food Stores.