People with an allergic constitution need to be extra careful when eating crab

Autumn is the season when crabs come onto the market. Crab meat is tender and plump; especially the male crabs of September and the female crabs of October, which have thick meat and plenty of roe and taste delicious. However, traditional Chinese medicine experts remind you not to eat too much crab at one time, and people with an allergic constitution must also resist the temptation of this delicacy.

Chief physician Lin Hexi of Quanzhou Municipal Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine says that crab is salty and cold in nature, and eating too much can easily accumulate cold in the abdomen and cause illness. One should not eat too much crab at a time, and it must be eaten with pungent, warm accompaniments such as ginger, scallion and vinegar. Patients with coronary heart disease, high blood pressure or hyperlipidemia should not eat crab roe, or should eat little of it, and should also eat less crab meat. Patients with colitis or gallstones, people with an allergic constitution such as those with allergic asthma and bronchitis, and those with deficiency-cold of the spleen and stomach and loose stools should eat little crab or eat it with caution.

If being unable to eat crab makes you feel regretful, then choose other foods to nourish the body. Dr. Lin explains that autumn nourishment should use foods that nourish yin and prevent dryness and that tonify the kidney and moisten the lungs, such as chicken, duck, beef, fish, shrimp, lotus seeds, jujube and Chinese yam, which can strengthen the constitution.