Dietotherapy should include two further closely interwoven aspects, namely, the development of cooking techniques to eliminate unpleasant tastes or odours from drugs, instead producing tasty and attractive foods, and the study of new foods with therapeutic potential and their recipes.
Dietotherapy--nature therapy
Moreover, dietotherapy also can be effective in the treatment of diseases such as AIDS, one of the current major threats to human life and health. Sufferings can be eased and the survival period greatly prolonged by dietotherapy. Chinese dietotherapy exerts extensive influence even in the Western world. There are many works on dietotherapy published in the Western languages, such as Prince Wen Hui's Cook by Bob Flaws of the United States, and Chinese System of Food Cures, Prevention and Remedies by Henry C. Lu of Canada.
Recently, the contents of traditional Chinese dietotherapy have been enriched by the further study of foods that are useful for preventing diseases and strengthening body resistance, cooking techniques for dietotherapeutic purposes, and the combining or contradiction of foodstuffs.
Chinese dietotherapy, as a natural therapy, has also been welcomed in many other countries. For instance, Mr. Sasada, a Japanese scholar, assessed in his paper entitled "Research into Modem Classics on Diet" those works relevant to foods from the period of the Song and Yuan dynasties onwards. In his opinion, ancient Chinese dietary stttdy should embrace general works on food, and drink, delicacies of all sorts and also ordinary foods eaten by the common people. He concluded that such works amounted to as many as 38 in the Song-Yuan dynasties, 41 in the Ming Dynasty, and 40 in the Qing Dynasty.
The facts show that Chinese dietotherapy is a special branch of science with wide and unique contents.
