Sweet and astringent taste and cool thermal nature. Acts on Spleen, Stomach, and Urinary Bladder meridians.

Active compounds:

Contains fiber, selenium, vitamin B3 (niacin), vitamin B1 (thiamin), phosphorus, and vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), protein, starch, fat, calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, copper, zinc, silicic acid, and mucins.

Clinical Usage and Indications:

• Generates physical strength
• Produces virility
• Clears Heat, moistens dryness, nourishes Yin, stoping thirst. Calms restlessness and anxiety. For feverish sensation, restlessness, and thirst, decoct barley with millet to gruel

• Invigorate Spleen, improving digestion. For poor appetite and diarrhea due to weak Spleen and Stomach: take oven-dried and powdered barley with Che Qian Zi (plantain seed).

• Reduce edema and swelling of the body: make a soup with perl barley and azuki beans. Boil the soup and reduce 10 cups of it to 1 cup and drink only the liquid

• Benefits the Kidneys. Diuretic. For dysuria, difficult, painful and dripping urination, decoct barley, remove the dregs, mix with ginger juice, honey, and drink.

• Overcome excessive wind
• Nourishes the heart

Directions: In a soup or stew, in a bread, as breakfast cereal, decoct, make into a gruel, or powder.

Attention: Two types of barley are available: pearl barley is the refined version; pot barley is the whole grain. I prefer the pot barley, which has a point that is bent, are cool and light, and thus they clear away phlegm. It does have some gluten but levels are low.

From Tao of Tummy © book