Two pages here name dietary therapy as one of the four branches of Chinese medicine — the massage guide in its opening clause, and the Chinese medicine page in its own — and neither says what it is. Meanwhile the food pages are full of the thing itself without naming it: slow-simmered Cantonese soups, Fujian's soup obsession, the bitter Guangdong cooling teas that get a single bullet on the drinks page, goji berries scattered through broths from Xinjiang to Guangdong.
The gap is not culinary. It is that a visitor has no way to tell whether the roots floating in the pot are an ingredient, a medicine, or something with a legal category of its own.
They are the third thing, and China maintains a list.
This page is about the category and the label, not about what anything does. No claim is made here that any food treats any condition — and, as it turns out, Chinese law is emphatic on that point too.
The list of things that are both#
The governing idea has a name — 药食同源 (yào shí tóng yuán, "medicine and food, one origin") — and, unusually for a traditional concept, an administrative expression.
Under the Food Safety Law and its implementing regulation, the National Health Commission and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly maintain a catalogue of substances that are, by tradition, both foods and Chinese medicinal materials. Being on it is what allows a substance to be sold and used as an ordinary food ingredient rather than only as a medicine.
The catalogue is built in batches, and it is still growing:
| Addition | What happened |
|---|---|
| Announcement 2023 no. 9 | Nine substances added after safety assessment and a production-and-operation pilot — among them codonopsis, dendrobium, American ginseng, astragalus, ganoderma, gastrodia and eucommia leaf |
| Announcement 2024 no. 4 | Four more added in August 2024 — rehmannia, ophiopogon, asparagus root and Huajuhong pomelo peel |
The 2024 interpretation is worth noticing for how it reasons. It admits a substance by pointing at where people have historically eaten it and how — rehmannia pickled, brewed as tea, steeped in spirits, cooked into dishes and simmered in soup in Henan, Gansu and Shandong; ophiopogon brewed, cooked in congee and simmered in soup in Sichuan and Guangdong. The test is documented custom plus a safety assessment, not a therapeutic claim.
The blue hat, and the fifth of the packet#
Now the part that is checkable in a shop, and it is the clearest consumer-protection labelling rule this site has come across.
保健食品 (bǎojiàn shípǐn, health food) is a separate regulated category again — not ordinary food, not medicine. A registered one carries a small blue hat-shaped mark and an approval number.
And it must carry a warning. The State Administration for Market Regulation issued the Guidelines on Labelling Warning Statements for Health Food as announcement no. 29 of 2019, on 10 June 2019, in force since 1 January 2020. Its requirements are specific enough to measure:
保健食品不是药物，不能代替药物治疗疾病。
"Health food is not medicine and cannot replace medicine in treating disease." That sentence must appear in a warning zone on the main display panel of the smallest sales package, the zone must occupy not less than 20% of the face it sits on, it must be printed in black type, and where the main display panel is 100 cm² or larger the letters must be at least 6.0 mm high — scaling proportionally down for smaller panels.
This is the sixteenth time this site has found the answer to a consumer question already printed in plain sight in China, alongside the licence on the wall, the hygiene grade, the nutrition letter on a drinks menu and the geographical indication on a bag of beans.
Where you will actually meet it#
- In soup, mostly. Cantonese slow-simmered soup is the everyday form, and the roots and dried fruit in it are the point rather than the garnish. The regional guide has the cuisines; this is what is in the pot.
- In cooling tea shopfronts in Guangdong, sold by the cup and genuinely bitter.
- At a pharmacy counter, where dried materials are sold by weight beside the packaged medicines, in the same shop — and what is weighed out of those drawers is a regulated product with a required label.
- In hotpot broth, where a herbal option usually sits beside the spicy and the clear.
- Read the box, not the claim. Blue hat plus warning zone means a registered health food. Neither of those means the thing is medicine, and the label says so.
- Two rules already on this site apply here. Anything containing a protected-species ingredient is a customs problem as well as an ethical one, and if you take prescription medicines, what China treats as a controlled substance is a separate question worth settling before you fly.
- Hong Kong and Macau regulate health food and Chinese medicinal materials under their own law, so the list and the label described here do not describe a packet bought there.
Frequently asked questions#
What does yao shi tong yuan mean?#
"Medicine and food, one origin" — the idea that some substances are simultaneously foods and Chinese medicinal materials. In China it is also an administrative category: the National Health Commission and the market regulator jointly maintain a catalogue of substances that count as both, and inclusion is what allows a substance to be used as an ordinary food ingredient.
Are goji berries medicine or food in China?#
The question is exactly the one the catalogue exists to answer. Substances traditionally used as both are listed by the health commission and the market regulator, and a listed substance may be used in ordinary food. The catalogue has been extended repeatedly — nine substances were added in 2023 after a pilot and four more in August 2024.
What is the blue hat symbol on Chinese products?#
The registration mark for 保健食品, health food — a regulated category that is neither ordinary food nor medicine. It appears with an approval number, and since 1 January 2020 the packaging must also carry a warning statement in a dedicated zone.
What does the warning on Chinese health food packaging say?#
"Health food is not medicine and cannot replace medicine in treating disease." Under the market regulator's 2019 guidelines, in force since 1 January 2020, the warning zone must occupy at least 20% of the face it sits on, be printed in black type, and use letters at least 6.0 mm high where the main display panel is 100 cm² or larger.
Is Chinese tonic soup safe to eat?#
It is food, prepared and sold as food, and the substances that may be used in it are the ones on the joint catalogue. As with any unfamiliar ingredient, the sensible questions are allergy and interaction with medicines you already take — which is a conversation for your own doctor rather than for a menu.
Should I buy Chinese health products to bring home?#
Check three things before you do: that the packet carries the blue hat and the warning zone, that no ingredient is from a protected species, and what your own country allows in. The export and customs categories are set out with the shopping rules, and they are stricter than most published advice suggests.