Fish Wort and Red Date Water

Why people make this herbal water

Whooping cough tends to show up in the colder months, often starting as a mild cold before turning into those distinctive, relentless bouts of coughing that are hardest on little ones at night. Fish wort — known in Chinese as yu xing cao — has a long history of use in traditional Chinese medicine for respiratory complaints, and modern laboratory work has found it to have broad antimicrobial properties. Red dates bring their own gentle benefit: they contain a compound called cyclic adenosine monophosphate, which is thought to help stabilize cell membranes and reduce the intensity of allergic-type reactions. Together, they make a simple, two-ingredient preparation that parents in Cantonese households have trusted for generations.