Why you need to prep for your period, the chinese way ☯️ how to nourish the pain away
Alice Sun (@alicecsun) shares a unique view into her life through the ways she uses food to nurture wellness, cross cultural divides, and bring people together, all through the medium of storytelling.
Alice Sun•
February 17, 2026
One thing to know about being a chinese baddie is that there’s always a reason for everything we do and we never ‘push through’ the pain; we create rituals so the pain doesn’t start to begin with.
Baddies stick hard to routines like never letting your bare feet touch a cold floor and sipping on hot lemon water the second you wake up, not because we’re high maintenance but because we’re protecting our bodies from the aches and pains from that time of the month 🩸
In reality, chinese baddies have been learning to eat for their luteal phase and cycle syncing since ancient times and are some of the best at managing women’s health in a proactive way. You’ve probably seen how seriously we take post-partum care. That same amount of care extends to how you prep for your periods too.
These routines are all designed to keep the ‘cold’ away from the body, because ‘cold’ results in stagnation, the root cause of a lot of the pain, aches, and bloating during your period. But eating nourishing foods the week before the cycle starts really preps the body for the shedding process.
To prep the body the Chinese way, we focus on Building Blood and Moving Qi. This bowl is designed to do just that.
Preheat your broiler and in the mean time dry the mackerel filets (1 lb).
Once dry, sprinkle on the sake (2 Tbsp) and salt (1 Tbsp) between the fish.
Place them skin side up on an oven safe tray and place them under the broiler for ~8 mins or until the skin has bubbled and lightly browned.
Separately prep the daikon (1 inch piece) by grating it then squeezing out all the water, set to the side to use later.
To a pot, add in the water (2 ½ cups), dashi packet (1 packet), and bring to a boil.
Let it simmer for 10 mins.
In the meantime, soak the wakame seaweed (½ Tbsp) to rehydrate, then lightly chop into bite size pieces.
Remove the dashi packet, then stir in the wakame seaweed and kiriboshi daikon (½ Tbsp) if you have.
Take the pot off the heat, then stir in the two miso pastes.
To a bowl, add your rice, mackerel fish on top, then spoon over the miso soup.
Serve with the grated daikon and a lemon wedge
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