My 92-Year-Old Grandmother's Fix for Feeling Too Depleted to Absorb Anything

I went to see my grandmother last week. The road into her village was torn up for repairs, so I had to walk the last stretch in. Ten minutes, that’s all it was. By the time I got to her door my legs felt like they were full of lead and I was too out of breath to talk properly.

She made me a bowl of rice porridge for lunch and said she drinks it regularly herself. Not for any single illness — for the specific problem where you’re eating well, maybe even taking supplements, and none of it seems to actually help. In Chinese wellness terms this gets called being “too blocked to tonify” — you can put good things in, but if the pathways are congested, none of it really lands. You just end up more sluggish, sometimes even more prone to overheating, despite doing everything “right.”

What’s in it

Four completely ordinary kitchen ingredients: black fungus (wood ear mushroom), red dates, goji berries, and red beans (adzuki beans). Nothing exotic, nothing you’d need to order specially.

• Black fungus is the one doing the actual clearing work — it’s traditionally considered a kind of internal housekeeper, helping move stagnant blood and open up circulation.
• Red dates and goji berries build back up what black fungus is clearing out — replenishing blood and supporting the liver and kidneys. One detail my grandmother was firm about: pit the dates first.
• Red beans round it out with their own role — supporting the spleen, clearing dampness, and nourishing blood.

Put together, the four of them do two things at once: clear first, then rebuild. That order matters — it’s the whole point of the recipe.

How she makes it

• Black fungus, 10g · pitted red dates, 3 · goji berries, 5g · red beans, 20g
• Soak the black fungus and red beans ahead of time
• Add everything to a high-speed blender with 1000ml of water, on the rice-porridge / congee setting
• Drink it two or three times a week

Why I’m writing this down

It’s a small thing, but it stuck with me — the idea that supplementing isn’t just about adding more, it’s about whether your body can actually absorb what you’re giving it in the first place. If you’ve ever felt like you eat carefully, maybe take supplements, and still feel drained or foggy, or notice you run hot no matter what you do, it might be less about needing more and more about needing to clear the pathway first. That’s the whole logic behind this one, and it’s cheap and simple enough that there’s no real reason not to try it.