Fresh Soybean

Traditional Use

Primary Actions

• Releases the exterior and induces a light sweat - Xin Chi is a mild, food-like soybean medicinal used for superficial fever, mild chills, and headache when stronger diaphoresis is unnecessary.
• Relieves febrile irritability - traditional descriptions use it for restlessness, chest oppression, and residual vexation during or after externally contracted disease.
• Harmonizes the middle while clearing mild heat - it can be chosen when exterior symptoms coexist with slight nausea, poor appetite, or weakness after illness.

Secondary Actions

• Xin Chi is the fresh soybean record in older materia medica, whereas Dan Dou Chi is the fermented soybean better known in later formula practice.
• Modern biomedical literature focuses far more on soy foods and isoflavone extracts than on Xin Chi as a distinct TCM medicinal identity.

Classic Formulas

• Cong Bai Qi Wei Yin - recovery-stage exterior formula using Xin Chi with Cong Bai, Ge Gen, Sheng Jiang, Mai Men Dong, and Di Huang for fever without sweating after depletion.
• Light Cong Bai-Xin Chi pairings - traditional lineages use fresh soybean when fever and restlessness are present but the patient is too depleted for harsh sweating methods.

Classical References

• TCM-ID records Xin Chi as cold, pungent, sweet, and slightly bitter, entering the Lung and Stomach to induce diaphoresis, ease the mind, and relieve fever.
• Formula literature around Cong Bai Qi Wei Yin places Xin Chi in post-illness or blood-deficient surface patterns where fluids must be protected while residual exterior heat is lightly vented.