The nuts used are almonds, and all I can taste is the yucky almond taste that even the freshest almonds have, but for all I know you could be correct. I just like to have more evidence than just "some guy over the internet said it tasted funny to him." As for Traditional Chinese Medicine, it may have once had value just as Jewish and Islamic hand-washing rituals tended to be health-promoting despite their lack of the scientific method, but now that we do have the scientific method old primitive medicinal systems are not to be taken at face value, and their claims must be empirically tested.
If it turns out that a practice or belief is worthless, as most in ancient chinese medicine will undoubtedly turn out to be, then it must be discarded. The same goes for any other medicinal practice. If thousands of people wallowing in holy water turns out to be ineffective and more than likely infection-promoting, which it has been shown, then such a practice should not be promoted as medicinal.
TCM is not "hand washing practices". TCM is not based in religion. You are a grade-A jackass for comparing the purely ritual and allegorical practices of a religion to a medical system in the manner you did. Understand I am 100% onboard with your opinion until you start with, "As for Traditional Chinese Medicine," and take the time to make the moron's attack of creating a mocking satire of the original term in "ancient chinese medicine". And as far as Jewish and Muslim food practices...much of it actually works to keep bacteria and poor dietary habits from incurring disease. But it wasn't scientifically tested in a lab so it has no merit... ?
You're another "science-has-done-it-all!"-fanboy spewing poor arguments in the patent smug tone rampant in this forum. You hide behind "it's not scientifically tested!" and continue on as ignorant as ever after dropping some embarrassingly deluded comparisons. Good job Mr. Science for larnin' sumtin' noo taday.
I'd much rather choose a drug system fine-tuned over at very least 20-times more centuries than your own system on millions more people and which doesn't apply common warnings on its drugs like, "may cause sudden death and rectal bleeding; please call your doctor if you feel like you are dying or wish to commit suicide from the effects of the drug". Think about it: Western/allopathic medicine is less than a century old. It has it's many impressive victories but is far from as comprehensive as you imply. So many new diseases the medical community has come up with in just the last decade are only merely symptoms and are easily mopped up by TCM (depression, "restless leg syndrome", insomnia, high blood pressure, migraines, allergies, spasms, asthma, chronic fatigue, ADD/ADHD, obesity, hemorrhoids, joint degeneration, diabetes, "leaky gut" syndrome, incontinence, hyper- & hypothyroidism, acne, tinnitus, etc.). Also, you can't claim yet-to-be-decided victories simply on your own inflated sense of superiority because you've "read articles and development predictions over the last number of years". As for studies there are many in recent history that show the activity of particular herbs and TCM formulas to be beneficial and worthwhile. Not listing them doesn't make me wrong, it just makes me lazy so you get no points for putting the spotlight on this one.
A personal associate of mine in his 60's had a bout with three types of cancers. His wealth gave him access to the absolute best doctors in the United States. They failed after prolonged attempts. His three cancers were -eliminated- completely by using "undoubtedly worthless beliefs". It took plenty of lifestyle changes and it did truly happen. Your problem is that you group TCM with actually worthless beliefs like homeopathy and dowsing and other Western herbal practices which are fetal-grade infantile compared to the breadth and depth of TCM. Those are all pathetic attempts by Europeans and Americans in the last few centuries, btw, and not exactly all that long ago. TCM was reformed in the last century. This means all the folk superstition elements were listed and removed and have not been practiced so there aren't anymore "handwashing" correlates to mention.