Compiled by Hu Sihui during the Yuan Dynasty, the book consists of 3 volumes. It was completed in the third year of Emperor Wenzong of Yuan's Tianli era (1330) and published in the same year. The Yuan Dynasty edition has been lost, and the extant versions include the Ming Dynasty Jingchang edition and several modern color-printed editions.

This book is a precious record of the dietary practices of the Yuan imperial court and is also the earliest extant monograph on ancient Chinese nutritional and health science, possessing significant academic and historical value. Its content can be roughly divided into three parts: first, the basic theories of health preservation and avoidance, including pregnancy, dietary contraindications for nursing mothers, alcohol avoidance, seasonal appropriateness, Wuwei partiality, food benefits and harms, antagonism, and poisoning treatments; second, a collection of 153 court recipes and 61 dietary therapy prescriptions, as well as 24 so-called "immortal" dietary methods; third, the Shiwu Bencao, which includes over 230 items such as grains, animals, fish, fruits, vegetables, and spices, accompanied by 168 materia medica illustrations. The book also features 21 exquisite line-drawn illustrations.

The content of this book touches on all major aspects of modern nutrition and hygiene, reflecting the achievements of the dietary and medicinal cultures of various ethnic groups at the time, particularly highlighting the unique medicinal and dietary culture of the Mongolian people. It also fully reflects the historical facts of Sino-foreign medical exchanges during the Yuan Dynasty, recording some materia medica not found in previous works, and is the only extant materia medica atlas from the Yuan Dynasty. Given the scarcity of Yuan Dynasty materia medica works that have survived to the present, the content of the Shiliao Bencao section in this book is particularly valuable.