Cool Down: Food Tips to Beat the Heat

In this heat, food often seems more like a nuisance than a pleasure ... but that's no way to live. In fact, food can easily become one of our most valuable allies in the fight against the heat – if we make the right choices, of course. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, different kinds of food have different energy properties, and thus cooling or warming effects on our body temperature. They can be divided in five categories: cold, cool, neutral, warm and hot. Given that raspberries are classified as "warm" and mulberries as "cool," you’ll have surprisingly different effects based on the berry you choose to pop into your mouth.

Vegetables, Tubers and Legumes
Distinguishing a "cooling" vegetable from a "warming" one is not easy. One of the main differences is how they are grown (e.g. usually near the ground, like cauliflowers) and how much sunlight they require. To stay TCM-cool, your veggies should be soft and water-rich; when in doubt, go for the greenest. Many "cold" and "cool" vegetables are green, such as sprouts, lettuce, cucumber and spinach.

Meat, Fish and Seafood
This category is trickier. Much of the meat we usually eat, like chicken, mutton and ham, has warming effects. But the classification of meats as "hot" or "cool" doesn't seem to follow any logical rules. It’s difficult to understand what rabbit meat, crabs and frogs have in common, but apparently all of them bring you the chill. Seaweed, pig skin and preserved jellyfish are other interesting options for reducing internal heat.

Eggs and Cheese
To beat the heat, you can eat the whites of chicken eggs, but not the yolk. And duck eggs, but not goose eggs. Every kind of cheese is "cooling," as are yogurt and cream.

Fruit
In this category, you’re spoiled for choice. Though nearly all kinds of fruit have cooling effects, some are more yin than others. "Cold" fruits include watermelon, banana, tomato, grapefruit and starfruit, while the merely"cool" category includes lemon, pear, apple, pineapple and orange.

You can find more cooling food and information here and here.

Photos: Cheapfoodhere.com, Fascinatingexperiments.com, Howstuffworks.com, Krautedhaus.com and Alineaathome.typepad.com