During the cold winter season, hot pot with warming foods like lamb, dog meat, and goji berries can help dispel cold and boost yang energy. This approach to wellness can indeed generate more heat to combat the cold. However, warming foods tend to be high in calories. Consuming them can not only lead to weight gain but also cause an excess of "lung heat," leading to internal "dryness." In severe cases, it can even trigger upper respiratory or gastrointestinal issues. Therefore, it's advisable to consume some cold dishes and "sweet-cold" foods in moderation to provide a balancing effect, which is more beneficial for overall health.
1. Don't Forget to Prevent "Internal Heat" in Winter
In winter, people often wear thick clothes and spend most of their time indoors with heating or air conditioning. Coupled with dry winter air and relatively low physical activity, it's easy for internal heat to build up and not dissipate in a timely manner. If one consumes too many warming foods like lamb or dog meat, it can easily lead to an accumulation of heat within the body. Depending on where this internal heat is located, different clinical symptoms may appear. For example, heat in the upper jiao (upper body) can manifest as upper respiratory infections, pharyngitis, tonsillitis, or oral ulcers. Heat in the middle jiao (middle body) can be indicated by a thick tongue coating, yellow urine, constipation, and thirst. Heat in the lower jiao (lower body) can often trigger or worsen conditions like cystitis or hemorrhoids. Therefore, for those with healthy digestive systems, selectively eating some "cooling" foods in winter, akin to letting the digestive system take a "winter swim," can enhance the body's ability to resist the cold.
2. Moderately Eating "Cool" Foods in Winter is Beneficial for Health
For people with healthy digestive systems, even in cold weather, drinking cool boiled water and eating cooling foods like white radish, lotus seeds, cucumber, winter melon, and bananas is not only harmless but actually beneficial. When it's cold, people tend to eat fatty, high-calorie foods, and with less outdoor activity, weight gain is common, especially around the chest, abdomen, and hips. Eating some cold salads can force the body to generate its own heat during digestion, burning more fat, which is very helpful for weight loss. Russian research has confirmed that drinking cool boiled water regularly in winter can help prevent colds and pharyngitis. In particular, drinking a glass of cool boiled water upon waking in the morning can enhance the liver's detoxification function and the kidneys' excretion ability, promote metabolism, boost the immune system, and help lower blood pressure and prevent myocardial infarction.
3. Warming and Cooling Foods Should Be Paired
In daily life, there are many cooling foods, such as rabbit meat, chicken, duck, eggs, kelp, honey, sesame, tremella, lotus seeds, lily bulbs, white radish, napa cabbage, celery, spinach, winter bamboo shoots, bananas, and apples. These foods are best eaten with warming foods. For instance, many people enjoy stewing beef in winter, which is a warming food. Adding white radish to the stew creates a good balance of cooling and warming properties. Radish is pungent, sweet, and neutral in nature, with the effects of promoting qi circulation, resolving food stagnation, and reducing phlegm. It can balance the "warming dryness" of the beef, not only tonifying qi but also aiding digestion. Furthermore, in dry winter weather, people who often nourish themselves with foods like red dates and goji berries can easily develop "internal heat." It's a good idea to add some cooling lotus leaves to the cooking, which can make the nourishing effect even better.
4. The Choice Between Cooling and Warming Foods Depends on Your Constitution
Although cooling foods have calming, cooling, and anti-inflammatory effects, they are not suitable for everyone. People with typical "yin deficiency" symptoms like a feeling of internal heat, hot palms and soles, and night sweats can appropriately choose "sweet-cold" foods. For example, cardiovascular patients who are weak, have a poor appetite, low-grade fever, dry stools, or edema can benefit from eating cooling duck meat in winter, as it can help tonify deficiency and clear heat. On the other hand, people with a "spleen and stomach cold" constitution should avoid cold-natured foods and cooling tonics and can instead eat some warming foods. At the same time, one should be careful not to over-nourish. Excessive calorie intake can accumulate in the body, leading to a leakage of yang energy and disrupting the body's balance.