In the summer, you may not feel like eating, and what you do eat is not easily digested. Your body temperature rises and your heart beats faster. These are all stress responses of the body's metabolism and physiological condition to the high-temperature environment of summer. If the heat load exceeds the body's regulatory and adaptive limits, and heat accumulates more than it is dissipated, leading to a loss of control of the body's thermoregulatory center, heatstroke will occur. As long as we adopt the correct diet, we can have a healthy and cool summer even under the scorching sun.
Loss of appetite and lethargy—make porridge your staple food in summer
Summer heat can diminish appetite and impair gastrointestinal digestive function. This is mainly because the high-temperature environment acts on the body, transmitting the heat stimulus to the thermoregulatory center through nerve conduction, which has an inhibitory effect on the feeding center, leading to a reduction in food intake.
The effect of high temperatures on gastrointestinal digestive function is mainly manifested as: weakened gastrointestinal motility, decreased free hydrochloric acid in gastric juice, and accelerated gastric emptying.
Beauty-conscious women often skip breakfast and staple foods to maintain a slim figure, which can lead to hypoglycemia and hypotension, both of which are direct triggers for heatstroke.
Porridge is easy to digest. It not only helps replenish fluids lost through excessive sweating but also quickly replenishes blood sugar and energy, making it the best staple food for beating the summer heat. When making porridge, adding ingredients like beans (such as mung beans, black beans), grains (such as Job's tears, oats), fruits and vegetables (such as watermelon rind, bitter melon), and medicinal herbs (such as lotus leaves, honeysuckle, lotus seeds) can enhance its health benefits, allowing for the simultaneous supplementation of vitamins and trace elements.
Tip
See which porridge is right for you. Tremella porridge can promote the production of body fluids, moisten dryness, nourish yin, and support the lungs, and is helpful for treating hypertension and chronic bronchitis. Soy milk porridge and salted duck egg with mussel porridge can improve the treatment effect of arteriosclerosis and hypertension. Broad bean porridge can assist in treating edema and chronic nephritis. Lotus leaf porridge can relieve summer heat, quench thirst, detoxify, clear the stomach, and moisten the intestines, and can also treat sore throat. Lotus seed porridge has certain therapeutic effects on diarrhea, insomnia, and spermatorrhea. Red bean porridge has the functions of tonifying the kidneys, reducing edema, and treating beriberi. Winter melon porridge promotes urination to reduce swelling, quenches thirst and promotes the production of body fluids, and can lower blood pressure.
The temperature of cold drinks should not be lower than 10°C. Drinks that are too hot will increase sweating, but those that are too cold are a strong adverse stimulus to a body that is already heating up. However, many people like to eat large amounts of frozen fruits or drink beer before or after meals, which not only affects their normal food intake but can also damage the gastrointestinal mucosa and impair digestive function, because the combination of cold and dampness is most harmful to the stomach, leading to a weakened immune system and an increased risk of "heatstroke."
It is better to drink cold drinks in small amounts and frequently. This can reduce the body's dehydration, lower the increase in rectal temperature, and avoid overloading the heart and kidneys from drinking large amounts of water.
Tip
Cold drinks are an accomplice to summer heat. Cold drinks pass through the stomach and intestines much faster than food at room temperature, often making you thirstier the more you drink. Cold drinks, beer, etc., are "fireballs" in "ice clothing," and their high-calorie content often becomes the enemy of a good figure and an accomplice to the summer heat.
Replenish fluids and replace losses—hot soups and teas are better
Excessive sweating in the summer can lead to a decrease in blood volume, causing blood pressure to drop, which increases the risk of heatstroke.
Excessive sweating also causes a significant loss of salt (sodium chloride), reducing the reserve of chloride ions in the blood needed to form stomach acid, thereby affecting the production of hydrochloric acid in gastric juice and impairing the absorption of iron and calcium. Therefore, it is important to replenish water and salt in a timely manner. Drinking too much plain water can sometimes make you feel a bit nauseous.
Soups and teas are good choices. Soups contain large amounts of water and organic salts such as sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Tea, on the other hand, can promote the production of body fluids and refresh the mind, alleviating fatigue, among other benefits.
Therefore, it is advisable to drink more soups, beverages, and teas in the summer. Drinking some beverages or soup before a meal can relieve the inhibition of the feeding center caused by the excitement of the drinking center, and soup can promote the secretion of digestive juices, helping to stimulate appetite. However, cold drinks should not be consumed excessively. Warm tea can lower the body's surface temperature by 1-2°C by dilating the sweat glands, making its cooling effect far superior to iced tea.
Tip
Use less sugar in soups and teas. "Food soups" like mung bean soup, kelp soup, and seaweed soup are the best choices. You should limit your intake of meat and bone soups because of their high fat content; they not only fail to cool you down but can also make you "feel hotter" due to increased calorie intake.
Beverages include salt-containing and non-salt-containing options. The former, such as salt water, salt soda, and salt tea, should have a salt concentration of 0.1% to 0.2%. For the latter, you can choose plain water, citric acid water, or beverages made from syrups like plum, dried tangerine peel, or hawthorn. The latter are palatable, quench thirst, and help accelerate heat adaptation. Light green tea and fruit teas not only promote urination, reduce heat, aid in fat metabolism, and relieve constipation, but also have special effects like beautifying the skin and alleviating fatigue, making them suitable for all ages.
Fruit tea recommendations: chrysanthemum, dark plum, honeysuckle, rose, lemon, jasmine, and hawthorn. No matter which method you choose, try to add as little sugar as possible to your soups and teas, otherwise the cooling effect will be diminished due to increased calorie intake.
Reduce dampness and expel phlegm—eat more low-fat, high-quality protein
In a high-temperature environment, the body's metabolic rate increases. Coupled with the hot weather, people sweat a lot. Every 100 ml of sweat contains 20-70 mg of nitrogen. If your diet does not keep up, it can easily lead to a negative nitrogen balance, causing symptoms such as lower back pain, dizziness, and vertigo. Therefore, the intake of low-fat, high-quality proteins such as eggs, milk, fish, shrimp, and soy products should be moderately increased. The amount of fat should be acceptable to the eater; a moderate amount can enhance the flavor of dishes and stimulate appetite, but excessive fat can lead to loss of appetite.
Tip
Cold-dressed and stir-fried dishes are the best methods. Cold-dressed and stir-fried dishes can retain the nutritional value of vegetables to the greatest extent. Adding moderate amounts of vinegar, sauce, scallions, ginger, garlic, and mustard can not only promote appetite and digestion but also have antibacterial, lipid-lowering, and blood pressure-regulating effects. Melons like watermelon, bitter melon, winter melon, cucumber, loofah, and tomatoes have diuretic and hydrating effects, making them the top choice for summer-dispelling foods.
Expert Summary
The alkaloids in bitter foods have pharmacological effects such as reducing inflammation and fever, promoting blood circulation, and dilating blood vessels. Eating some bitter melon, bitter vegetables, as well as beer, tea, coffee, and cocoa in the summer can not only clear the mind, relieve vexation, refresh the brain, reduce inflammation, and dispel summer heat, but also increase appetite and strengthen the spleen and stomach.
Clear heat and detoxify—cooling foods are suitable for summer
In addition, among the "Four Natures" of food, cooling foods are more suitable for summer. Cooling foods have the effects of clearing heat and relieving summer heat, reducing internal heat, detoxifying, and alleviating the body's internal heat. They are suitable for people with a "heaty" constitution and are generally chosen for summer. Cooling foods include: grains: Job's tears; vegetables: Chinese cabbage, asparagus, water bamboo, aloe, lotus root, bitter melon, loofah, cucumber, winter melon, mung bean sprouts, etc.; fruits: kiwi, dragon fruit, watermelon, pear, persimmon, orange, starfruit, muskmelon, tomato; meats: seafood, duck, seaweed; egg and bean products: egg white, mung beans.
Cooking methods should be偏向 "yin," such as steaming, boiling, and stewing. Avoid frying, deep-frying, and grilling.