In the summer, you may not feel like eating, and what you do eat isn't easily digested. Your body temperature rises and your heart beats faster. These are all stress responses from your body's metabolism and physiology to the high summer temperatures. If the heat load exceeds the body's regulatory capacity, and heat accumulates faster than it can be dissipated, the body's thermoregulatory center can lose control, leading to heatstroke. As long as we adopt the correct diet, we can have a healthy and cool summer even under the scorching sun.
In summer, make porridge your staple food
Poor appetite and lethargy—in summer, make porridge your staple food
Summer heat can diminish appetite and impair digestive function. This is mainly because the high-temperature environment acts on the body, transmitting the heat stimulus to the thermoregulatory center via nerve conduction, which has an inhibitory effect on the feeding center, leading to reduced food intake.
The effect of high temperatures on 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 slender figure, which can lead to hypoglycemia and low blood pressure. These are also direct triggers for heatstroke.
Porridge is easy to digest. It helps replenish the fluids lost through heavy sweating and quickly restores 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), coarse 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 replenishment 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; it is also beneficial for treating hypertension and chronic bronchitis. Soy milk porridge and salted duck egg with mussel porridge can improve the treatment of arteriosclerosis and hypertension. Broad bean porridge can help treat edema and chronic nephritis. Lotus leaf porridge can relieve summer heat, quench thirst, detoxify, clear the stomach, and moisten the intestines; it can also treat sore throats. Lotus seed porridge has certain therapeutic effects on diarrhea, insomnia, and spermatorrhea. Red bean porridge can tonify the kidneys, reduce edema, and treat beriberi. Winter melon porridge promotes urination to reduce swelling, quenches thirst, and can lower blood pressure.
Cold-dampness harms the stomach—keep cold drinks above 10°C
Keep cold drinks above 10°C
The temperature of cold drinks should not be below 10°C. Beverages that are too hot can increase sweating, but drinks that are too cold are a strong adverse stimulus to the body that is already heated. However, many people like to consume large amounts of frozen fruits or beer before or after meals. This not only affects their normal food intake but can also damage the gastrointestinal mucosa and impair digestive function. This is because the combination of cold and dampness is most harmful to the stomach, which in turn can lead to a decreased immune system and an increased risk of heatstroke.
It's best to drink cold beverages in small, frequent amounts. This can reduce the body's water loss, minimize the increase in rectal temperature, and avoid overburdening the heart and kidneys from excessive fluid intake.
Tip
Ice drinks are an accomplice to summer heat. Cold drinks pass through the digestive tract 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.
Promote fluid production and replenish loss—soups and teas are best served "hot"
Soups and teas are best served "hot"
Heavy sweating in the summer can lead to insufficient blood volume, causing a drop in blood pressure, which increases the risk of heatstroke.
Excessive sweating also leads to a significant loss of salt (sodium chloride), depleting the chloride ion reserves in the blood needed to form gastric acid. This affects the production of hydrochloric acid in gastric juice, which is not conducive to the absorption of iron and calcium. Therefore, it is important to replenish water and salt promptly. Drinking plain water in large quantities can actually become a bit nauseating.
Soups and teas are a good choice. Soups contain a large amount of water and organic salts such as sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Tea can promote the production of body fluids and refresh the mind, alleviating fatigue.
Therefore, it is advisable to drink more soups, beverages, and teas in the summer. Drinking some beverages or soup before a meal can counteract the suppression of the feeding center caused by the excitement of the drinking center. Broth can promote the secretion of digestive juices and help stimulate appetite. However, it's not advisable to drink too many cold beverages. Warm tea can lower the body surface temperature by 1-2°C by dilating sweat glands, making its cooling effect far superior to that of iced tea.
Tip
Go easy on the sugar in soups and teas. "Food soups" like mung bean soup, kelp soup, and seaweed soup are the best choices. Limit meat and bone soups as they are high in fat; they not only fail to cool you down but can also increase your calorie intake, making you feel "hotter."
Beverages include salt-containing and salt-free options. The former, such as salt water, soda water, and salted tea, should have a salt concentration of 0.1% to 0.2%. For the latter, you can choose plain water, citric acid water, or drinks made from syrups like plum, dried tangerine peel, or hawthorn. The latter have the advantages of being palatable, quenching thirst, and accelerating heat adaptation. Light green tea and fruit teas can not only promote urination, reduce heat, and aid in fat metabolism and bowel movements, but they also have special effects like beautifying the skin and relieving fatigue, making them suitable for all ages.
Recommended fruit teas: 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, as excess sugar can increase calorie intake and diminish the cooling effect.
Reduce dampness and expel phlegm—eat more low-fat, high-quality protein
Eat more low-fat, high-quality protein
In a high-temperature environment, the body's metabolic rate increases. Coupled with hot weather, people sweat a lot. Every 100 ml of sweat contains 20-70 mg of nitrogen. If 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 protein like eggs, milk, fish, shrimp, and soy products should be moderately increased. The amount of fat should be acceptable to the eater. A moderate amount of fat can enhance the flavor of dishes and stimulate appetite, but excessive fat can cause loss of appetite.
Tip
Cold-mixing and stir-frying are the best cooking methods. Cold-mixing and stir-frying can best preserve the nutritional value of vegetables. Adding moderate amounts of vinegar, sauce, green onions, ginger, garlic, and mustard can not only promote appetite and digestion but also have antibacterial, lipid-lowering, and blood pressure-regulating effects. Melon and eggplant fruits and vegetables like watermelon, bitter melon, winter melon, cucumber, and loofah have diuretic and hydrating effects, making them the top choices for dispelling summer heat.
Cooling foods are suitable for summer consumption
In addition, cooling foods from the "Four Natures" of food are more suitable for summer. Cooling foods have the effects of clearing heat and relieving summer heat, reducing internal fire, detoxifying, and alleviating bodily dryness. They are suitable for people with a "heaty" constitution and are generally chosen for consumption in the summer.
Cooling foods include: grains: Job's tears (coix seed); vegetables: Chinese cabbage, asparagus, water bamboo, aloe, lotus root, bitter melon, loofah, cucumber, winter melon, mung bean sprouts; fruits: kiwi, dragon fruit, watermelon, pear, persimmon, orange, starfruit, muskmelon, tomato; meats: seafood, duck, seaweed; eggs and beans: egg white, mung beans.
Cooking methods should be偏向阴, such as steaming, boiling, and stewing. Avoid frying, deep-frying, and grilling.