In summer, the diet should be light, bitter, cool, nutritious, and easily digestible. Avoid sticky, greasy, and hard-to-digest foods, and do not eat too much or too little. Emphasize strengthening and nourishing the spleen and stomach to promote digestion and absorption.
The high temperatures in summer cause excessive sweating and increased water intake, which dilutes stomach acid and reduces the secretion of digestive juices. This weakens digestive function, leading to loss of appetite. Additionally, people's craving for raw and cold foods can disrupt gastrointestinal function, and unclean food can easily cause gastrointestinal discomfort or even food poisoning. Therefore, the summer diet should be light yet appetizing to achieve the goal of health preservation and wellness.
In summer, it is important to eat foods that promote urination and drain dampness. The summer heat is intense, with high temperatures and heavy humidity, which also invades the body. Due to the heat, people enjoy cold drinks and consume a lot of water, allowing external dampness to enter the body. This can lead to dampness accumulating and impairing the spleen and stomach, disrupting their ascending, descending, and transporting functions. Regularly consuming foods that promote urination and drain dampness can strengthen the spleen. When the spleen is healthy, its ascending, descending, and transporting functions are restored, allowing it to expel excess dampness.
One should moderately consume more bitter foods, such as bitter melon. The summer heat and high humidity can be counteracted by bitter foods, which clear heat and drain dampness, thereby strengthening the spleen and increasing appetite. Sour foods have astringent properties. In summer, excessive sweating can easily deplete body fluids, and eating sour foods can help reduce sweating and stop diarrhea. For example, tomatoes are known to promote saliva production to quench thirst, strengthen the stomach, aid digestion, cool the blood, soothe the liver, clear heat, and detoxify, as well as lower blood pressure.
When appetite decreases in summer and the functions of the spleen and stomach become sluggish, consuming light foods can help stimulate the appetite, strengthen the spleen, and aid digestion. Overindulging in rich, greasy, and nourishing foods can burden the stomach and damage the spleen, affecting the digestion and absorption of nutrients and harming health. Therefore, the summer diet should focus on selecting foods like mung beans, hyacinth beans, watermelon, lychee, lotus seeds, silkworm pupae, buckwheat, jujubes, pork tripe, pork, beef, beef tripe, chicken, pigeon, quail, crucian carp, soft-shelled turtle, turtle, royal jelly, honey, duck, milk, goose, soy milk, sugarcane, and pears.
In summer, one should not overeat or eat until overly full, especially at dinner. An old saying goes, "Eat one less mouthful, and live to ninety-nine." The *Huangdi Neijing* (Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon) advises, "Regulate your diet" and "Do not overindulge." The digestive power of the elderly and children is naturally weaker and is even more so in the summer. Eating too much that cannot be digested can easily damage the spleen and stomach, leading to stomach ailments. If you eat until you are eighty percent full, your appetite will continue to be strong.
Summer heat weakens gastrointestinal function, so the diet should be adjusted to enhance the functions of the spleen and stomach. Fine grains and coarse grains should be appropriately combined; it is advisable to eat coarse grains three times a week. The diet should also be balanced between soft and solid foods. In summer, a ratio of two soft meals to one solid meal is suitable. For example, have noodles and soy milk for breakfast, dry rice for lunch, and congee for dinner. Meat and vegetables should be combined rationally. In summer, the diet should be primarily based on green vegetables, melons, and beans, supplemented with meat. Lean pork, beef, duck, and fish are good choices. For the elderly, fish should be the main component, supplemented by lean pork, beef, and duck.
Meals should be taken on time in the summer. Eating whenever you feel like it or skipping meals can disrupt the normal function of the spleen and stomach, leading to physiological disorders and causing stomach problems.
In summer, it is important to eat fewer raw and cold foods, and less cold drinks, especially ice. The digestive and absorption abilities of the elderly's spleen and stomach are gradually declining, while the digestive functions of children are not yet fully developed. In summer, they are also affected by the invasion of summer heat and dampness, which impairs their digestive and absorption functions. Consuming raw, cold foods and cold drinks can damage the spleen and stomach. Raw and cold foods are considered "cold-natured," and when cold and dampness combine, they can deplete the spleen and stomach, leading to symptoms like diarrhea and abdominal pain.