Introduction: Winter is cold and dry, leading to severe dehydration. Coupled with the consumption of "heaty" foods to keep warm, it's easier to increase internal heat. When you have "internal heat" in the winter, you need to eat foods that clear heat and moisturize. So, what foods can quickly reduce internal heat in winter? Here are ten heat-clearing foods to help you not fear internal heat this winter.
1. Mung Bean
Mung bean is the most common food for clearing heat and detoxifying. It has pharmacological effects such as anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties, and promoting phagocytosis. Its seeds and water decoction contain physiologically active substances like alkaloids, coumarins, and phytosterols, which play an important role in promoting the physiological and metabolic activities of humans and animals. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the mung bean, its skin, sprouts, leaves, and flowers can all be used as medicine. Mung bean is sweet and cold in nature, and acts on the Heart and Lung meridians. Orally, it has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, relieving summer heat and promoting urination, reducing inflammation and swelling, protecting the liver and improving vision, stopping diarrhea and dysentery, moisturizing the skin, lowering blood pressure and blood cholesterol, and preventing atherosclerosis. Externally, it can be used to treat trauma, burns, sores, carbuncles, and other skin infections.
Mung Bean Bread Rolls
2. Banana
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, banana is considered sweet, slightly cold, and astringent, with no toxicity. It has the effects of clearing heat and quenching thirst, clearing the stomach and cooling the blood, moistening the intestines to relieve constipation, lowering blood pressure, and promoting urination. It is especially beneficial for those with yin deficiency and dry intestines, or for blood-heat and qi stagnation causing thirst and constipation. However, for people with a naturally weak spleen and stomach, or insufficient yang energy, eating bananas can have the opposite effect, making the false fire even stronger.
Modern science believes that bananas help the human brain produce a chemical substance—serotonin. This substance stimulates the nervous system, sending signals of happiness, calmness, and drowsiness, and even has an analgesic effect. Therefore, bananas are also known as "happy food." American medical experts have found that regular consumption of bananas can prevent hypertension because bananas provide a large amount of potassium ions that lower blood pressure, and they inhibit the blood pressure-raising and blood vessel-damaging effects of sodium ions. They also believe that a lack of potassium in the body can lead to dizziness, general weakness, and arrhythmia. Additionally, because bananas contain various nutrients, are low in sodium, and contain no cholesterol, they supply the body with various nutrients without causing weight gain. Therefore, eating bananas regularly is not only beneficial for the brain and prevents nervous fatigue, but also moistens the lungs to relieve coughs and prevents constipation.
Banana Ice Cream
3. Pear
The flesh of a pear is rich in fruit pulp, glucose, and organic acids such as malic acid. It also contains protein, fat, calcium, phosphorus, iron, and various vitamins like carotene, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, niacin, and ascorbic acid. Fresh pears have a water content of 83% and slightly fewer calories than apples, with carbohydrates being the main source of calories. Moreover, pears have the effects of promoting the production of body fluids, moistening dryness, clearing heat, and resolving phlegm. They are suitable for conditions such as thirst from heat damaging fluids, diabetes, hot cough, phlegm-heat causing agitation and delirium, dysphagia, thirst and loss of voice, red and swollen eyes, and indigestion. Eating pears in winter has the effects of clearing the mind, moistening the lungs, reducing fire, promoting the production of body fluids, nourishing the kidneys, and supplementing yin. It also has the secondary effects of moistening the lungs, resolving phlegm, clearing heat, and detoxifying.
Lemon and Rock Sugar Snow Pear Juice
4. Orange
Oranges are sour, cold in nature, and act on the Liver and Stomach meridians. They have the function of harmonizing the stomach and stimulating the appetite, as well as lowering qi to stop vomiting. They are particularly useful for vomiting caused by food stagnation, foul qi in the stomach, and liver-stomach depression-heat. Oranges have the effect of clearing heat and lowering counterflow qi, and are good at clearing heat from the lungs and chest. This is due to heat accumulation in the lungs or external wind-heat, which burns fluids to form phlegm. When phlegm-heat accumulates in the chest, it obstructs qi flow, causing chest pain, coughing with yellow, thick sputum, and in severe cases, hemoptysis or foul-smelling sputum, accompanied by vexation, fever, a yellow, greasy tongue coating, and a slippery, rapid pulse. Oranges are effective for treating these conditions by draining heat, expelling phlegm, opening the chest to resolve stagnation, and cooling the blood to stop bleeding. Furthermore, oranges are rich in vitamin C, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, carotene, and citric acid. They have the effects of promoting the production of body fluids and quenching thirst, strengthening the spleen and warming the stomach, relieving greasiness and indigestion, clearing the intestines to relieve constipation, reducing fire and dryness, and sobering up. Eating more can prevent gallbladder diseases, increase the elasticity of capillaries, lower blood cholesterol, and promote the body's absorption of drugs.
Frosted Orange Cookies
5. Tomato
Tomatoes are known as the "king of beauty," but they also have the effects of reducing internal heat, soothing the liver, and nourishing the blood. Especially in autumn and winter when liver fire is prone to flare up, drinking more tomato and egg soup can have a certain auxiliary effect. The hemostatic, blood pressure-lowering, diuretic, stomach-strengthening and digestion-promoting, body fluid-generating and thirst-quenching, heat-clearing and detoxifying, and blood-cooling and liver-soothing effects of tomatoes are also significant. Due to the appropriate ratio of vitamin A to vitamin C in tomatoes, regular consumption can enhance the function of small blood vessels and prevent vascular aging. The flavonoids in tomatoes not only reduce the permeability of capillaries and prevent their rupture but also have the special effect of preventing vascular sclerosis.
Tomatoes and Eggplant Stir-fry