Cool the fire from within: Six recommended foods.

Introduction: The hot and dry summer weather can easily lead to symptoms of "internal heat," bringing with it a series of health risks. For the sake of your health, it's essential to master some effective ways to cool down and easily tame the "fire" in your body. We recommend six foods that cool you from the inside out, helping you easily extinguish that fire.

1. Watermelon

Watermelon is known as the "king of midsummer." It's refreshing, thirst-quenching, sweet, and juicy, making it an excellent fruit for the season. Besides being free of fat and cholesterol, it contains large amounts of glucose, malic acid, fructose, amino acids, lycopene, and abundant vitamin C, making it a highly nutritious, pure, and safe food. Eating a few pieces of watermelon on a hot summer day is the most cooling thing you can do. Watermelon is not only delicious and refreshing but also nutritious, containing many nutrients the body needs. For summer ailments like heatstroke, fever, irritability, thirst, and reduced urination, watermelon can be used as an auxiliary treatment.

2. Winter Melon

Winter melon is sweet in taste and cold in nature, with the effects of clearing heat, promoting urination, and reducing swelling. It has a low sodium content and is beneficial as an auxiliary treatment for arteriosclerosis, ascites due to cirrhosis, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, nephritis, and edema. Sliced and boiled in soup or stir-fried, it can help reduce internal heat. Note that those who are sensitive to cold or have diarrhea should not eat too much of it.

Scallop and Winter Melon Soup

3. Bitter Melon

Although bitter, bitter melon is excellent for clearing heat and detoxifying. It contains various amino acids, vitamins, and minerals and is effective in treating conditions like heatstroke, dysentery, sores, and diabetes. The best way to eat bitter melon is raw in a salad, as this method well preserves its vitamins. Stir-frying can cause a significant loss of these vitamins, and the dish will have a higher oil content, which counteracts the cooling and heat-clearing effects.

4. Cucumber

Cucumber is sweet, slightly bitter, cool in nature, and non-toxic. It enters the spleen, stomach, and large intestine meridians and has the effects of clearing heat, promoting urination, and detoxifying. It is used to treat thirst, sore throat, inflamed eyes, and scalds. It also aids in weight loss. It contains vitamins A and C, as well as calcium, phosphorus, iron, and other components, making it effective for relieving summer heat and clearing internal heat. The ancient text "Ben Cao Qiu Zhen" notes, "Cucumber's nature is sweet and cold, able to clear heat and promote urination." Cucumbers can be eaten both raw and cooked and are a must-have food for reducing internal heat.

Pickled Cucumber

5. Mung Bean

Mung beans are nutritious. Every 100 grams contains 23.8g of protein, 58.8g of carbohydrates, 0.5g of fat, 80mg of calcium, 360mg of phosphorus, and 6.8mg of iron. They also contain carotene, vitamins B1, B2, E, niacin, and various mineral elements. Moreover, mung beans are a well-known food for reducing internal heat and summer heat, in addition to their effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, quenching thirst, strengthening the stomach, and promoting urination and reducing swelling. Mung bean congee has a weaker cooling effect, while a soup made solely with mung beans is much more potent.

6. Luffa

Luffa is sweet in taste, cold in nature, and non-toxic. The "Compendium of Materia Medica" records that luffa can "clear heat and benefit the intestines." Eating luffa soup or stir-fried dishes in the summer can relieve heat and reduce internal heat. For a better cooling effect, cook it for a shorter time to preserve its natural color.

Scallop and Luffa Soup