10 Foods to Beat the Summer Heat

Introduction: The Summer Solstice is a solar term in summer. When it arrives, the weather becomes much hotter. Its heat slowly diminishes our appetite, making us lose our desire for food and constantly crave icy things. In this scorching midsummer, what should we eat? What can cool us down and relieve summer heat? Here are 10 recommended foods to help you feel cool to the core this summer. Let's take a look.

1. Watermelon

Watermelon is known as the "king of midsummer." It is refreshing, thirst-quenching, sweet, and juicy, making it the perfect fruit for the season. Besides being free of fat and cholesterol, watermelon contains large amounts of glucose, malic acid, fructose, amino acids, lycopene, and rich vitamin C, making it a highly nutritious, pure, and safe food.

Watermelon not only clears heat, detoxifies, relieves restlessness, and quenches thirst, but also promotes urination and aids digestion. Therefore, people should definitely eat some watermelon. Watermelon juice is also rich in nutrients the body needs, such as sucrose, glucose, fructose, citrulline, propionic acid, alanine, glutamic acid, arginine, phosphoric acid, malic acid, salts, and its carotene, vitamin C, etc. Eating watermelon during the Summer Solstice is very effective for clearing heat and relieving summer heat.

Freshly squeezed watermelon juice

2. Luffa

Luffa is a summer vegetable. When mature, the fibrous network inside is called loofah, which can be used as a sponge for cleaning kitchen utensils and furniture; it can also be used for medicinal purposes, with effects of cooling, diuresis, invigorating blood, regulating menstruation, and detoxification. Luffa also has the effect of clearing heat and relieving summer heat.历代医药典籍及其《本草纲目》皆说丝瓜能“清热利肠”。 Eating some luffa soup in the summer can relieve summer heat and reduce fever. When making the soup, the cooking time should not be too long, preferably keeping the luffa's fresh green color. Boiling luffa peel and luffa flowers together to make a tea also has the effect of preventing heatstroke and reducing fever.

Moreover, the vitamin B1 in luffa can prevent skin aging, and vitamin C can whiten the skin, etc., which can protect the skin, eliminate blemishes, and make the skin fair and delicate. Therefore, luffa juice is known as "beauty water."

Stir-fried luffa with fried dough sticks

3. Mung Bean

Mung beans are rich in nutrition. Every 100 grams of mung beans contains 23.8 grams of protein, 58.8 grams of carbohydrates, 0.5 grams of fat, 80 milligrams of calcium, 360 milligrams of phosphorus, and 6.8 milligrams of iron. They also contain carotene, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin E, niacin, and various mineral elements. After work or labor, drinking a bowl of mung bean soup will leave you feeling refreshed, with all vexation and thirst gone, summer heat completely dissipated, and your mind at ease. This is because mung beans have the effects of clearing heat and relieving summer heat, quenching thirst, and promoting urination.

However, it should be noted that children should not drink large amounts of mung bean soup or sour plum soup. Mung beans are considered a cold natured medicinal food. The cold nature of mung beans can easily lead to excess internal heat, causing symptoms like sores at the corners of the mouth and swollen gums. To avoid eating mung beans that are too cold, they must be cooked for a long time until they are soft. The gastric mucosa of children is thin, and drinking too much sour plum soup can irritate the gastric mucosa, easily causing gastric and duodenal ulcers.

Lily and mung bean paste

4. Mature Vinegar

In summer, people drink more water, which correspondingly lowers stomach acid, reducing appetite. A moderate amount of vinegar can increase the concentration of stomach acid, promote saliva, whet the appetite, and aid digestion. If some vinegar is added during cooking, it can increase stomach acid, thereby increasing appetite. Summer is the season for intestinal infectious diseases, and eating vinegar can also improve the sterilizing effect of the gastrointestinal tract. Also, adding a few drops of vinegar during cooking can reduce the loss of vitamin C in vegetables and help with the absorption of iron from food.

Moreover, mature vinegar can also prevent and treat enteritis and dysentery. Because vinegar contains acetic acid, which has an astringent effect, it can not only inhibit bacterial growth but even kill some bacteria in food. Vinegar can change the alkaline living environment of dysentery bacilli and kill them. An acidic environment can also increase the sterilizing function of garlic by 4 times. Therefore, the combination of vinegar and garlic is more effective in treating dysentery and enteritis.

Old vinegar peanuts

5. Bitter Melon

Some people regard watermelon as a treasure for summer heat relief, but theoretically, the most appetizing, refreshing, and heat-clearing melon is actually bitter melon. The Chinese people have long had the saying that "bitterness can clear heat" and "bitterness can strengthen the stomach." Traditional Chinese medicine believes that bitter melon is bitter in taste and cold in nature, and can clear heat and purge fire. The slightly bitter taste of bitter melon stimulates the secretion of saliva and gastric juice after eating, greatly increasing the appetite, clearing heat, and preventing summer heat, so eating bitter melon in summer is very appropriate. Using fresh bitter melon to make juice or a decoction is an excellent auxiliary food therapy for liver fire with red eyes, stomach heat with vexation and thirst, stomach pain, and damp-heat dysentery. Bitter melon-infused cool tea is refreshing and relieves summer heat after drinking.

Shrimp stir-fried with bitter melon