Heatwave: 4 Foods to Cool You Down

As the weather continuously gets hotter, our moods can become quite irritable. At this time, we should eat more foods that clear heat and relieve summer heat, and avoid foods that are likely to cause internal heat. However, there are many foods that clear heat and relieve summer heat in the summer, especially melons, which we often eat, such as bitter melon, winter melon, and loofah. These are all excellent ingredients for clearing heat and relieving summer heat, and we hope you can eat more of them.

1. Bitter Melon

Some people consider watermelon a treasure for summer heat relief, but theoretically, the most appetizing, refreshing, heat-relieving, and heart-cooling melon is actually bitter melon. Since ancient times, Chinese folk wisdom has held the sayings, "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 consumption, greatly increasing appetite, clearing heat, and preventing summer heat, making it very suitable for consumption in the summer. Using fresh bitter melon to make juice or a decoction is an excellent辅助 (auxiliary) therapeutic food for liver fire causing red eyes, stomach heat causing thirst and vexation, stomach pain, and damp-heat dysentery. Bitter melon-infused herbal tea can relieve summer heat and refresh the mind after drinking.

Stir-fried Chicken with Black Bean and Chili Bitter Melon

2. Watermelon

Watermelon is known as the "king of midsummer." It is refreshing, thirst-quenching, sweet, and juicy, making it a perfect fruit for the hot season. Besides being free of fat and cholesterol, watermelon contains large amounts of glucose, malic acid, fructose, protein amino acids, lycopene, and abundant vitamin C, making it a highly nutritious, pure, and safe food. It not only clears heat and toxins, relieves vexation and quenches thirst, but also promotes urination and aids digestion, so people should definitely eat some watermelon. Watermelon juice also contains rich nutrients the body needs, such as sucrose, glucose, fructose, citrulline, propionic acid, alanine, glutamic acid, arginine, phosphoric acid, malic acid, salts, and its carotene and vitamin C.

3. Winter Melon

Winter melon is sweet in taste and cold in nature, with the effects of clearing heat, promoting urination, and reducing swelling. Winter melon has a low sodium content and is beneficial as an auxiliary treatment for arteriosclerosis, cirrhosis with ascites, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, nephritis, and edema. Moreover, winter melon also has a very good effect of clearing heat and relieving summer heat. Eating more winter melon in the summer quenches thirst, relieves summer heat, and promotes urination. Because it promotes urination and contains very little sodium, it is an excellent remedy for reducing swelling in chronic nephritic edema, malnutrition-related edema, and edema during pregnancy. It contains various vitamins and essential trace elements for the human body, which can help regulate the body's metabolic balance.

Chicken Gizzard and Winter Melon Soup

4. Loofah

Loofah is nutritious, containing protein, fat, carbohydrates, calcium, phosphorus, iron, and vitamins B1 and C, as well as saponins, plant mucus, xyloglucan, loofah bitter substance, and citrulline. It also has the effect of clearing heat and relieving summer heat. Medical books throughout history, as well as the "Compendium of Materia Medica," all state that loofah can "clear heat and benefit the intestines." Eating some loofah soup on hot summer days can relieve summer heat and reduce fever. When making soup, the cooking time should not be too long, and it's best to maintain the fresh green color of the loofah. Boiling the loofah skin and its flowers together to make a tea also has the effect of preventing summer heat and reducing fever.

Loofah and Clam Soup