HOT vs. COLD

A few thoughts about the THERMAL NATURE of food. During summer, the weather is beautiful AND also tends to be HOT. If you feel you are overheating easily in the summer, eating foods that are cool in nature is a wise choice. The first example of hot vs. cold nature is coffee vs. tea. Coffee is hot in nature, and therefore people who run warm anyway will feel hot or possibly even inflamed after it is consumed. NOTICE if you get more hot or irritable after drinking your morning or afternoon brew. Even when it is an ICED coffee, it is still HOT in nature and will tend to over-warm an already too warm system. Feeling like un-friending me for even daring to suggest you go without coffee? Chances are you’re hooked, and there are other  imbalances in your system that need to be addressed. Often when we feel hot soon after eating or drinking, our body is telling us it has to work really hard to handle that particular food or drink. In this case, the food/drink is inflammatory to our system (i.e., food sensitivity), and/or the food is hard for our body to digest.

Following is a partial list of HOT vs. COLD foods for you to experiment with.

Warming Foods: ginger, cinnamon, cloves, basil, rosemary, oats, quinoa, sesame seeds, walnuts, parsnip, parsley, sweet potato, kale, onion, garlic, cherry, dates, butter, coffee (hot or iced), chicken, beef, lamb, and sugar.

Cooling foods: most fruits (apple, pear, banana, cantaloupe, tomato, watermelon, and citrus) and most vegetables (lettuce, radish, cucumber, celery, asparagus, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, peppermint, cilantro, and black tea (hot or iced).