Cooling Foods of Summer with Bonus Recipe!

“The wise nourish life by flowing with the seasons and adapting to cold or heat, by harmonizing joy and anger in a tranquil dwelling, by balancing yin and yang, and what is hard and soft.”
— The Neijing Suwen, an ancient Chinese medical text that has been treated as the fundamental doctrinal source for Chinese medicine for more than two millennia.

We have entered the energetic season of Summer and the Fire element (May 6 to July 9) according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

In the summer, we tend to naturally gravitate to cooling (yin) foods. Now is the time when local cooling organic fruits and vegetables are in abundance. If you eat in harmony with the season, you're going to feel and do better!

The warming and cooling properties of a food have less to do with actual temperature, cooking temperature, spiciness or even individual ingredients—and more to do with the food’s balance and contrast among ingredients and the effect of these on the body when the food is ingested. (http://bottomlineinc.com/yin-yang-foods-that-make-you-feel-better/)

Here's a list of Cooling Foods for the Summer Courtesy of ChineseMedicineLiving.com

  1. Apricot

  2. Cantaloupe

  3. Watermelon

  4. Strawberries

  5. Tomatoes

  6. Lemon

  7. Peach

  8. Cucumber

  9. Orange

  10. Asparagus

  11. Sprouts

  12. Bamboo

  13. Bok choy

  14. Broccoli

  15. Chinese cabbage

  16. Corn

  17. White mushroom

  18. Snow peas

  19. Spinach

  20. Summer squash

  21. Watercress

  22. Seaweed

  23. Mung means

  24. Cilantro

  25. Mint

  26. Dill

  27. Bitter gourd

  28. Mung beans

  29. Wax gourd

  30. Lotus root

  31. Lotus seed

  32. Job’s tears

  33. Bean sprouts

  34. Duck

  35. Fish

 

Watermelon Cooler Recipe

  • 2 cups watermelon flesh

  • 1 cup young Thai coconut water (C2O brand in health food stores is good!)

  • 1/4 cup lime juice

  • raw blue agave to sweeten and to taste

Run a few seconds in a high speed blender with some ice and enjoy.