The temperature is rising and we’re ready for summer. This is the time of year when berries are in season, apple pie is coming out of the oven, and popsicles are in the fridge. While we love beating the heat with a little poolside swim and an ice-cold beverage, we can also cool our body temperatures with certain things that we eat! Here are three tips to help you beat the heat through your choice of meals:
#1 Fruits and Veggies
Fruits and veggies that are high in water content like leafy lettuces, corn on the cob, and watermelon, all have tons of water, which helps your body release heat. Try serving corn on the cob along with your backyard BBQ, and always have a watermelon on hand during summer months.
Meal Idea: A watermelon summer salad with fresh mint, red onion, feta cheese, and olive oil could be just the thing to keep you cool this summer.
#2 Spicy Foods
As counterintuitive as it is, spicy foods actually cool us down. Yeah, you read that right, spicy foods are your best bet at cooling down significantly. Spicy foods may actually make you feel warmer at first, and then you feel cooler. Eating spicy foods provokes perspiration, our bodies’ natural air conditioning. After a warm summer breeze hits our cool, slightly sweating skin, we feel just a bit cooler.
Meal ideas: Try making a mango salad with ginger vinaigrette or cajun sausage with spicy sauerkraut, or simply chomp down on some chips and spicy japapeno salsa.
#3 Say No to Ice Cold Foods and Beverages
Alas, ice cold foods and beverages just won’t do you good in the long haul. Ice cold beers dehydrate you, therefore making you warmer. Staying cool is all about hydration and perspiration (as we learned with spicy foods). In the long haul, a beer will dehydrate you and not at all keep you cool. Even non-alcoholic cold meals will keep you warm after about 20 minutes. While our mouths get cooler from eating foods like popsicles and ice cream, once the digestive process kicks in, body temperature increases as the body works to digest the food. Therefore, we feel a bit warmer about 20 minutes after eating our ice cream cone.
Meal ideas: Stay cool by keeping your dishes at room temperature or warmer. Grilled sandwiches, cucumber salads, and just about anything that’s NOT ice cold will do.
So there you have it! Try out a few of these meal ideas this summer to stay cool even through the scorching months.
