Choose The Right Foods This Summer!!

While school kids may eagerly await the summer holidays, the rest of us dread this time of the year. The unbearable heat of our summers makes traveling, working, cooking, and engaging in almost any physical activity unbearable to say the least. Unfortunately, most of us can’t just stay home and hibernate in an air conditioned environment for the entire season. While you may not be able to avoid the heat altogether, there are steps that you can take to beat the heat.

Dietary modifications are extremely effective when it comes to regulating your body temperature, but most of us tend to make misguided choices. Ice creams and cold beers may feel great while you’re downing them, but there are more effective ways to keep cool in summer. Here are a few eating tips to help you survive the heat this summer:

Cool Foods:

According to traditional Chinese medicine, cooling foods help to clear heat and toxins from the body, while also cooling the blood. This is necessary to maintain the optimum body temperature. Salty, spicy, and sour foods are heating, while foods like mint, cilantro, cucumber, and other foods with high water content tend to cool the body. Green veggies, curd, yogurt, onions, and coconut water, are just a few of the other foods that will help you stay cool as a cucumber this summer.

Sweet Foods:

Refined sugar offers no nutritional value, and most sugar-rich foods will do nothing to relieve the heat; instead they will help pack on the pounds. Try to replace ice creams with sweet fruits like watermelons, apples, berries, and cantaloupes, as they are high in water content, helping cool your body, while preventing dehydration. These fruits are also rich in antioxidants, minerals, natural sugars, and



electrolytes, providing your body with much-needed nourishment. Replace diet sodas and chilled aerated beverages with fresh fruit juices like sugar cane, banana, grapefruit, and tangerine, to keep cool. This will help to satiate those sugar cravings, without imbibing any empty calorie.

Listen To Your Body:

Appetite loss is a normal phenomenon when the mercury levels rise. The more you eat the more heat your body produces, as your digestive system works to breakdown and absorb nutrients.If you don’t feel hungry, don’t force yourself to eat the usual servings. Reduce your portions, but do not skip meals.Your nutritional intake is just as important in summer, so make sure to follow a balanced diet. To keep cool, don’t simply reduce your meal size, but try to include more fresh veggies and salads in your meals.

Electrolytes:

The more your body sweats, the more electrolytes you need. The excessive loss of water and electrolytes through sweating can leave you severely dehydrated. While increasing your fluid intake is necessary during summer, you also need to ensure electrolyte levels are balanced. Electrolytes include essential minerals like sodium, potassium, calcium, chloride, and magnesium. Include a mix of fresh fruits like bananas, coconuts, raisins, beans, celery, beets, and bell peppers in your diet to boost your intake of these nutrients. In case you still experience fatigue, nausea or any of the symptoms associated with dehydration, you can also consume oral rehydration solutions.

With these small changes to your diet and eating habits, you can minimize your discomfort this summer and also reduce the risk of dehydration and other heat related conditions.