Cool Down with Seasonal Foods
- Regan Mosher-Rudolf
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Summer is the season of heat and fire energies. So when we think of eating to balance our bodies we need foods and lifestyle practices that help cool us off. Foods grown this time of year naturally have more cooling and hydrating properties. Juicy fruits, cooling herbs, and a variety of veggies can fill our plate and glasses with everything we need to stave off the summer heat.
Why eat seasonally?
Eating seasonally helps the body in several key ways:
Balances the body naturally: Eating for the season easily gives your body the necessary nutrients and energies needed to keep you going and in harmony with your environment.
Supports Digestive Strength (Agni): Digestive fire fluctuates with the climate. Seasonal eating matches your diet to what your digestive system can handle, ensuring efficient nutrient absorption and preventing the buildup of toxins.
Maximizes Energy (Prana): Freshly picked foods eaten during the season offer us the highest nutrient content and satisfy both our mind and our body.
Naturally Prepares the Body: The seasonal harvest changes to help you transition. We have natural cravings during different seasons and the desire to eat freshly picked fruits and salad veggies like tomatoes and cucumbers during the summer are exactly what our body needs to survive the high heat.
Lower Environmental Footprint: Eating seasonally significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and pollution associated with long-haul transportation, extensive refrigeration, and out-of-season hothouse farming.
Budget-Friendly: Because seasonal crops are abundant during their specific harvest time, the increased supply generally drives prices down, making them more affordable than out-of-season alternatives
Supports Local Communities: Buying from your neighborhood farmers market helps to support local small farms and build the variety of options for food in your community.
Natural Dietary Variety: Following the seasons naturally rotates the types of nutrients you consume throughout the year (e.g., hydrating summer fruits versus hearty fall root vegetables), which is excellent for gut health.
Why does Hydration Matter?
Our liquid intake matters the most during the summer, especially if we spend a decent amount outside in the elements. The sun and high heat can lead to dehydration quickly so it is especially important to make sure we are well hydrated everyday.
Water: Consider drinking 1/2 your body weight in water each day. Cool water can be fine, but try to avoid putting ice in your water as it will reduce your digestive strength. Instead, consider keeping a small cooler of frozen washcloths that you can apply to the back of your neck or your head if you need a quick cool off.
1. Add fruit or cucumber to your water for extra hydration: Consider adding strawberries, lemon, lime or cucumber to your water to boost the hydration and uplevel the taste!
2. Electrolytes: This can be a good season for added electrolytes especially if you lose a lot of water to sweat when outdoors. There are electrolyte packs that you can add to water in a pinch or you can also make your own natural electrolyte drink.
Natural Electrolyte Drink:
· 8 oz. of room temp or warm water
· Squeeze juice from ½ lime
· A good pinch of Himalayan sea salt
· ½ tsp of honey
Mix and sip!
Why Seasonal Produce for Cooling Off?
All you have to do is visit your local farmers market or your own backyard garden to access naturally cooling foods this time of year. Options like cucumbers, zucchini, greens, fruits of all kinds and herbs like mint and cilantro are excellent options on these summer days when sometimes it feels too hot to eat much at all.
Nature is so intelligent that it naturally mixes in slightly heating foods like leeks and beets to pair with the cooling foods to keep our digestion balanced. For example, beet greens are cooling while the root itself is slightly heating. Beets are cooling and cleansing for the liver while also gently stimulating digestion. By eating cooked greens along with cooked beetroot you get a wonderful combination of heating and cooling properties that are perfect to balance the fire energy during the hottest part of the year.
Fruits and vegetables are a one stop shop for high level nutrition and natural hydration for the body to fight the summer heat and this is their prime season to feed our good gut bacteria exactly what it needs.
There are many ways to eat foods during the summer, but overall our digestion can usually handle having more of our food “al fresca” this time of year as the sun makes our digestion stronger and more able to breakdown raw foods. Here are some basic rules to keep in mind:
Make sure to add a good acid to help break down fibrous foods. This can be lemon, lime or apple cider vinegar in your dressing. Make sure to mix the salad with the dressing and let it marinate to get the breakdown process started.
For those with more airy or slow digestion consider lightly sauteing your salad on low heat with a bit of olive oil to soften the fibers and make them easier to digest. You can place your raw salad into a saute pan and toss around in the heat for 2-3 minutes. The veggies will still be crunchy, but the heat property added and the bit of oil will help to make them to digest a bit easier.
Chew Well! Raw foods require more digestive power which means the first step of digestion is how well you chew your food. A good practice can be:
Cut leafy greens well to make the pieces easy to bite and not overload the mouth.
Take a small forkful and eat. Do not take another forkful until the first one has been chewed and swallowed.
b. Consider chewing each bit a minimum of 15 times – ideally 30 times per bite.
c. Remember that fresh fruit should really be kept 30 minutes away from other foods, especially dairy. I like to look at fruits as a natural digestive enzyme. Have that ripe summer peach about 30 minutes before a meal to stimulate natural digestive enzymes that promote better digestion of your heavier foods.
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Now, that doesn’t mean cooked foods are off the table for summer. Cooked foods with lighter properties continue to be beneficial this time of year. Consider light and less spicy soups like mung bean or lentil vegetable soup, lightly sautéed veggies over pasta, or a fish and rice bowl with seasonal veggies. We naturally tend to move away from overly heating foods like extreme spice, greasy or heavily oiled foods or dense foods like casserole dishes as our bodies want to avoid creating more internal heat. Digesting heavier foods requires more digestive heat to break down these types of meals which in turn uses up more energy creating a stressful environment for the mind and body when it is 90 plus degrees outside.
To give you some ideas we have put together some summer recipes on our blog…Check them out!
So get out there and enjoy the variety of foods while you can! Winter will be here soon enough, so let's stock up on all the fresh nutrients available to us while they are here for the taking.
In Service,
Regan
P.S. For year long ideas on foods for each season, visit the seasonal food guide here https://www.seasonalfoodguide.org/!