Since time immemorial, many Eastern peoples: Hindus, Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese - with the onset of heat pass to a special summer diet, radically changing their taste preferences and preferences. Modern Western nutritionists now also insist on the need to adjust their diet for this or that season.
Winter in the stomach
Eastern medicine divides all foods into hot, warming in autumn and winter, and cold, releasing the body from excess heat in spring and summer. Do you think that we are talking about soft drinks and ice cream? No matter how it is! It does not mean the temperature of foods or dishes, but their ability to help the body in thermoregulation, preventing overheating. We chewed a leaf of mint or lemon balm, dripped some lemon juice into the water, ate a grapefruit or orange slice - and a pleasant coolness appeared in my mouth.
According to Japanese and Chinese dieticians, guided by the centuries-old medical tradition, which insists on a seasonal approach to nutrition, to drink soda with ice and eat ice cream in the summer unnaturally. When you "throw" a cold product into the heated stomach, the digestive system begins to protest, failing. For a healthy person, such an aperitif or dessert can pass without consequences, but with diseases of the gallbladder, liver and pancreas (even hidden leakage!), Freezing internal organs can cause an attack of cholecystitis, pancreatitis or hepatic colic. Cold desserts are also not worth pursuing after fatty foods: pork, lamb, goose, eel. This combination of dishes makes digestion difficult. And it is suitable for winter, and not for summer!
Your summer diet. On hot days, prefer a hard ice cream soft - it is less cold, and therefore more suited to the warm season. The temperature of the soft is only 4-6 C, and the hard (quenched) is cooled to -12 C. At the same time 75% of the water passes into the ice, and in the soft - only 25%. Strictly speaking, it is not necessary to buy it - you can just give a hard little to melt or use it as a filling for freshly baked, still hot apples, as do the French and Italians. It turns out an amazing summer dessert, not only delicious, but also balanced in temperature terms.
Do not put ice in drinks! If in the stomach instead of the put +37 becomes much less, the digestive enzymes stop functioning, which means that the process of digestion of food is violated. As a result, gravity occurs in the pit of the stomach, lethargy, decay, not only physical, but also protective, with all the ensuing consequences in the form of a summer cold and intestinal infections. In addition to the stated goal (to cool the body), soft drinks do not reach, because our thermoreceptors are misinformed. Commenting on the sudden onset of the stomach in the winter, the body reduces heat loss, blocking sweating and causing a narrowing of the peripheral vessels. On the street there is a 40-degree heat, and he behaves as if it were around a cold, and inevitably overheats! A cup of hot tea with lemon in the heat is much more appropriate than an ice cocktail. The best soft drink of all times and peoples helps the body to effectively get rid of excess heat. First, tea will slightly increase your temperature and cause intense sweating, and then for a long time will maintain the water-salt balance in the body.
It is believed that spices stimulate the secretion of gastric juice and improve appetite (both decrease in summer), and in passing protect the body from intestinal pathogens. That is why, the more south the country, the more pepper, garlic, horse-radish and other spices are usually put in food. And what is achieved in the end? First, overeating (after all, a decrease in appetite in the summer is a physiological norm), and secondly, dehydration: the more acute the food, the more thirsty, and the more we drink, the more liquid the body loses with sweat. What to do? Postpone "hot" spices for the winter and take a closer look at fresh herbs and aromatic herbs.
Your preferences for a plan for proper nutrition, ration of the day. In the warm season, avoid dishes with ginger, garlic, onion, black and red pepper, turmeric, cinnamon - they are considered "hot" spices. However, the same can be said about all the seasonings that cause a sense of fire in the mouth.
Use herbs as a spice with a pronounced cooling effect. They traditionally include anise, caraway, thyme, sage, lemon balm and peppermint.
Helping the taste of food will help the greens. Dietitians advise during the summer to eat daily on a bunch of healthy herbs directly from the bed (of course, after washing it). It is best to eat green seasonings before and during meals, but not after: while she will languish for several hours in a full stomach, waiting for her turn to digest, vitamins will collapse!
Tea of the season
To keep cheerfulness and activity, and also to avoid intestinal frustration, overheating and other seasonal problems, brew tea as curative plants with a cooling effect: lemon mint, inflorescence of red clover and marigolds, young leaves and shoots of black currant, wild strawberry leaves, grass oregano, flowers of chamomile, calendula, willow-tea.
Prepare the tea of the season, taking 2/3 of the usual tea leaves and 1/3 of this herbal collection; one part of a sheet of black currant and ground peel (lemon, orange or grapefruit) and two parts of mint, lemon balm and oregano. Fill the fragrant mixture in the teapot at the rate of a teaspoon for a glass of boiling water or hot boiled water (60-65 C). At this temperature, the healing properties of the phyto composition are better preserved, and its aroma is enhanced. Pour water first into 1/5 of the container, and after 2-3 minutes add boiling water to the top. After three minutes of insisting, you will get tea of cheerfulness, and if you let it take a little longer, the drink will have a soothing effect. It is desirable to pour it into the cups without residue. After all, from the tea leaves, which have stood longer than half an hour, there will be no use.
Food preferences
Due to seasonal oppression of the digestive function in the warm season, appetite is significantly reduced, and we begin to eat less. But in this summer we move to a more active way of life than in winter, which means that we burn more calories. To ensure increased energy costs with reduced calories intake, the body is forced to burn subcutaneous fat. On the one hand, it's good - because we are getting slimmer! On the other hand, as a result of this process, many free radicals and other end products of metabolism are formed, which slag the body and can even serve as a trigger mechanism for the development of tumors. If, of course, it is not timely to "wash" them out of the internal environment, for example, with the help of herbal and green tea, mors and water - an alkaline mineral without gas or usual, into which you can squeeze out a slice of lemon, lime or orange.
Also useful are sour juices: orange, grapefruit, lemon, apple, from seasonal berries. But sweet juices and thick nectars (peach, apricot, grape, mango, pineapple) only increase thirst. From them in the summer, refrain! And do not tilt the glass in one gulp, diluting the already insufficiently concentrated gastric juice. The fact that in the warm season reduces the production of digestive enzymes. Therefore, you must quench your thirst all the time, but little by little, with small sips.
Keep in mind: the formation of slags is enhanced if instead of summer light food with an emphasis on dairy products, lean on a heavy winter, containing a lot of fat and animal protein (that is, meat), sweet, hot, rich, sharp, and even drink it all soda, coffee, beer (or even stronger!). Such food contributes to the overheating of the internal environment. It does not always show bright symptoms like fainting (as happens with a thermal shock) and can occur not only in the heat, but even when the thermometer is only +20 C with a small. That headaches, bad breath, strong thirst, constipation, nausea, lack of appetite, or, on the contrary, an acute feeling of hunger that occurs for no apparent reason, indicate that nutrition is contrary to the requirements of the season, leading to a "global warming" at the cell level. Have you decided to change the diet? Arrange one or two days off - and forward, to a healthy lifestyle!
Your summer diet
Go to the seasonal diet. The sources of protein now for you should be white meat (mostly poultry), eggs, lean fish, crabs, shrimp, squid, cottage cheese, yoghurt, kefir and other dairy products, as well as beans, peas and other legumes. The need for fats is mainly made up of vegetable oil (including those contained in avocados), in carbohydrates - at the expense of fruits, berries, vegetables (better raw) and fresh greens.
Cool the prepared food to room temperature. Not without reason traditional summer dishes are okroshka on kvass or sour milk and cold botvina (a kind of beetroot). Cook them more often for lunch!