Eating for Summer

In China it’s customary to celebrate summer with cooling foods such as cold noodles, wontons, rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves and dishes made with summer produce such as lotus root, watermelon, radishes, bitter melons, celery, plums, peaches, cucumbers, enoki mushrooms, wild rice, string beans, jicama, water chestnuts, and aromatic herbs.

Foods to consider adding on a daily basis include all sorts of sprouts (e.g., mung bean or alfalfa), cucumbers, muskmelon, winter melon, tomato, and loofah.

All of these have a mildly heat clearing and gently moistening effect. In-season fruits such as plums and peaches are also heat clearing and moistening. Plums in particular have a slightly sour nature so they benefit the fluids at a time when too much sweating can damage them.

Mung beans (lü dou 綠豆) are an important remedy specifically for Summer Heat. These small green beans (the name in Chinese literally means “green bean”) cool and detoxify the body, and are traditionally used as an antidote for different types of poisoning. They can be cooked into soups or congees to help the body adapt to extreme heat, and in China they are even made into sweet dessert soups. (We love mung beans as a simple medicinal food to quell summer heat.  It’s packed with nutrients, great for detoxification, inexpensive, easy to find and make.)

Another very famous food remedy specifically for Summer Heat is watermelon. In Chinese herbal circles, watermelon’s nickname is “Natural White Tiger Decoction,” named after a famous formula for clearing internal heat (Bai Hu Tang 白虎湯). Watermelon can be eaten fresh or can be juiced.

In general food choices should include local and seasonal vegetables and fruit, trying to include as many colors as possible to represent all of the Five Phases.

Since Summer is the season of utmost Yang, and Yang by nature is light and floating, diet should be lighter than in other seasons. In general meals should include only the minimum of salt since salt by nature is condensing and descending (i.e., the opposite of Summer). Even though Summer is the time of heat, it is appropriate to use a small amount of mildly spicy food. Spicy flavors induce an upward and outward movement of qi in the body, and therefore mimic the movement of Summer. Mildly spicy foods also induce gentle perspiration to clear heat from the surface of the body. Thus a small amount is warranted. However, too much spicy food moves the body into an overly heated state and should therefore be avoided.