Cooling Foods of Summer with Bonus Recipe!

The wise nourish life by flowing with the seasons and adapting to cold or heat, by harmonizing joy and anger in a tranquil dwelling, by balancing yin and yang, and what is hard and soft.

 The Neijing Suwen, an ancient Chinese medical text that has been treated as the fundamental doctrinal source for Chinese medicine for more than two millennia.

We have entered the energetic season of Summer and the Fire element (May 6 to July 9) according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

In the summer, we tend to naturally gravitate to cooling (yin) foods. Now this is the time when local cooling organic fruits and vegetables are in abundance. If you eat in harmony with the season, you’re going to feel and do better!
The warming and cooling properties of a food have less to do with actual temperature, cooking temperature, spiciness or even individual ingredients and more to do with the foods balance and contrast among ingredients and the effect of these on the body when the food is ingested. (http://bottomlineinc.com/yin-yang-foods-that-make-you-feel-better/)

Watermelon Cooler Recipe

• 2 cups watermelon flesh
• 1 cup young Thai coconut water (C2O brand in health food stores is good!)
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• raw blue agave to sweeten and to taste

Run a few seconds in a high speed blender with some ice and enjoy.

Here’s a list of Cooling Foods for the Summer Courtesy of ChineseMedicineLiving.com

1. Apricot
2. Cantaloupe
3. Watermelon
4. Strawberries
5. Tomatoes
6. Lemon
7. Peach
8. Cucumber
9. Orange
10. Asparagus
11. Sprouts
12. Bamboo
13. Bok choy
14. Broccoli
15. Chinese cabbage
16. Corn
17. White mushroom
18. Snow peas
19. Spinach
20. Summer squash
21. Watercress
22. Seaweed
23. Mung means
24. Cilantro
25. Mint
26. Dill
27. Bitter gourd
28. Mung beans
29. Wax gourd
30. Lotus root
31. Lotus seed
32. Job’s tears
33. Bean sprouts
34. Duck
35. Fish