HEALTHY EATING TIPS FOR THE SUMMER ARE A LITTLE TRICKY!
Since the weather is warm, you need light, cooling foods. Juicy peaches, sweet watermelons, tomatoes hot off the vine… The right foods are easy to find. One trip through your garden or a walk through a farmer’s market and you’ll have the perfect summer meal.
But since you’re outside exercising and working in the garden, you build up an appetite. You work hard and play hard. You crave calories to keep the fire burning. Are cucumbers the first food you reach for after rototilling the garden? Probably not.
Unfortunately, many times craving calories trumps craving fresh food. You satisfy your appetite with a meal of tortilla chips and soda. Or brats and beer. Or hamburgers and ice cream.
And afterward you feel full, bloated and hot.
Fortunately, there is a solution. It is possible to eat well, have energy and avoid feeling bloated.
The trick is in the timing. With an easy tweak to your natural summer diet, you’ll feel fantastic.
SUMMER EATING TIPS
It should come as no surprise that I recommend eating lots of fruits and vegetables in the summer. In fact, I recommend eating fruits and vegetables all year, but in the summer they are especially important.
Summer is a yang season and is associated with the fire element. Fire governs the heart and small intestine. When fire is balanced within the body, the heart governs and circulates the blood properly and the intestines properly digest food. Emotionally you are balanced, sensitive and enthusiastic. You feel good. There are a few simple guidelines to keep fire balanced.
1. Focus on yin foods. Yin foods are wet and cool. Fruits and vegetables (especially green vegetables like lettuce, cucumbers and watercress) are yin. For protein, eat fish or seafood instead of meat. Smoothies and salads are yin and are excellent summer meals.
2. Eat moderately. Avoid huge meals.
3. Eat bitter foods. Bitter foods support the fire element. Coffee, tea and chocolate (without sugar) are all bitter and moderate amounts of them are appropriate for summer health. This is the season in which you can call your coffee a health food. Asparagus, bitter greens like kale, arugula or escarole, celery and rhubarb are all good foods for the summer.
ADULTS – EAT BIG IN THE AFTERNOON
If you focus on yin and bitter foods, your diet is cooling and light. But what happens when you need more energy than a slice of watermelon provides? This is when the timing of your meals matters. If you need a heavier meal, eat it mid to late afternoon in the summer. “Picnic time” is the best time to fuel up in the summer as we may have been going about all day and need to refuel well. Avoid eating a big meal early or late in the day. A healthy summer eating plan starts with a breakfast of fruit, smoothies or yogurt. Have a salad for lunch. Eat a heavy meal later in the afternoon and end your day with more fruit.
By eating mostly fresh, light, wet foods and including a heavy meal only in the afternoon, you will help your fire burn bright, but not out of control. You’ll feel light, cool and energized. Your heart, circulation and digestion will be strong. You won’t feel bloated or full.
Stay hydrated with fruit- or vegetable-infused waters, like cucumber water, citrus water or blueberry water. Consider also coconut water, mint tea and barley tea (found in Asian markets).
KIDS – SUMMER EATING HABITS
I would not recommend kids follow the above rule of eating big only during the afternoon as they are most likely burning a lot of calories and sweating a lot throughout the day at summer camps, backyards and the pool. Do focus on giving them cooling, hydrating foods as I mentioned above, but especially for wee ones, consider giving room temperature veggies, fruits and smoothies instead of ice-cold or straight out of the fridge. Toddlers and younger children still have a very undeveloped digestive system and too much cold will damage their gut, causing them to get chronic runny noses/post-nasal drip, diarrhea, colds and loss of appetite/picky eating. I would also refrain from feeding them too much dairy and wheat because both foods are very cloying, dampening and cold. Balance with different grains and provide alternative dairies to mix things up.
Traditional Chinese Medicine uses nutrition as a tool to maintain health and promote healing. Eating a yin diet with your heavy meal in the late afternoon is good general advice, but your constitution may need a slightly different routine. The proportion of yin food matters and varies from person to person. To get the best summer eating tips, contact me and together we’ll make a plan that’s perfect for you.
Here’s a summer recipe that is a family favorite in my household.
DAIKON RADISH MAYO SALAD
Ingredients:
- 1 Daikon radish
- White sesame seeds
Dressing:
- Japanese mayo*
- Soy sauce
- Sesame oil
- Bonito flakes
Instructions:
Wash and peel daikon. Julienne daikon and set aside.
Squeeze out a good amount of mayo, depending on how much daikon you julienned. Pour a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil into the mayo and stir. Continue adding both ingredients until you come to a flavor you like. Add bonito flakes just to give an extra layer of flavor to the dressing. Do make it on the stronger-tasting side, as once this dressing is mixed with the daikon, the daikon will release water and thin the dressing. Once you’ve achieved a flavor you like, dollop the dressing onto the daikon and stir well. Sprinkle white sesame seeds to your liking. Put in fridge to cool. Pull out of fridge when ready to serve. Crisp and cold, this dressing is delicious on a hot summer day! Enjoy!
*I specify Japanese mayo here because Japanese mayo has a distinct flavor that American mayo does not (more info on the difference is found here.) It is delicious even to eat alone with a freshly cut raw cucumber or using it as a dipping sauce, just like the American ranch dressing. My only caution with Japanese mayo is that most brands use MSG. I have been able to find one without MSG, but the most popular and easily available one, Kewpie, contains MSG — plus, in general, a lot of processing to make it shelf stable for so long. For this reason, I use Japanese mayo only on occasion.