Food items to cool you down

Summer is a great time for an elimination diet. All you need to cut out a few food items that you regularly consume and replace them with newer foods items like fruits and vegetables. Here are a few foods you could add to your diet:



Grilled Veggies and salads:
A plate of grilled onions, bell peppers, zucchini, carrots, eggplant, asparagus, and garlic can be a great meal, really. You can also use these ingredients to make dishes like grilled vegetable pitas. Grilling dries up the water inside. So if you like your veggies raw, experiment with salads combined with dressings of various kinds. Add a bit of cheese to have some fun.

Chilled Soups
Chilled soups like gazpacho or cucumber-dill that contain lots of crunchy vegetables are a great way to start a meal. The soup fills you up, ensuring that you do not overeat the main meal. Besides, this low-calorie meal also helps cool your system effectively.

Beans, sprouts and legumes
Substitute animal protein (mainly red meats) with beans. This change will not only add fiber to your diet but also help lower the total calories, cholesterol and saturated fat. Greasy and fried foods can be hot, so summer is the best time to avoid junk and fried foods.

Watermelons and cucumbers
Who doesn't love digging into a crisp, juicy slice of watermelon when it's hot outside? Consume fruits and veggies with high water content. This includes leafy lettuces, cucumbers, watermelon and melon. All contain a significant amount of water that can thin the blood and help your body release heat. Alternatively, you might try adding more spice to your diet to help cool your body. Hot peppers, fresh ginger, horseradish, and black pepper should do the trick. And for those of you who like cooking, we suggest you focus on fast cooking methods like steaming or quick saut ufffds as opposed to the more heat intensive ones like frying and baking.

Off the menu...
It has been proven that anything ingested that is lower than the actual body temperature will initially produce a cooling effect. But after 15-20 minutes, the opposite holds true. Unfortunately, this applies to all our mugs of chilled beers and sundaes. So, it's best to stick to buttermilk, lassi, aam panna, jal jeera and fresh fruit and vegetable juices.