The increasingly hot and humid weather, coupled with the upcoming durian season, makes a perfect recipe for our immune system to weaken. We all turn to fans, air-conditioners, iced drinks and ice cream to cool down. But another way to go about it is to practise the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) belief of avoiding the consumption of too much heaty foods.
When it comes to the TCM categorisation of foods, everything we consume can be broadly classified under heaty, cooling, or neutral. For the former, heaty food usually warms the body (as the name suggests), and vice versa with cooling foods. It’s not that all heaty foods are bad or that all cooling foods are good – it’s just that in the TCM belief, we need both heaty and cooling foods to balance our body’s systems. Like healthy practices, it’s all about moderation.
Here are six heaty foods you should watch your consumption of, to avoid undesirable effects such as rashes, fever, constipation and sore throat:
