Food has a substantial impact on body temperature in a number of ways. The more fibre and nutrients contained in a meal, the more sustainable the warmth in your body becomes. It’s called thermogenesis. Then there are physically hot foods that warm you, the obvious being soups and stews due to the volume of warming liquid that enters the body. Then there are reactive foods like spices. Beyond this, every food has its own warming, cooling or neutral thermal nature or ‘energy’.
This energy can change depending on how you store, prepare and cook them. Some foods are obviously warming, like chilli and ginger, but you’d be surprised by the thermal nature of so many foods and how these may affect your body’s own energetics.
The way we eat foods can have a profound effect on the health in our gut and body and on our temperature. In the summer we eat cooling foods like tomatoes and raw salad
veg, but in the winter we should be consuming warming foods. The access to all foods all year round has taken away our knowledge of seasonal foods and misleads us to eat cooling foods in the colder months.
Creating internal warmth through foods is healthy too:
• Warming foods aid digestion and circulation and encourage the right kind of gut bacteria.
• Consuming hot hydrating meals and drinks that contain ‘vasodilator’ foods can create instant internal warmth and aid circulation and detoxification, reducing inflammation and pain.
• The more fibre and nourishing nutrients a dish contains, the longer it will take to digest, creating more heat and giving you sustained energy, keeping you warmer for longer.
There are four kinds of food energetics:
Heating, Warming, Cooling and Neutral. In the winter, we can help keep our whole bodies infused with warmth from within, creating less need for central heating. Exercise similarly creates heat as the metabolism is stepped up to burn energy.
When you need an instant and effective boost of warmth, these foods are the stars and, by their very nature, are ‘warming and expansive’, meaning they push heat out to all areas of the physical body. In the summer, they can cool you down as the brain switches the temperature control on to sweat away the heat, but in winter, if you are wrapped up, that heat will stay around to keep you warm.
Chilli – Boosts metabolism by helping to burn fat at the same time as creating a surge of blood through dilated blood vessels and spreading warmth to all areas.
Ginger – Ginger is a ‘vasodilator’ as well as being spicy; this helps with circulation moving warm blood to hands, feet and skin, making you feel warmer.
Garlic, Shallots, onions and scallions – All promote warmth and heat in the body, improving circulation and detoxification.
Turmeric – Speeds up thermogenesis, the process of burning calories, which creates warmth. Max limit is one small teaspoon a day with food, or you may experience side effects. Also, don’t take it if anaemic.
Cardamom – Has warming and calming qualities.
All the above can give you an immediate feeling of warmth.
The following list will help you to create meals that help you stay warm and give you plenty of health benefits to see you through the cold winter days.
Walnuts (fresh are best)
Sunflower seeds
Pine nuts
Pumpkin seeds
Coconut
Oats
Parsnips, swede, turnips.
Sweet potatoes
Quinoa
Cabbage, Kale
Parsley
Asparagus
Courgettes
Cherries
Green tea
Animal products are warming in nature as they can create heat in the body, which in excess is not ideal – so using small amounts to increase protein content is fine.
Foods that are neutral won’t cool or warm you on their own but mixed with warming foods and spices, they can be very ‘warmth’ supportive.
Corn
Buckwheat
Rice
Rye
Lentils
Peas
Green beans
Carrots
Potatoes
Beetroot
Shiitake mushrooms
Apricots
Figs
Grapes
Papaya
Pineapple
Raspberries
Foods that are cooling in nature should be avoided in large amounts on their own in winter. When you feel cold, combine them with foods like chilli or ginger to create heat.
Wheat
Tomatoes
Soya
Celery
Broccoli
Common button mushrooms
Aubergines
Radishes
Spinach
Watercress
Apples
Avocados
Bananas
Peaches
Pears
Lemons
Oranges
Grapefruit
Plums
Pears
Watermelon
Seaweed – Kombu, Nori, Wakame
Mint
By Sam Bourne DipNT mBANT CNHC NTC
Nutritional Therapist
For more information contact:
Website: www.foodspa.org.uk