From The Inside Out Mag.
For Personal Healing, Spiritual Growth & Development

by Kevin Pederson

All ancient health sciences prescribe that summer diet should be different than the winter diet, you can find materials explaining the reasons and types of food to be eaten in both Ayurveda and the Chinese medicine.

Summer takes away all moisture inside our body to leaving it short on its regular water levels, therefore care should be taken to include those foods in our diets that offer lots of water as well as cool our bodies considerably.

Summer foods are necessarily rich in water content; these foods can be grown faster, because research indicates all summer foods grow faster than winter foods. All sciences also know the fact that some foods have warming effect on the body whereas some have cooling effect, therefore before deciding on whether a food is summer food, you should see, water content, heavy/light to digest, summer foods should be essentially light to digest because sun is already providing you the heat your body makes to digest food, so heavier foods may not be digested better in summer. Legumes, wheat, barley, etc. are summer foods and should be included in daily diet.

Among fruits almost all citrus foods are cooling, these are juicy and you can extract juice and store it for a day without any preservatives. Citrus fruits offer you more cooling if you can mix these to make a mock tail and also add in some lemon juice. Lemons are a boon during summer, these small citrus fruits can make any salad tastier, it can also protect your body from getting several summer related ailments like boils, etc. lemon and honey combination has the power of instantly replenishing your body's lost water and also work as energizers.

Veggies and not meat should be your important dietary composition during summer; summer solstice should include vegetables, salads, fruit punches, water, rice, legumes, wheat, etc. If you wanted to avoid hot foods during summer, you should try and avoid poultry and meat and instead introduce sea foods which are supposed to be cooling.

You require avoiding oily and fat rich foods, since these are difficult for digestion, putting on a diet in low oil and fat will also help you avoid several gastro-intestinal problems what people are most likely to face during the summer season like heart burn, acidity, indigestion, etc.

The best summer diet solution would be to include large salads in your diet, onions are just great in summer, people of all hot countries in the world, include onion in their diets because of ability of onions to beat the heat and provide relief from summer ailments. Ideally your salads can contain onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. with a dash of fresh lemon juice to add the tang, you can also include some mild spices and the salad will surely be a family favorite.

Also, going out in summer means you should carry water or fruit juice with you whenever you go out, it will help you get water every time you are thirsty. Summer offers you a great opportunity of losing weight, this is the time when your body does not require heavy food intake, you can take this opportunity get slimmer.