Summer is hot and rainy and the summer heat causes plants to grow fast. People perspire and the body's qi and blood become relatively more vigorous than in other seasons. The metabolic rate peaks during this season with excessive yang tending to flow out or surmounting yin internally. In order to maintain good health, it is important to restore and maintain normal levels of yang. It is advisable to eat more foods with pungent flavors and reduce bitter flavors which are hot in energy and tend to move outward, it also helps to depress the hyper-functioning of the heart.
The daily diet should contain more vegetables and fruit so as to stimulate the appetite and provide adequate fluids. One should avoid eating too much greasy and sweet foods.
Exogenous pathogens like summer heat and dampness evils are common during this season making people sweaty, thirsty, irritable, tired, lacking an appetite, and experiencing heaviness in the forehead and limbs. If you experience the above symptoms, the following foods are helpful when added to the diet: bitter gourd, watermelon, peach, strawberry, tomato, mung bean, cucumber, wax gourd, pumpkin, ginger, lotus root, lotus seed, job's tears, and Chinese yam.
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