Summer dietary taboos

Don’t eat too much cold food in a short period of time, don’t eat high-risk ingredients that have been improperly stored/handled, and don’t blindly follow health-preserving remedies regardless of your body type. Other so-called “can’t eat cold food” and “can’t eat spicy food” must be judged based on your own physical constitution, and there is no unified standard answer.

Yesterday, I walked for 20 minutes under the 38-degree sun after get off work. When I entered the house, I almost stuffed my whole head into the refrigerator. I was holding an ice Coke and was about to drink it when my dad stopped me. He just treated a young man last week and drank 1.5 liters of ice soda after playing. He had stomach cramps and was so painful that he couldn't stand up. He was carried to the emergency room by his teammates. Many people say, "I've had nothing to do with eating ice since I was a child." This is really not a lie. Modern medicine has never said that healthy people should not eat ice at all. As long as they don't have basic diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome and gastric ulcer, eating ice cream and drinking a cup of iced milk tea occasionally will not be a problem. The real problem is "a large amount in a short time." "Ingestion": Food at 0-4 degrees Celsius suddenly enters the stomach at 37 degrees Celsius. The instantaneous temperature difference will cause the blood vessels in the gastrointestinal tract to contract violently. People with sensitive stomachs are prone to diarrhea and abdominal pain. Drinking iced drinks when the blood vessels in the body are dilated just after exercise can even cause cerebral vasospasm and headaches. This is a pitfall that should be avoided. I didn't believe in evil a while ago. After running, I ate half of an iced watermelon just taken out of the refrigerator. That night I was so painful that I curled up on the sofa and rubbed my stomach. I drank warm porridge for three days before I recovered. It was really a pitfall that I had stepped into personally.

If you say that eating ice depends on your physical constitution, eating a bad stomach doesn't matter what your physical condition is. The high temperature in summer is a natural petri dish for bacteria. This is really unlucky for whoever touches it. Last week, there was a stir-fry among the owners of our community. Three families ate the cold cucumbers they made the night before. They vomited and had diarrhea and were taken to the community hospital. One of them even said, "I put it in the refrigerator." But the refrigerator can only delay the growth of bacteria, but it cannot kill them, especially Listeria, which is not afraid of cold, in the refrigerator. It can last for several months. Cut watermelon, mixed cold dishes, and unsealed marinated meat. Even if you put it in the refrigerator, it is best not to exceed 12 hours. When you take out the leftovers, be sure to heat them to a core temperature of above 70 degrees. Don’t think it is a waste of time if they are overheated. The cost of going to the hospital is much more than the price of ordering food. Brother Zhang, who runs a braised food shop downstairs, told me that in the summer, their braised food is only sold on the same day, and the rest is thrown away, for fear that someone will buy it and let it go bad for two hours before eating it. This is not because he is generous in business, but because the ingredients in summer deteriorate so quickly that you can’t imagine. If you leave freshly mixed cucumbers in the sun for half an hour, the total number of bacterial colonies will exceed the standard several times.

Another pitfall that everyone easily falls into is the overwhelming number of "health secrets" in summer, such as "drinking ginger tea in the dog days of summer to force out the cold in the body" and "cutting off carbon dioxide and eating light food in summer to lose 20 pounds in a year." Don't just follow the trend. Xiao Zhou in our office has a hot constitution that easily causes anger and acne. I read on the Internet that eating ginger in the summer is good, so I drank strong ginger tea for seven days. In the end, my mouth ulcers were so painful that I couldn't even speak. I went to see a traditional Chinese medicine doctor and was scolded by the doctor. He said, "For people with weak spleen and stomach who are afraid of cold, drinking ginger tea is a tonic. You already have a strong internal fire, so drinking it will add fuel to the fire." You see, what our ancestors said about "eating ginger in summer" was originally based on different constitutions. As it was passed down, it became a unified standard for everyone to drink. There are also those girls who eat salad all the time. They have no appetite in summer. If they eat raw and cold vegetables every day, many people will break out in cold sweats due to menstrual pain. Nutritionists also say that light food itself is okay, but it must be paired with enough staple food and protein. If you only eat boiled vegetables and salads, the calories will not be enough, your immunity will be reduced, and you will be more likely to suffer from heatstroke and colds. There is really no need to torment yourself for the so-called "health preservation" and "fat loss".

In fact, there are so many black and white rules when it comes to eating in summer. My grandma always said, "You should follow your own diet when eating." If you drink ice and you don't feel uncomfortable, just drink a cup occasionally to relieve the heat. You don't have to listen to others saying "drinking ice is very cold" to scare you away.； If you have a weak stomach, drink more warm drinks, and don't insist on comparing with others who eats more ice. In the final analysis, fresh food and comfortable eating are more important than rigid taboos. After all, spending the summer comfortably is the top priority.