Consider Eating Cooling Foods in Winter
During winter, while resisting cold, note that warming, yang-promoting foods often contain high calories. Excessive consumption may cause internal heat buildup, leading to lung fire manifested as dry mouth and tongue. How to suppress “dryness”? Traditional Chinese medicine suggests choosing “sweet-cold” foods—those with cooling properties—to counteract heat.
In winter, many “sweet-cold” foods are available. For example, adding cooling herbs like licorice or poria to warming tonics reduces heatiness and prevents excessive internal heat after tonification. In regular diet, include cooling foods such as turtle, softshell turtle, rabbit meat, duck meat, goose meat, chicken, eggs, kelp, sea cucumber, honey, sesame, silver ear fungus, lotus seeds, lilies, white radish, cabbage, celery, spinach, winter bamboo shoots, bananas, pears, apples. Many enjoy stewed beef in winter—best to add some radish. Folk wisdom says: “Eat radish in winter, ginger in summer—no need for doctors’ prescriptions.” Radish is pungent-sweet and neutral in nature, promoting qi movement, eliminating food stagnation, resolving phlegm, and aiding digestion. It balances the “warm-dry” nature of beef, offering both tonification and digestion support.
Although cooling foods have calming, cooling, and anti-inflammatory effects, they aren’t suitable for everyone. According to Professor Gan Aiping of Hubei Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, those with symptoms like dryness, hot palms and soles, night sweats—indicative of yin deficiency—can moderately choose “sweet-cold” foods. For instance, duck meat is cooling, nourishes deficiency, clears heat, harmonizes zang-fu organs, and promotes urination—ideal for cardiovascular patients with weakness, poor appetite, low-grade fever, constipation, or edema. Generally, those with spleen-stomach cold deficiency should avoid cold foods and cooling tonics. Instead, they may safely consume warming foods like dog meat or lamb hotpot—just don’t overdo it. Excessive intake increases internal heat, leading to fire, yang depletion, and disruption of nutritional balance.