When temperatures soar into the 90s and humidity goes through the roof around this time of year, many of us would try just about anything to cool off, but our options are limited.   After all, the relief afforded by an icy beverage is fleeting, and you can only remove so much clothing before achieving a criminal record.

So what to do?

Recently, I have been reading about Ayurveda, a fascinating system of holistic medicine that originated in India and has been practiced for thousands of years.  Much like traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda views all life and everything on earth as a combination of the elements of space, air, fire, water and earth and emphasizes balance between these elements.  According to this philosophy, every food that we eat has properties that determine which elements it contains in the highest amounts and that, in turn, establishes whether it is heating, cooling or neutral to the body.  Additionally, the environment in which we live is a combination of the elements that changes with the weather, creating a need to alter our eating patterns seasonally to maintain equilibrium.

As you can probably imagine, in the summertime, fire is viewed as the dominant element that must be soothed by cooling foods in order to achieve balance within the body.   But what foods are cooling?  By taste profile, foods that are sweet, bitter or astringent are considered to be cooling, whereas foods that are sour, salty or pungent are said to be heating.  Therefore, when it comes to fruits, you should choose the ones that are sweet rather than sour, such as melons, mangoes, plums, pears and certain types of apples (Macintosh instead of Granny Smith, for example) and grapes (red or purple instead of green).  For vegetables, asparagus, kale, cucumber, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, zucchini and yellow squashes are said to be particularly cooling in the summer months, owing to their combinations of sweet and/or bitter tastes.

It should come as no surprise that herbs and spices are also classified according to their properties.  In hot weather, Ayurveda recommends limiting or avoiding heating spices such as garlic, ginger, cayenne, chili powder and horseradish in favor of cooling herbs such as coriander, cumin and fresh parsley, mint, basil and cilantro.

Of course, all fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices provide their own unique health benefits, and these suggestions are by no means prescriptive, but they do offer an interesting perspective on the foods that we eat and how our bodies may respond to them.  As a Wisconsin native with a poor tolerance to high temperatures, I am one of those people who will do almost anything to stay cool in the summer, so it's always good to learn new ways to beat the heat—minus the criminal record, that is.