What are the Principles of Winter Dietary Health?

Diet provides essential nutrition to the human body, serving as a source of energy and substances necessary for maintaining normal physiological activities. It is a fundamental requirement to ensure the continuation of life and plays a crucial role in enhancing the body’s disease resistance, promoting growth and development, and fostering the essential material foundation for healthy longevity. In the cold and dry winter, it is advisable to adjust one’s diet appropriately to achieve the goals of preserving warmth, preventing cold, and avoiding dryness. Here, I would like to share three suitable and three unsuitable recommendations for winter dietary health.

Advisable for Winter Dietary Health

Choose foods with warm properties to dispel cold

In cold weather, focus on keeping warm, strengthening the body, and boosting vitality by selecting warm-natured foods. For instance, lamb, with its sweet and warm nature, benefits the spleen and kidneys, warms the stomach, generates body fluids, and dispels cold. Regular consumption of lamb enhances body heat, improves blood circulation, accelerates metabolism, and aids digestion, contributing to overall health. Other examples include beef, chicken, leeks, ginger, longan, and millet, all known for their warming properties.

Incorporate foods that nourish yin and moisturize dryness

To counteract the dry and cold winter conditions, include foods that nourish yin and moisten dryness, promoting heat clearance, relieving thirst, and ensuring smooth bowel movements. White radish, with its cool nature and sweet and pungent taste, has the effects of nourishing yin, moisturizing the lungs, invigorating the stomach, aiding digestion, and facilitating urination and bowel movements. Spinach, cucumber, winter melon, snow pear, shiitake mushrooms, and lotus root are also excellent choices for nourishing yin and moistening dryness.

Include foods with a clear and moistening taste

Combat dryness-related respiratory issues in winter by incorporating foods with a clear and moistening taste. The principle is to “reduce spiciness and increase acidity.” Acidic foods help nourish yin, moisturize the lungs, enhance liver function, and resist invasion by lung heat. Tomatoes, slightly cold in nature with a sweet and sour taste, are beneficial for relieving thirst, aiding digestion, and supporting liver and lung health. Other acidic foods suitable for winter include green apples, kiwi, citrus fruits, hawthorn, pomegranate, grapes, and lemons.

Common Queries about Winter Dietary Health

Inadvisable for Winter Dietary Health

Avoid sweet, greasy, and fatty foods

The cold winter season, with its long nights and increased appetite, may lead to overconsumption of sweet and greasy foods, resulting in digestive disorders, abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, and potential health issues such as obesity, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. Excessive intake of sweet foods can also harm the kidneys, leading to kidney deficiency, osteoporosis, gallstones, and dental issues. Winter diets should be light, emphasizing vegetables over meat, and avoiding high-sugar and high-fat foods like candies, pastries, cakes, chocolates, honey, fatty meat, pork intestines, sesame, and peanuts.

Refrain from spicy and stimulating foods

In the dry winter, stomach fire tends to be strong, making it unsuitable to consume spicy and stimulating foods that may exacerbate digestive discomfort. Foods like chili, mustard, pepper, raw onions, raw garlic, onions, leeks, and white wine can easily cause internal heat buildup, resulting in symptoms such as constipation, short red urine, dry and painful throat, nosebleeds, and oral ulcers. Additionally, avoid grilled, fried, or spicy hot pot foods, as they can be difficult for the digestive system to process and may impact overall health.

Steer clear of raw and cold seafood

Traditional Chinese medicine emphasizes the importance of maintaining health and vitality through the ascending Yang Qi, which is warm energy and is particularly sensitive to cold. Consuming raw and cold seafood in winter can deplete Yang Qi, harm the spleen and stomach, cause digestive issues, aversion to cold, clear urine, weak and sore lower back, and other symptoms of Yang deficiency and excessive cold. Most fruits, such as watermelon and cantaloupe, have a cooling nature and are considered unsuitable for consumption during winter. Additionally, seafood is cold in nature, and consuming raw seafood can reduce its protein digestibility, potentially impairing gastrointestinal function. When consuming seafood, it is crucial to keep the stomach warm and use condiments such as ginger juice in moderation to counteract the cold nature of seafood.

Conclusion

In the cold winter, maintaining a balanced and scientifically sound diet is crucial for overall health. Choosing warm-natured foods enhances resistance to the cold, while consuming foods that nourish yin and moisten dryness helps maintain internal moisture and clear away heat. It is essential to avoid excessive intake of sweet, greasy, and spicy foods, as well as raw and cold seafood, to prevent digestive discomfort and depletion of Yang Qi. By adhering to a scientific approach to winter dietary health, individuals can navigate the season with enhanced well-being and comfort.