The Summer Diet: How To Eat To Stay Healthy All Year Round, Part 1: The Fire Element, Chinese 5-Elements

June 26, 2024

The Summer Diet: How To Eat To Stay Healthy All Year Round, Part 1: The Fire Element, Chinese 5-Elements

The Summer Diet

The summer diet takes advantage of the bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables that ripen this time of year, just in time to help balance the humidity and heat of summer. Freshly ripened, locally grown peaches, plums and apricots ooze with a juicy, sweet, slightly sour nectar that may drip down our chin and hands as we bite into them. Berries fill our breakfast and dessert plates, making their way into pancakes, muffins and healthier homemade desserts, quick breads or even in salads.

If you love tomatoes, you may also love this simple Gazpacho Soup recipe!

Speaking of salads, they become more enticing as a main entrée this time of year, don't they? Filled with crunchy cucumbers, juicy, watery tomatoes, and possibly some of those peaches or berries, they are ideal additions to the summer diet as they quench our thirst, and moisten dryness from the summer heat. Especially my Refreshing Pressed Red Cabbage Salad.

Fill your salad bowl with more plant foods, such as whole grains like barley, quinoa, farro or wheat berries or fun small shaped whole grain noodles; beans, peas, edamame, tempeh or tofu; raw, steamed or grilled vegetables, and some nuts or seeds, for a SASSY ~ Super Affordable, Simple, Satisfying & Yummy ~ for a low-fuss, summertime entrée.

To learn which whole grains are the BEST choices for the summer diet, and WHY, along with great beverages and more meal ideas to keep you cool and balanced throughout the summer, be sure to read The Summer Diet, Part 2.

Grilled Marinated Summer Squares, Eggplant, Portobello Mushrooms & Pineapple are delicious as
part of a summer sandwich (shown below) or as part of a big salad bowl with whole grains or beans

Sandwiches, Pasta Salads, Steamed or Air-Fried Potatoes and Potato Salads, Grain Salads, Coleslaw, grilled burgers, veggies and hummus, and fresh fruit are also easy to prepare for al fresco dining.

Grab some great summer diet fare, and head to your local park, beach, or your patio or deck and enjoy the summer vibes during this most fiery hot and active time of year.

Free the Chicken Salad made with seasoned and air-fried tofu, diced veggies and all the condiments
herbs and spices you love in a (mock) Chicken Salad - so hearty, you won't miss the chicken!

Fresh peaches with berries & toasted walnuts

Perhaps the quintessential fruits of the summer diet are the variety of big juicy melons, and the vegetable (or grain) that is practically synonymous with summer is sweet corn, which can be enjoyed raw, steamed, grilled, added to salsas, salads, or cooked into a light Corn Chowder Soup.

I love grilled or steamed corn-on-the-cob with a little smear of umeboshi paste. It's really awesome!

Nothing says 'summer diet' like fresh sweet corn-on-the-cob which is great with a smear of Umeboshi Plum Paste

You all instinctively know what the summer diet is, and you don't need me to write an article about it, do you? We all live for these gifts from Mother Earth this time of year!

The Summer Diet - A Chinese Food Therapy & Macrobiotic Perspective

However, you may be interested in learning more about why these foods are so beneficial to us this time of year, and why eating seasonally is an important component of maintaining a healthy immune system from a macrobiotic and Chinese food therapy perspective. So, here goes!

Fire Element

Summer is the season associated with the Fire element. The paired organs associated with the Fire element are the Heart and Small Intestines. Two other channels related to Fire include the Heart Protector (Pericardium) and the Triple Burner (San Jiao) channels, equally important, but without associated organs.

According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the energetic and physiological function of the Small Intestine and its associated channel is to 'separate the pure from the impure' or 'the clear from the turbid.' Nutrients are extracted from the mostly digested food, and the wastes are passed on through the large intestine.

The Pericardium and San Jiao channels run up the middle of the inside and outside of our arms, respectively, and are used in TCM to treat a variety of disorders, most notably nausea, or anxiety and insomnia on the Pericardium channel, and constipation, or wrist, arm or shoulder pain on the San Jiao channel, which also helps regulate the flow of Qi and heat throughout each of our upper, middle, and lower jiao channels of our entire torso.

The color associated with the Fire element is...you guessed it...red. The corresponding flavor is bitter.

These are just a few of the associations with the Fire element. (Click here for a full outline of the seasons, colors, flavors, emotions, organs and physiological systems associated with each of the five elements.)

Food For Thought!

According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), in addition to circulatory functions of the Heart, it is also said to house our 'shen' or spirit. This makes sense emotionally and spiritually. I find it interesting that the early Taoists associated the small intestine with the heart, as one organ (the heart) helps us 'discern' what is good and pure (spiritually speaking), while its associated organ aids with the function to physically separate the pure from the impure. This can be true of all that we consume of 'food,' not just physical food. When we consume too much 'toxic' food ~ fear-based news, negative thought patterns, self-doubts, etc. ~ we feel disturbed, off-center, and in-secure, or 'shen disturbed,'

Consider the common advice to 'follow your heart.' One of our lessons as embodied Spirits is to make that sometimes long journey from our head, to our heart. We feel more integrated, whole, and joyful when we use our intellect to systematically achieve our goals and true desires, and when we live in harmony with our core values.

In macrobiotics, we believe that what we eat helps us facilitate living our dreams. That's powerful stuff!

What Happens if We Don't Adopt a Summer Diet?

If we don't follow the principles of eating harmoniously with the seasons ~ if we consume too many warming foods, or foods prepared that promote excess heat and/or dampness, such as too much fried and heavy, rich foods, overly salty foods, and too much alcohol during the hot months ~ we overheat. When we overheat, we feel more irritable. When we are irritable, we become more restless, or, to use Hip Chick's Guide to Macrobiotics author Jessica Porter's word, 'twitchy.'

If there happens to be a power outage during a heat wave like we recently experienced, sleeping can be quite the challenge without air conditioning or a ceiling fan! Too little sleep, especially from being over heated, or being out all day during high winds can definitely cause shen disturbance! And the cycle continues! (You may also like my article about the practical application of Chinese 5-Elements Theory in your life.)

Fresh picked purple potatoes from the farmer's market ~
Steamed, and waiting to morph into a Potato Salad!

Eating In Harmony with the Seasons

In Changing Seasons Macrobiotic Cookbook, Cooking in Harmony with Nature, Aveline Kushi states:

In addition to eating according to our physical structure and traditional dietary practices, it is important for us to eat in a way that brings our condition into harmony with the environment around us. This can be done by relying primarily on foods that are grown in a climate similar to the one in which we live and by adjusting our selection f foods and cooking methods to accommodate the changing of the seasons.

We harmonize with our environment ~ such as adopting a Summer Diet to accommodate for the increased humidity and higher temperatures, depending upon one's geographic location ~ by adjusting the types of food we select to eat, and how we prepare them.

While the Spring Diet is a mix of foods and cooking styles, incorporating more of the early sprouts, green peas and vegetables, and soft leafy greens to help decongest the liver from any excess fat accumulated over the winter, the Summer Diet not only helps us stay cool, but can help us prevent summer stroke, and a build up of internal dampness that can cause us to feel saturated like a sponge from the humidity. (Ladies, you know, it's that swollen feeling we get where even our rings are hard to remove!)

Couscous topped with a Peach Aspic, a vegan gelatin-like texture made from agar agar seaweed

Adopting The Summer Diet - Foods AND Cooking Styles

The Summer Diet utilizes quicker cooking methods, minimizing the heat inside the kitchen, and transferred into our food. Quick Blanching is one of my favorite ways to prepare greens and vegetables throughout the year, especially in the spring and summer. (Here are my favorite simple recipes for QB Greens & Vegetables.)

For an even SIMPLER (or should I say, more SASSY ~ Super Affordable, Simple, Satisfying & Yummy) way to prep greens and veggies like broccoli and cauliflower is to place them rinsed and chopped into a heat proof bowl, and pour boiling water on top. Cover with a plate, and let sit a few minutes. This takes the raw edge off, and from here they can be enjoyed as is, or quickly sautéed or stir-fried with garlic, herbs and spices as desired. Taking this step requires minimal effort, but they cook faster and taste more tender when quickly quick boiled / blanched first.

Steaming, Quick Boiling (QB), sautéing, and stir-frying utilize high heat, which may seem counter intuitive, yet the shorter cooking time means the heat doesn't penetrate as much into the food, making it an ideal cooking method for the Summer Diet. Contrarily, slow roasting or baking are more ideal cooking methods for the Fall and Winter Diet.

As already mentioned, the summer diet is the best time of year to enjoy more raw fruits, vegetables and salads. But if making a salad your main course, let's think beyond just lettuce, a few shredded carrots, cucumber slices, and tomato ~ the standard restaurant side salad when I was growing up ~ although that's still fine.

These days, 'Bowls' are popular as they elevate the salad to a new level. Filled with whole cooked grains, beans, peas, a variety of lettuces and vegetables, and some nuts or seeds makes for a satiating entrée. To make them quickly ~ with less total time spent in a hot kitchen ~ take advantage of time spent food prepping is to cook once, and eat at least twice.

Cook up a big pot of beans and grain to utilize leftovers. Here's a great article with lots of tips and recipes for plant-based food prep and batch cooking.

Leftover brown rice is great rolled into Brown Rice Sushi or Rice Balls, with a little umeboshi plum paste in the center for a great flavor, and to help preserve the rice. You can pack sushi and Brown Rice Balls to-go without worry of keeping them in a cooler. Ideal for picnics, travel, or to take to go.

Other grains, like barley, quinoa, bulgur and whole wheat couscous can be the base of a salad, with a variety of seasonal chopped fruits and vegetables added.

Likewise, Pasta Salads or Soba Noodle Salads are also great this time of year.

A few whole grains that are ideal to incorporate into your summer diet to balance the heat and possible humidity includes barley (pearl barley, unhulled barley, Hato Mugi, or Job's Tears), whole wheat, millet and corn or maize.

In my next post, I look at the Chinese food therapy 'science' behind the foods ~ which grains are the best choices in the summer diet, and why ~ along with the perfect summer diet beverages that are healing and cooling, along with several more summer meal suggestions.

Be sure to check out the recipes and resources, linked below.

Whole Wheat Linguini with Summer Veggies & Hijiki Seaweed - Light Sauce from cooking the tomato, lemon, dried herbs, pasta broth, garlic, a little XVOO, pepper

Barley Salad topped with Roasted Pine Nuts, Black Beans cooked for a couple hours on low heat in a
clay pot with a little seaweed, Baby Bok Choy from our garden, stir-fried w/ red pepper, onion
a little ginger, and topped w/ sesame seeds