Keep yourself cool with smart food habits

Eating the right fruits, vegetables and spices can ensure you remain cool during the summer season, suggest experts.

Chef Sudhir Nair, Executive Chef at Courtyard by Marriott and Fairfield by Marriott, Bengaluru and Chef Kasiviswanathan, the Executive Chef for Radisson Blu Atria, Bengaluru share five easy tips that will help your body cope with the heat:

* Eat and enjoy a light breakfast every morning comprising of fresh fruits and lots of liquids. Avoid citrus juices and instead opt for tender coconut or melon juice. Cucumber juice or salad would also be a great option.

Try and cut down on a heavy breakfast and avoid high starch foods with rice or wheat. Lunch should be the heaviest meal of the day in summers. Keep low on yoghurt consumption instead drink as much as buttermilk as possible. Keep your food low on spices and high on liquid.

* Do not drink chilled water or aerated beverages as it will disrupt the digestive process in the body. Keep a close watch on your sugar consumption. Ice creams though tempting in this time is rich in sugar and cream but an iced fruit lolly would be a legitimate indulgence.

* Avoid using spices such as mustard, ginger, and chilli. Avoid vegetables like tomato, peppers and garlic.

* Cook with cooling herbs such as fennel, dill, mint, and coriander. Allow use of spices like cumin, cinnamon, green cardamom in your food. Use vegetables such as white pumpkin, broccoli, snake gourds, drumstick and madras cucumber.

Milk, coconut, butter and ghee in small proportions is cooling for the body. Best methods of cooking these foods would by boiling, steaming and stewing. It is best to avoid fried foods as they would give undue stress to the digestive tract.

* Fruits like ice apples, varieties of melons, sugarcane, and varieties of ripe mango, cashew apples and jackfruit are found in abundance in this season and the best choice of small meals throughout the day.

--IANS

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