Warm foods for winter

It’s long been known that foods are classified as either warming, cooling, or balanced/neutral. Ancient traditional Chinese medicine practitioners used specific foods to balance the body’s yin and yang, and treat disease. 

Eating cooling foods, contributes a cooling effect to your body; while warm foods contribute to warming effects to your body.

Now that winter is here, it’s time for being inside, specially around the aromas the emanate from a kitchen in use. Considering it’s colder outside, we may need extra calories to keep warm. 

Nothing is more satisfying on cold wintry day, than a great bowl of hot soup. Winter in fact, is a apt time to celebrate the warmth of eating, since it’s that time when you may want to turn to baking and roasting. 

Besides the heat of the oven that feels good in winter, eating warming foods are great for the body this season. According to traditional Oriental medicine, warming foods include ones that take longer to grow; like carrots and cabbage. Root vegetables make excellent winter choices, as compared with leafy vegetables like lettuce. Other foods with warming properties include hot pepper, cayenne and chilli pepper and black pepper. Using these in seasonings are recommended during cold winter months, because of their warming properties.

Some warming vegetables include: chives, leek, mustard greens, onion, pumpkin, squash. Warming fruits include: cherry, Chinese red dates, coconut meat, coconut milk, guava, hawthorn fruit, longan, lychee, mandarin peel (dried), mango, nectarine, peach, raspberry

Going further into the conversation, smaller, denser, and more compacted foods make good choices during the winter season. 

Popular approaches to winter eating, look at the season as a time to store up on heavier, high-calorie foods. For example, whole grains including nutrient-dense bran and germ, makes for a good winter choice. Seeds sunflower and sesame are great examples of a nutritious compact winter food. Dried beans and lentils also fit into this category. Other seed, grain and nut varieties include: caraway seed, chestnut, Glutinous Rice, malt, pine nut, pistachio nut, walnut

Taking forward the hearth-warming effects of winter, this  is also a great season for getting friends and family together around a relaxed, meal. The sharing of food can be one of the most peaceful and lasting experiences of winter. This is a good way to fight the stress, overload, and more frequent schedule changes, the holiday season may bring.