When summer comes, your appetite usually goes away - you just don't feel like eating when the heat is on. It makes sense to choose foods that can help you to keep cool, so here's what should be on your plate this summer.
Take to the water
No, not the swimming pool or the ocean - although that's a good strategy for keeping cool. Foods with high water content will help your body to maintain the correct temperature and keep it hydrated, which is essential in hot weather. Salad vegetables such as lettuce, radishes, celery and cucumber, and fruits such as melon, grapes, apples, pears, and citrus fruits will all help you to keep cool.
Keep a melon sliced up in the fridge for a refreshing any time treat. Summertime is strawberry time, and all berries contain anti-inflammatory properties, which can help take the sting out of sunburn, so tuck into those strawberries, safe in the knowledge that they're helping you to keep your cool.
Spice up your life
While you may not fancy a full-blown curry or chili in the hot weather, incorporating some spice into your food can help you to keep cool. Spices cause you to perspire, which encourages the body's natural cooling mechanism to kick in. Try sprinkling a little ground ginger on slices of melon, season fish with black pepper, and add chili flakes to meat and poultry marinades. Garlic also has a cooling effect.
Go raw
Who wants to be slaving over a hot stove when it's baking outside? Go for salads and barbecues instead, and give the cooker - and the cook! - a well-earned break.
Make it easy on your digestion.
Limit consumption of meat, which is harder to digest and causes your body temperature to rise. Instead of burgers on the barbecue, go for fish. Ice cream is also quite hard to digest, so that cooling cone may actually be warming you up!
Yogurt
Yogurt is great cooling food. Pair it with fruit, or make a yogurt and mint dressing for your salad - mint is great in the cooling stakes as well.
Get souped-up
Okay, you may think soup and summer are diametrically opposed, but soup helps to keep you hydrated, which assists the natural cooling process. Go for light soups such as consomme, or a delicious, cold gazpacho. Or make your own tomato soup - tomatoes are at their tastiest in the summer.
Enjoy the summer weather, and make the most of the cooling foods. As an added bonus, most of the foods that help you keep cool are low in calories and fat, so you could finish the summer leaner and lovelier than before.
What other foods can you think of? Let us know!
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