Provocative title if you’re thinking about the song, but edible “hot” stuff only provokes hot flashes. If you read my previous post, you became aware that each food has a thermal quality according to Chinese nutrition. We are not talking about what temperature the food is served at, but its innate thermal property as defined over millennia of observation by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners.
No surprise, “hot” foods—and “warm” ones if you are very sensitive or it’s summer—can incite or worsen hot flashes and night sweats, also known as vasomotor instability in medical parlance. Those who have complained of these vasomotor symptoms are often advised to quit eating spicy foods, red wine, and alcoholic spirits, but there are other provocateurs. I was quite surprised to find some of my favorite foods and spices on the “hot” thermal property list that I compiled from numerous TCM books and internet authorities.
Thermal qualities were originally determined for foods indigenous to China, but as practitioners moved to different countries and continents, others were characterized. Unfortunately, not all foods are well delineated by Traditional Chinese Medicine and Chinese nutrition sources, and some ingredients have only one authoritative supporting piece of data for a thermal quality that I could find. For others, a couple different thermal values were attributed to a particular food by various sources. So, to draw a conclusion, further determinations were made by me using TCM concepts such as flavor profile, length of growing season, place of origin (temperate vs tropical), and botanical relationships. For the modern age, I also consider processing techniques, especially for oils, meats, and cheeses.
On the lists I’ve compiled for my as-yet-to be-published book, The Hot Flash Diet, I include many hybridized and international ingredients that were not present in the traditional Chinese diet of millennia past, so I based many of my judgments on botanical relationships. For example, a peach is “warm” so I surmise that a nectarine would also be. Dosekai, the citrus-flavored Indian cucumber, is likely be “cool to cold” like its close relatives, cucumbers, and melons. Additionally, I self-tested some items to confirm the determination. To indicate my determinations, I notated those listed foods with italics in the list below.
To complicate matters, the method of cooking can also influence the heat of a food. Raw foods are the “coolest” preparation; however, most of us prefer our foods to be cooked, especially meat and fish. How you prepare a food can alter its final thermal energy. I best sum it up like this:
Coolest to Neutral Preparations:
Raw–>Pickling without Cooking–>Blanching–>Steamed–>Boiled quickly
Neutral to Warmer Preparations:
Pressure-Cooked–>Braised–>Stewed–>Stir-Fried–>Baked
Warmer to Hottest Preparations:
Cold smoked–>Deep-Fried–>Roasted–>Broiled–>Grilled–>Barbecued–>Hot Smoked
For instance, salmon would maintain its “warm” quality within the first 2 groups of preparation styles but smoking it would likely increase its thermal value. Keep this in mind as you plan meals or order from a restaurant. Longer and slower cooking also tends to increase the temperature energetics of the food. For example, BBQ pork ribs are more likely to precipitate hot flashes than stir fried pork just by the thermal nature if its cooking method. Moreover, the blend of ingredients (and their thermal qualities) for the chosen sauces for either dish also plays a role.
While some may be interested in learning more, I am betting that most of you want me to “cut to the chase” and share what foods might be linked to hot flashes. Some are intuitive—chili peppers are “hot”—and some are not—trout (a cold-water fish) is also “hot.” Since many of these ingredients are difficult to give up, how to balance them with “cold” or “cool” foods will be the subject of a later post.
“Hot” Foods to Avoid
(Italicized foods indicate my best determination.)
Meats: Lamb, Smoked ham
Seafood: Trout, Smoked salmon
Vegetables: Spicy peppers
Condiments: Mustard, Wasabi
Oils & Fats: Cottonseed oil, Refined Palm Oil
Herbs & Spices: Black pepper, Cayenne pepper, Chili pepper, Cinnamon, Filé powder, Galangal, Garlic powder, Ginger powder, Horseradish, MSG, Mustard seed or powder, Red pepper, White pepper
Beverages: Red wine, Sassafras tea, and Alcoholic Spirits (such as bourbon, brandy, gin, liqueurs, rum, scotch, tequila, vodka, & whiskey)
The first step in the Hot Flash Diet™ is to cut out or cut down on “hot” foods for a few days to a week or so. (You can later decide if an increase in hot flash frequency or intensity is worth the partaking.) You will need to read labels more closely, too. Cutting back on the amounts of spices used in cooking and baking may also reduce the fuel for hot flashes. If night sweats are the main problem, eating a desired “hot” food earlier in the day might cause flashes some hours later, but perhaps not overnight.
Give it a try and let me know how you do, realizing that there are further steps that can be taken. Look for more info to come and feel free to share this article with your friends who are also experiencing hot flash hell.