As I was growing up, we were taught the concept that some food were considered 'heaty' and some 'cooling' and that our bodies need to be in balance so to stay healthy. So when me and my brother fell ill, my parents will say that we are too 'heaty' and my granny will cook some soup that is 'cooling' for us to bring back the balance. This theory is so ingrained in my culture and we all believed it and go along with it without much questioning nor understanding.

When I moved to Amsterdam 4 years ago, I was trying to explain to my colleagues this concept. But I couldn't really. It was not just the fact that this theory is not based on western medicine, but myself was not really clear what is heaty or cooling and how do we label them?

So I started to do a little digging. According to this website Ren Xing Tang, it is the sensation or effect caused by the food in our body that is labelled heaty or cooling or neutral. They had a very good example using tea. Although a cup of tea is hot, the energy it generates is cold and it is therefore considered a 'cooling' beverage.

Well if you are interested to know more, here is a list of common foods and it's related energy quoted from the website. Remember it is the balance. Good to know is that beer is cooling!

	Dairy / Beans / Nuts	Vegetables	Fruits	Meat	Seasoning	Seafood
	Heaty Food
	Glutinous rice Sorghum	Ginger Garlic Onion Parsley Chives Coriander	Pumpkin Papaya Mango Bergamot Longan Apricot Cherry Pomegranate Lychee Walnut Chestnut Citron Cherry Ebony	Deer meat Chicken Mutton Pig (stomach)	Mustard Pepper Chili	Eel Mussels Salmon Shrimp Clams Sea cucumbers Multi-spring fish Trout Sea urchins
	Neutral Food
	Oats Milk White rice Brown rice Corn Red beans Green beans Black beans Soya beans Broad beans Black-eye beans Adzuki beans Cashew nuts Peanuts Lentils Peas Snow peas Pistachios Black sesame Eggs Quail eggs Lentils	Sweet potato Lily Spinach Mushrooms Cabbage Carrot Broccoli Black fungus White fungus Crown daisy Eggplant Olive Ginkgo Lotus root	Grapes Strawberry Blueberry Avocado Guava Fig Pumpkin seeds White melon	Pig (meat, lung, meat, kidney, hoof) Beef Duck Quail meat Pigeon meat		Fish Cod fish Tuna Octopus Turtle meat Pomfret fish Yellow croakers Dace Carp
	Cooling Food
	Barley Wheat Tofu Millet Mung Beans	Cucumber Lettuce Sugar cane Seaweed Water chestnuts Bamboo shoots White radish Asparagus Spinach Celery Watercress Bamboo fungus Arrowhead Kudzu Trickle Vegetables Bracken Nostoc	Banana Watermelon Honeydew Lemon Oranges Mangosteen Pineapple Melon Kiwi Star fruit Grapefruit Dragon fruit Bitter melon Persimmon Mulberry	Pork Duck Egg Rabbit meat Frog meat		Raw fish Crab Escargot Kelp