It's been a stifling summer across most of the country, and it's all one can do to try and stay cool. But according to Food Republic, some foods may only make the problem worse. Check out their list of foods to avoid in hot weather, and weigh in with your own experiences:
1. Spicy foods: Capsaicin (found in spicy foods) consumption is correlated with a short-lived increase in body temperature, so when it's really hot out, every effort should be made to keep that body temp low. They say to ditch the excess hot sauce, in other words. (Although, like we noted earlier this week, a hot drink can actually cool you down.)
2. Diuretic Foods: You want to stay hydrated, so they recommend avoiding foods that flush water out of the body. This includes coffee, tea, soda, and foods like mangoes, fennel, artichokes and asparagus, which have a similar effect on the body.
3. High Protein Foods: The digestion of protein requires your body to do a lot of work, which creates heat in a process known as thermogenesis. Stick to lighter carbohydrates, like fruit, which require less energy and produce a lot less heat by thermogenesis. According to Food Republic, "it can take anywhere from 50 to 100% more energy to break down protein compared to carbohydrates. The moral of the story: Take it easy on the meat."
Read More: Foods to Avoid in Heat Waves at Food Republic
What do you think about this? Do you buy into these recommendations? Or are you sticking with spicy foods and your meat come hell or high water?
Related: Too Hot to Eat, Cook or Think
(Flickr member stevendepolo licensed under Creative Commons)
How To Make Perfect Bacon in the Oven
Perfect Summer Cocktail Recipe: Honey Bourbon Lemonade
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Elizabeth Apron fro...
100 DIY Ideas for the 3-Day Weekend
Danielle's Charming, Classic Walk-Up
I thought there was something about eating spicy food that was supposed to ultimately have a cooling effect, which had something to do with why some cultures in hotter parts of the world have spicy cuisines. Damned if I can remember the details, tho!
You're potentially referring to this, which funnily enough posted like 2 days ago on this very blog
http://www.thekitchn.com/its-true-on-a-hot-day-a-hot-drink-can-cool-you-down-174153
So all those people who live in sweltering India, drinking hot tea and spicy food, have it all wrong? I don't think so.
you're right, sweetpea. Eating spicy foods (or drinking hot beverages) can help you shed excees heat through increased sweating. Of course, this doesnr't work if it is very humid as that cuts down on the evaporation from sweat that is responsible for the cooling effect
naturally this item has come up around the 'nets lately due to the unmentionable heat.
The above article is talking about warm foods, not spicy foods.
Oops, what I mean is - the link by Blpeders is referring to temperature warm food, not spicy food.
I've read countless things about eating spicy foods in hot weather, which likely why spicy foods are so common in hot climates. This has been mentioned in many posts right here on The Kitchn, in fact.
It's hot and humid and most parts of India. I think they have it right with eating spicy foods and drinking hot beverages. I made Keralan fish curry for dinner last night and it was wonderful. After eating it all, my body started to feel much cooler.
Yeah, somebody had better tell people Mexico, India, Thailand, and other of millions (billions?) of people in warm countries that eating their spicy food is bad for them. Just plain silly!
Ditto Ecandle96! Bring on the Sriracha is all I can say to this poster.
This post should be titled "Tips for Weanies". It's summer. It's hot. Make sure you drink plenty of fluids and try to avoid too much sun, but it's SUMMER. You are going to be hot and sweaty and uncomfortable. It's a season, not a medical condition.
Long story short, what's the point of having summer if you aren't enjoying grilled meat, iced coffee and cold beer?
Same with this issue with tea and coffee - they still hydrate you! There's no net loss of water from your body when you drink these things.
Heavy spice in dishes helped preserve them and covered up the taste of rotting food prior to refrigeration, which is why they're especially common in hot countries. It wasn't a trick for keeping cool.
@Mabith. That's actually a myth. Nobody ate rotten meat. They preserved fresh meat with spices and salts so that they could eat it later or just didn't eat meat at all.
I actually just heard a story on NPR about how eating spicy food does help cool you down (or at least makes the air around you feel cooler). According to the story, it's actually same explanation as why drinking hot tea also helps cool you down. It has something to do with the one receptor in your mouth that reacts to both types of heat (spice and temperature), which triggers your brain to make your body sweat, which cools you down.
I always figured that the correlation between spicy foods and hot climates was just because the hot climates are where the spicy things are grown. If hot peppers grow year-round, of course they'd factor into a culture's cuisine year-round.
But those cultures have a balance of heating and cooling foods. In the same places where you'd eat a spicy dish like curry, hummus, or carnitas, you'll also find cold mint tea, agua frescas, cucumber dishes, citrus fruits, yogurt, etc.
Didn't I just recently read a post on this very blog saying hot tea cools you off by making you sweat? Or have I lost my mind?
'What do you think about this?' asks the article.
I think it's one of the silliest articles I've ever seen.
Point 2: Diuretic Foods, is just bizarre. There are loads of fruits and vegetables that are diuretics, that doesn't meant you should avoid eating them. Unless you eat ten mangoes in one sitting and don't drink water all day, they're not going to dehydrate you.
Methinks someone doesn't understand the science behind diuretics, at all.
The mechanism that increases net cooling when you drink hot tea is the same one that is triggered by spicy foods.
Please vet things a little more! Drinking coffee, tea and soda doesn't dehydrate you. Spicy foods can cool you off in exactly the same way as hot drinks. I don't think that generations of people in the south would have cooled off by drinking iced tea if it was really dehydrating...