Is your coffee too "heaty"?

“Isn’t this heaty?” asks Mae-Yang eyeing her boyfriend Jason’s grand latte.  “What?” says Jason.  “Do you mean it is too hot?” Mae-Yang looks at him and rolls her eyes.


“Heaty” or “heatiness” is a common term that Chinese people use to describe certain food, which leaves many Westerners stumped.   In Traditional Chinese Medicine, food is a balance of “yin” and “yang”.  Yang food is considered heaty, whereas yin food is cooling.   Yang is both the quality of certain food as well as a person’s basic constitution, which is primarily influenced by genetics and upbringing, or temporary condition, which is influenced by lifestyle choices and environment.


This concept of heatiness/coolness is not applied in Western medicine.  However, some believe that acidic food roughly corresponds to heaty food, and alkaline food to cooling food.  Or, positive charges in cells to heatiness and negative charges to coolness. 


A person who is heaty often has the following symptoms:
• Feelings of irritability;
• Short temper;
• Fever;
• Constipation;
• Flushed face or cheeks;
• Dark yellow urine;
• Sore throat;
• Nose bleed;
• Outbreak of pimples and acne;
• Rashes;
• Mouth ulcers;
• Indigestion.


Yin or cooling condition, however, makes us feel weak and tired.


The heatiness and cooling effect does not refer to the temperature of food but to their capacity to generate either hot or cold energy in our body.  To seek a balanced diet, we should consume both yin and yang.  However, if our basic constitution is yang, it may be beneficial to consume more cooling/yin food, and vice versa. 


Heaty/yang foods tend to grow under the hot sun; are sweet; have lots of fats; are rich in sodium; and are hard, dry or spicy.   Cold/yin foods tend to grow in little sunshine; are salty; are lean; are rich in potassium; and are soft and wet.


Below are examples of food that is cooling/yin or heaty/yang.  It should be noted that how you prefer the food matters, for example, beef is considered neural, but if deep-fried it will turn heaty.


Cooling/yin foods which reduce hot or yang symptoms:  Apple, banana, pear, persimmon, cantaloupe, watermelon, tomato, all citrus, lettuce, radish, cucumber, celery, button mushrooms, asparagus, Swiss chard, eggplant, spinach, summer squash, Chinese cabbage, bock choy, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet corn, zucchini, soy milk, soy sprouts, tofu, tempeh, mung beans and their sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, millet, barley, wheat and its products, amaranth, kelp and all seaweed, spirulina, wild blue-green, oyster-shell calcium, wheat and barley grass, kudzu, yogurt, crab, clam.


Heaty/yang foods which reduce cold or yin symptoms:  Ginger root, black beans, aduki beans, lentils, cinnamon bark and twig, cloves, basil, rosemary, oats, spelt, quinoa, sunflower seed, sesame seed, walnuts, pine nuts, chestnuts, fennel, dill, anise, carraway, carob pod, cumin, sweet brown rice, parsnip, parsley, mustard greens, winter squash, cabbage, kale, onion, leek, chives, garlic, scallions, cherry, citrus deal, date, hot peppers, butter, and anchovy, mussel, trout, chicken, beef, lamb.