Top 14 Best Body Cooling Foods for Summer Heat

Hydrating your body with the right kind of body-cooling foods is important to maintain the body's fluid balance, improve digestion, and prevent the risk of heat-related illnesses.

Therefore, green leafy vegetables like broccoli, fruits like watermelon, banana, and pineapple, and drinks like lemon water, buttermilk, and coconut water are excellent body heat-reducing foods that can work well to cool your body in this summer season.

However, regardless of age and gender, it is essential to have body-cooling foods to bring down your body temperature, especially during the summer season.

Benefits of Incorporating Body Cooling Foods Into Your Diet

Besides enabling your body to maintain its temperature in hot weather conditions, body-cooling foods also offer numerous other benefits. These benefits come from properties that support your overall health and nutritional needs.

Likewise, the properties that make body-cooling foods a beneficial addition to your diet include—

Anti-inflammatory action
Detoxifying effect
Better hydration
Promotion of digestive health
High alkalinity ²

How Body Heat-Reducing Foods Work?

The healthy properties present in foods that cool the body to reduce heat with the following mechanisms—

Promoting natural body cooling: The high water content in body heat-reducing foods encourages your body to stay hydrated. It also increases your body's natural cooling mechanisms, like sweating. ³
Balancing the body's pH levels: Because of their high alkalinity, body-cooling foods help balance out the pH levels of your body, which ultimately reduces acidity and makes the body more capable of maintaining its temperature. ⁴

Improving waste elimination: Summer season foods are generally high in fibre. Fibre improves digestion and supports the elimination of waste from your body. This enhanced detoxification is good for your long-term health. ⁵

Therefore, if there is a lack of body heat-reducing foods in your everyday diet, then it can lead to serious circumstances ranging from heat stress to heat stroke.

To avoid these, you can book a blood test at home. This test can help you detect internal issues and adjust your diet to add the right body-cooling foods according to your individual needs.

Best Body Cooling Foods: 14 Delicious Options

From refreshing fruits to drinks and vegetables, there is a wide availability of body heat-reducing foods that you can eat to cool your body.

Below, on body-cooling, we have briefly described 14 such body-cooling foods, that can help you reduce body heat this summer season.

1. Coconut Water

Drinking coconut water is among the best solutions when looking for ways to cool your body. This is because coconut is a highly popular summer season food having an excellent ability to reduce body heat in the following ways:

Low-calorie hydration source: Coconut water provides your body with just the right amount of hydration. Having a slightly sweet and nutty flavour, it has fewer calories and carbohydrates. That is why it is a delicious way to cool your body naturally and healthily.
Faster rehydration: Coconut water encourages quick rehydration after electrolyte and heat loss from the body.

When refreshing and revitalising your body after an exercise session, some studies have also proven that coconut water can sometimes work even better than normal drinking water to restore hydration.

The main reason why this happens is because coconut water is high in electrolytes like:

Potassium
Magnesium
Sodium
Calcium

Electrolytes are minerals that maintain your body's fluid balance. Thus, the abundance of electrolytes in coconut water makes it one of the best body-cooling foods during the summer season. ⁶

2. Watermelon

The sweet, bright, refreshing, and juicy fruit of watermelon is one of the go-to body-cooling foods when it comes to fighting against summer heat. But what makes watermelon stand out among the top options for the best body heat-reducing foods on our list?

The most important reason is that watermelon has a great quantity of water.

The water content in watermelon is so high that you can even replace your daily water intake with it. This high water level excellently hydrates your body and improves major bodily functions such as:

Regulation of the body temperature
Better functioning of your internal organs
Improved nutrient delivery to the body cells
Increased alertness

Apart from this, watermelon is also a low-calorie summer season food that is rich in essential nutrients like—

All these properties combine to make watermelon one of the best body-cooling foods. ⁷

3. Cucumber

Like watermelon, cucumber is also a highly nutritious cooling food for the body, containing plenty of water. It is a low-calorie and low-fat body heat-reducing food, which, when consumed in its raw form without removing the peel, can provide your body vital nutrients like—

Since cucumber is 96% water, it can cool your body by promoting hydration. These hydrating properties also support other body functions like:

4. Oranges

One whole orange has almost 86% of the total water content. Hence, it is a great summer food for reducing body heat.

Also, apart from being great at providing your body with good levels of hydration, oranges are low-sugar, low-calorie, low-protein, and low-fat body-cooling foods that have a good quantity of—

Therefore, oranges promote digestive health and support healthy gut bacteria for better functioning of your overall health. ⁹

5. Peppermint

Menthol is a substance that brings a sensation of cooling. Since peppermint contains considerably high amounts of menthol, it can be used to cool your body.

However, unlike the above-mentioned body-cooling foods, it is not advisable to directly intake large quantities of peppermint to reduce body heat. Instead, you can add small quantities of this body heat-reducing food to dishes like iced tea. ¹⁰

6. Bananas

Having a sweet taste and a soft texture, bananas are another delicious summer season food that you can have to cool your body quickly. They are packed with antioxidants and fibre and contain a lot of water. Along with these, they contain almost no fat and are therefore considered a highly nutritious cooling food for the body.

Here is a list of other nutrients that bananas have that make them good for your long-term health:

These nutrients make bananas one of the best body-heat-reducing foods that also provide added benefits like:

The best thing about this summer-season food is that it is super easy to carry around and have any time as a light snack. Plus, it also makes an appetising addition to many dishes, ranging from breakfast to desserts. ¹¹

7. Onions

An important part of almost every North Indian dish, onions are nutrient-dense foods to reduce body heat. They are loaded with:

Like many other body heat-reducing foods, onions are also low in calories and contain negligible quantities of fat and protein.

Hence, to cool your body, you can add onions to your diet by making them a part of several dishes in your daily routine. Examples of such dishes include:

8. Curd or Yoghurt

Also called curd, yoghurt is another light and refreshing body heat-reducing food that contains plenty of:

This nutritional composition makes yoghurt one of the best body-cooling foods, which helps your body to:

The best way to cool your body using yoghurt is to eat it with fruits. Since fruits are a good source of antioxidants and prebiotic fibres, adding them to yoghurt makes it more beneficial for your body. ¹³

9. Broccoli

Are you also surprised to find broccoli on the list of the best body-cooling foods?

While it might not be the first option that comes to your mind when thinking of summer season food items, this green leafy vegetable contains almost 90% of water content, which makes it one of the most hydrating and heat-reducing foods for the body.

Apart from this, it is also a great source of fibre and other essential nutrients like—

Eating steamed broccoli is the best way to get the maximum nutrients out of this nutritious green leafy vegetable. ¹⁴

10. Pineapple

With a mouth-watering mixture of sweet and tangy flavours, pineapple is a fleshy and juicy summer season food containing 86% water content.

This tropical fruit is not only great at reducing body heat but also contains a plethora of numerous other vitamins and minerals, such as:

Bromelain is a compound that possesses anti-inflammatory properties. It can be beneficial for the treatment of conditions like–

11. Lemon Water

After coconut water, lemon water is another sweet, tangy, and refreshing body-cooling food for healthy drink options.

Since Lemon is a delicious summer season food, making lemonade or adding it to a glass of water instantly makes you feel fresh.

Hence, it helps to cool your body and offers the following additional benefits–

12. Aloe Vera Drink

Even though aloe vera does not directly fall under the 'summer season foods category,' its cooling properties make it a great option.

Mix fresh aloe vera gel (2 tablespoons) in one cup of water. You can have this drink regularly to cool your body in the summer.

13. Buttermilk

Another revitalising option for summer drinks on our list of the best body-cooling foods is buttermilk. It not only helps to cool your body down but also improves metabolism and contains an abundance of—

These make buttermilk a go-to summer season food to restore your energy, especially when you are drained after returning from staying under direct heat for a long time.

Drinking it cold is the best way to use buttermilk as a body heat-reducing food. To make it more flavorful, you can also add additional ingredients like honey or yoghurt to it.

14. Celery

It has approximately 95% of water content. Plus, it is fully loaded with a high amount of fibre and has several other nutrients, including—

Hence, if you are looking for a light, tasty, and healthy body heat-reducing food, celery is a good option.

As mentioned above, not providing your body with enough hydration can put you at a greater risk for conditions like heat stroke and other heat-related illnesses. This comprehensive examination can help in the early detection of any underlying health condition that you might have. That is why, to make sure that you are not under any such risk, you can take a complete body checkup package. Following this, you can take the precautionary steps accordingly.