After college, I spent a summer in Torino, Italy as a journalism intern. The walk to and from my office was 45 minutes, and each day on my walk home I would stop at Fiorio, my favorite gelateria, and get a un cono piccolo to enjoy as I made my way through the streets back to my un-air-conditioned apartment. The indulgence was just as much about my love for ice cream as it was about my need to mitigate the heat. And some things don’t change. My near-daily scoop of ice cream, my love for the icy creaminess, and my need to cool off after steamy day in our non-air-conditioned house in the canyon still pervails through my summer, nearly 20 years later.
If you’ve been following along, you know that the Ayurvedic perspective suggests that anything can be medicine, yes even ice cream! But also that IT DEPENDS on the how, why, when and what exactly that medicine (in this case, ice cream) includes. In the case of this No-Churn Chunky Chai-Cookie Ice Cream, there are all sorts of reasons to enjoy a scoop as your medicine in these waning days of summer.
Ice cream as medicine? Absolutely. Under specific conditions, my friends.
Generally speaking, Ayurveda doesn’t recommend eating ice-cold foods of any kind because they ice down the digestive system. Our bodies need strong, warm digestion to thrive and to properly break down and assimilate our nutrition, which is why Ayurveda recommends warm foods (or body temperature foods) all through the year. Further, Ayurveda warns that during most times of the year, consuming cold dairy milk in the form of ice cream is too much of a cold thing. Dairy products, which are already cooling and anti-inflammatory, then frozen are altogether too cooling for many constitutions and this combination of qualities creates a cold weather system inside the body…unless, of course, there’s a warm weather system OUTSIDE the body.
However, Ayurveda does recognize that enjoying ice cream, made from all-natural ingredients and well-sourced dairy milk can be beneficial for the body (and mind, and belly!) in the summer months when we are doing all we can to keep our cool and keep pitta dosha at bay. And this is just how ice cream becomes medicine. This is the precise moment in time to be making – and indulging – in ice cream, friends. LET’S DO THIS.
When it comes to medicinal ice cream, not just any ice cream will do. Most ice creams you find in the freezer section are filled with gums, fillers, artificial colors and flavors, and other non-food ingredients. Not to mention, they’re made with A1 milk (that’s undigestible to humans) and produced in conditions that include hormones, grain-feed and all sorts of yucky conditions. This is true even for ice creams that carry an “organic” label, so enjoy with caution! Food is medicine, but non-food ingested as food is never medicine, and the circumstances under which our food was produced are consumed right along with each bite and so steering clear of these ingredients is a smart play. There are many ice creams out there that fit the medicinal bill, but making your own ice cream at home is also a pretty great way to eat ice cream that’s great for keeping your cool.
The No-Churn Chai-Cookie Ice Cream recipe below uses organic sweetened condensed milk (which means you don’t need to heat anything over the stove to make your ice cream base – talk about beating the heat!) well-sourced dairy, and a few spicy little ingredients to help your body digest balance the energetic cooling of dairy milk.
The chai spice and abundance of ginger in the cookie chunks swimming in your creamy ice cream dream will all help your body to digest your ice cream. This is because, while ice cream may be energetically cooling, spices like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, turmeric and black pepper are energetically heating creating a balancing effect that truly makes this medicine go down much more smoothly.
Ok, all Ayurvedic wisdom aside, ice cream is delicious and I’m sure I’m not alone when I say it brings a smile to my face and a spring to my summertime step whenever I eat it. And THAT, my friends, is reason enough to enjoy it. I scream, you scream!
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