Sweet Cucumber Cooler

And the heat continues.

On these hot, dry days of summer, parched throats and  and exhausted minds requires deep rejuvenation to combat the sweltering summer sun – pitta at it’s peak. Especially for those of us whom are creating EVEN MORE PITTA from within, because we’re moving, sweating, achieving and pushing that fire higher and higher. Luckily this Sweet Cucumber Cooler is a perfect cure when work or activity doesn’t let up, even though your mind is frazzled and fried. On days like this, where we need to cool and pacify pitta STAT, cooling sweetness is just what the doctor ordered – like wading through a cool, refreshing mountain stream (even if you’re suffering in the desert.)

Like increases like, and opposites balance

I get lots of questions about hot to cool pitta, often translated as “inflammation” in the body. “I’ve tried everything and still I’m suffering” is the jist. The reality is that if we aren’t literally and specifically using opposites to balance, we aren’t going to turn the tide on the flames consuming our bodies and minds in the sweltering heat. And so, let’s get acquainted with these elusive “opposites.”

We have just 20 “gunas” in Ayurveda; qualities or adjectives that describe…literally everything. Each dosha has specific qualities/gunas, and the gunas of pitta dosha are:

LIGHT / HOT / SHARP / OILY / MOBILE / LIQUID

When these qualities are overabundant in the body, and we bring in more of these qualities, we’re not going to see pitta reducing, we’re not going to feel that relief from intense summer heat in our bodies. Ice cold drinks? They’re light. Spicy foods? They’re hot and sharp. Meat and eggs and nuts? Oily. Pitta dosha is also exacerbated by foods that are salty, sour and pungent so if you’re eating a bag of chips to relieve your electrolyte imbalance because you overdid it in the sun, and if you’re having it with a lime in your beer…yep, that’s right, you’re only instigating pitta more. (Le sigh.)

BUT, when we bring in opposite qualities, we balance pitta out. The gunas/qualities that oppose pitta are:

HEAVY/ COOL/ DULL / DRY / STABLE / DENSE

…which is why having an ice cream cone (heavy, dense + cool) or a dip in the creek (heavy, cool + dull) works so well. The reason your body is feeling fatigued after working/playing/doing/pinning it in the heat of summer is that our bodies will crave opposites to balance. The reason we must be more playful + less self-critical or “sharp” around our performance expectations in the summer is that these emotions and mental states of being are hot and sharp. But if we chill out, the fire receeds.

Sweetness is KEY.

If you aren’t including enough sweet foods in your diet in the summer, you’re doing it wrong. Sweet foods include many proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, but more notably juicy fruits, root vegetables and sweeteners like honey, maple and sugar cane. These foods are abundant during the pitta summer because the goal of this season for all life is to TRANSFORM into our fullest expression of ourselves. This includes plants, and the fruits they work all year to produce.

These fruits of labor (literally) are both the product of pitta and the antidote. Nature provides what we need, when we need it and sweet flavors help to reduce pitta better than any action or substance. Eating fresh juicy fruits all summer? YES – that’s the point. Physiologically, sweet flavors build moisture in our bodies. This moisture is critical for helping to prevent the overdrying effect of the heat, lubricating our bodies.

If you’ve ever been to Southeast Asia and wandered the streets, you’ve seen vendors selling raw sugar cane. You buy yourself a little flute of sugar cane, chew on the fiber to extract the cane juice (the same juice that is dehydrated to make sugar or evaporated cane juice,) and then you spit out the fiber. This is everywhere in hot months (which in some places is literally all year round) because raw sugar is one of the most cooling foods we know, and it grows abundantly in these places.

This recipe calls for raw sugar, and those of you still caught up in the “sugar is bad for me” story will cringe when you read it. But those of you listening to your bodies will know that this specific ingredient is there for a very specific reason. The reason is to reduce pitta in your overworked bodies, so you can collect your thoughts, achieve adequate rest and feel more like yourselves again. I promise that nothing happens by eating it EXCEPT that the inflammation you’re experiencing in your body reduces (!!)

This cucumber-coconut cooler

…all you need are 5 minutes and 6 ingredients that are hopefully already in your pantry/fridge, and if not they’re absolutely available at your local grocery store! Coconut, cucumber, cilantro, and raw sugar are all hyper-cooling substances from an Ayurvedic perspective, regardless of whether you drink this cooler cold or not. The bioenergetic effect these foods has on our bodies will hydrate, moisturize, cool and soothe. This effect is emphasized when we drink glasses of this beaut-of-a-drink chilled.

If you’re struggling to “keep your cool,” give this simple, low-hanging fruit of a recipe a try. And stay cool out there friends!