I lived in Italy straight out of undergraduate school and had a 45-minute walk each way from my tiny apartment to the newspaper office in Torino where I was a journalism intern. It was an easy trip that wound through empty streets in the morning, with garage doors flying open, espresso scents and noni pushing or dragging their market baskets as they babbled to one another; a peek into the subtleties of Italian life. The walk home, however, was to be jostled by Italiani awakened; bars open for aperitivo, young folx teasing, playing + chasing one another in the piazzas, noni – resting now after their day of work – watching as friends and families took their passeggiata almost always with a gelato cone in hand.
It didn’t take me long to feel almost naked without a gelato of my own, and so learning to push my way through the crowd + call out my order for gianduja piccolo in cono was my first Italian practice, my daily effort to assimilate. It was a tender time in my life when fitting in did and didn’t matter to me; I got nothing but gaping stares when I would run along the River Po each morning wearing my ghastly trail running shoes, but fit in like a glove each evening with my little cone of gelato in hand.
Wandering home with that cone of gelato – as a snack before dinner – is one of my fondest memories of that summer in Italy. It remains a symbol of the ease of the season to me, of all that’s good about these summer months, of confidence, of listening to my body, in taking a moment for myself too. And, those memories solidify for me that ice cream is my FAVORITE thing in the world. Because of its creamy dreaminess, yes, but also its ability to be a best friend to walk home with.
Ice cream is an important part of summer. For all the chill vibes it brings, but for our bodies as well. The Italians are onto something with respect to having a bit of cream in the middle of a hot afternoon, as they do. Here’s the SCOOP (see what I did there?)
When the temperature outside increases, it threatens to increase the temperature of our bodies inside too. Just like sticking a cooler in the hot hot sun, without ice inside, the contents will start to spoil….and kind of that starts to happen in our bodies too.
An increase in our internal body temperature changes the way our bodies are able to do our basic functions – specifically, sleeping and eating – which impact everything else we do. When we don’t sleep well, we don’t think clearly, organize, process emotionally, and our bodies will safeguard our highest tier of performance (in sport and life,) to ensure that it can still do our basic functions. A little bit like having a smart car that knows when to save gas, even though you’re pressing the pedal to the floor.
The increase in internal body temperature also impacts our ability to properly digest and assimilate nutrients, which, of course, means that we’re not able to access all of the fuel we’re putting in.
The best news is that keeping cool is pretty easy…if we play our cards right. Among them, enjoying a bit of ice cream.
When I say our bodies are needing cooling foods, I’m not just meaning the temperature. I also mean the energetic qualities of whatever you’re eating. Said another way, there’s a difference between COLD foods + COOLING foods. Cold foods do cool us down. But cooling foods might not necessarily be cold.
Cold foods do help us to cool our systems on a hot day. Ice cream is a great example of this. So too are popsicles, cool salads, chilled fruits, and infused water etc.
Cooling foods, however, are those foods that help our bodies to energetically cool down. They don’t necessarily need to be COLD to have this impact. Foods that are sweet, bitter, and astringent all have this quality – some more than others.
A little list of COOLING (but not necessarily cold) foods:
There’s a lot that’s VERY smart about the Italian tradition of passeggiata gelato.
Cold + Cooling: You’ll see – based on the list above, that ice cream is both cold and cooling (because it contains milk or in the case of this recipe – coconut milk.) So, it’s a double whammy on a hot day that serves to soothe the digestive system before enjoying the evening meal.
Tiny cones: Suggesting that ice cream is doing something good for your body is not a license to eat an entire pint of ice cream and wonder why your gut feels overwhelmed, or you feel sluggish. Too much cooling, sweet ice cream, and you’ll stall your digestion and cool off too much. You can have more ice cream tomorrow. Having a small serving – 1/4 to 1/2 cup is absolutely PLENTY to do the good jobs I’m describing. Anything more than that is an indulgence, and as you wish.
Timing: enjoying a sweet, cold treat like this is a great way to cool down digestion and soothe the mind in the afternoon, before the evening meal. You’ll digest the ice cream more easily eaten on its own, before dinner, than after. This also helps to cool your core temperature well before going to sleep.
The sweet enjoyment of a spot of ice cream also makes it on this list. These sorts of sweet treats are just as important for our bodies as they are for our minds, and you can feel particularly good about having an emotional ice cream cone when you’ve made the ‘scream by hand.
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