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Cold foods weaken the liver!

OceanBlissOceanBliss Raw Newbie

I often read about this when I’m doing research on liver cleansing and such. Google “cold drinks chill liver” to see what I mean. Apparently cold/frozen foods and drinks weaken and chill the internal organs especially the liver, spleen and kidneys. Has anyone heard about this? I’m now trying to avoid anything cold, even the water I drink should be room temperature. Although, it’s pretty hard when you’re on a raw diet because there’s so many great foods to snack on that are frozen!

What are your views?

Comments

  • Hmm this is interesting. I enjoy my water at room temperature so thats good news for me. And I hate making my smoothie terribly cold because then I get so cold after drinking them. But I do love snacking on frozen mango its oh so good!

  • coconuttycoconutty Raw Newbie

    Well I have to keep most things at room temperature cause my teeth are super sensitve to anything cold. Every now and then I’ll make my smoothies with a small bit of frozen fruit just to cool them off a wee bit but all my water and fruits/veggies I prefer at room temp. I’ve read that the cold can shock your system but I was never really sure if it was true or not. That’s interesting though!

  • SamiliciousSamilicious Raw Newbie

    Its funny because my ancient grandma believes that cold foods (especially water) is bad for some reason. I guess her myth had SOME reason behind it. But ultimately, I think you shouldn’t worry about little things like this at all. It will only cause more anxiety. It isn’t worth it. As long as you don’t eat cold foods ALL the time you should be fine. Why should we worry about this when we are healthier and have cleaner livers than other SAD eaters? This is just my opinion without searching for the details about this on google. Sooooo if there is something significant that I should worry about, let me know. Don’t have time to further look into this at the moment lol.

  • MopokeMopoke Raw Newbie

    I had an ayurvedic massage a while back and the practitioners advised me my internal organs were too cold…...which leads to a condition of depletion. I believe that traditional Chinese medicine also has much the same point of view.
    Certainly I could feel a coldness in the gut/colon after the treatment while the rest of me was pretty warm so I had some sense of what they were talking about.
    In both these traditional societies an all raw diet is considered a ‘no no’ because of the vital energy required to heat and digest the food.
    There is another post somewhere about warming raw foods (Tahinin is one I think?) but all up, given the lack of heat in most raw foods and especially in the cold seasons it may make sense to cut back on iced foods.

  • LucyLucy Raw Newbie

    It is true,but even hot food is not good for the body either.The best is food on the room temperature.When you are doing the liver cleanse it is very important to eat food in the room temperatura,and normally if you can it is better to have food on the room temperature,not too cold,not too hot.

  • It is harder for digestion & assimilation of the nutrients if your food is too hot or too cold.

  • kundalalitakundalalita Raw Newbie

    cold food/water is definitely not good for you. I have heard this from my doctor of chinese medicine my whole life. it seems like something not that bad because its so common or like its just uncomfortable because it makes you feel cold, but it really does have negative effects! you need your internal environment to be fluid and moving, open and functioning in rhythm, the cold causes constriction, all kinds of processes slow down, including blood flow which makes your heart work harder, organs are definitely weakened and in general especially with the effects together it is an extra burden on the body.

  • alpdesignsalpdesigns Raw Newbie

    My acupuncturist told me this ages ago and I’ve been drinking room temp drinks ever since. I do like to color outside the line though. I’ll drink a frozen banana smoothie once in awhile.

  • Yes, I do room temperature for this reason. Though my kitchen is almost the same temp as my fridge!

  • kminty3kminty3 Raw Newbie

    I try to keep things at room temp because of the principals of ayurvedic.. I don’t follow them all but know I have a “cold dosha” so I try not to drink or eat my food too cold

  • Just do what you can. I agree with Samilicious. But I like my water at room temperature very much so. But as for smoothies…I like them cold. I don’t know, but room temperature smoothies just don’t sound very good to me. lol. But we’ll see how it goes.

     

  • angie207angie207 Raw Master

    That’s interesting! I love some of the foods I make when they are freshly made – at room temperature – but I have a hard time eating the leftovers from the fridge. Now I know why. I guess I’ll just have to make smaller batches , or use my dehydrator to warm things up a little out of the fridge. Thanks, everyone. I had heard about water (not drinking it cold), but I hadn’t heard about other foods.

  • Traditional Chinese Medicine recommends “not too hot, not too cold” for yin/yang balance. Otherwise you are going in one extreme or the other, which is not good for the balance of the whole body. You’ll notice that when the body is out of balance, it may need to be brought back to center by applying hot or cold to reach that ‘warm’ state again. Chinese medicine views raw foods as “cold” in nature, and should not be consumed in excess for the reason stated above. However, you might be able to help balance raw food consumption by also looking at the “cold” and “hot” nature of the foods themselves—the food energetics (i.e, ginger is warming, and chamomile is cooling).

  • The more I learn on this subject and applying it to me, the more convinced I am that I should not be all raw yet, but have a hard time going back. It is and should be real concern for those of us treating serious disease, and especially if living in a cold, damp climate. I feel real setbacks in the progress I made during the warm weather, by not knowing how to transition/balance raw during the winter. One size does not fit all here. I am so deficient now, I don’t know how to recover, it could take me a year or more to get back what I’ve lost in the last 3-4 mos. The problem is, I just don’t know how to do it, because I can’t give up my love or commitment for eating raw. I really don’t want to relocate back to the hot/dry region of the country, but it seems I may have to got that far. There is so much more to it than cold/raw, warming/cooling nature of foods, even the cooking methods, and especially important is your existing yin/yang state. One of my TCM Drs. even recommends moxibustion (sp). If I had only known how bad I could really mess myself up, so much more to learn. There is a great need for addressing this in the raw community, to prevent others from going all the way, without the tools to do it right.

  • Yes, I agree with rawrawraw, as I live in Minnesota, one of the coldest states. It’s been brutal over here right now, and even more so in Wisconsin! I can’t wait for Spring already! I just can’t imagine not eating anything heated all the time. I believe it’s important to include a lot of fresh foods in the diet, and heating them doesn’t necessarily mean overcooking them. For me, it’s much easier to eat raw fruits than vegetables—I like those steamed. I also really enjoy the raw desserts! I think we tend to go to extremes though thinking we need to go from a processed food diet to an exclusively raw diet, though I’m sure many do the raw thing part time as well. I truly enjoy many of the contributions and recipes on this site, don’t get me wrong, and for some, maybe all raw works really well. But I’m wondering if anyone has truly sustained this during 50 below windchills. :) I recently had a cold, and I really needed the warmth from hot tea and soup.

  • Funny; I was just reading up on how macaws and other tropical birds are very sensitive to toxins and food that’s too hot or cold. You shouldn’t even use teflon pans in the same house as a macaw—the ol’ canary in the coal mine thing. Food between 10-35C (~50-90F) is considered the acceptable range for macaws.

    On a related note, most macaw species use clay licks to remove seed coat toxins from their systems and demand water be room temperature and fresh. If they don’t have plenty of “flock” contact and good raw food every day, they start pulling their own feathers out and go into a decline, often culminating in a secondary (often respratory) infection.

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