Is eating cold food unhealthy?

It's a hot day, and you’re out of your house. The weather app on your phone is displaying 42° celsius, and seeing the temperature only makes you feel miserable. Suddenly you come across an ice cream cart. You breathe a sigh of relief as you head towards it and buy yourself an ice cream. The ice cream gives you some respite as it cools your body and provides fuel to battle the heat. This might seem like a good idea at the time, but in the long run, is consuming cold food detrimental to the body? Let’s take a look.

Traditional ayurveda says that it is better to eat warm food since our digestive system reacts to and functions better when dealing with warm food. Although it is true that the body digests warm food quicker, digestion is equally efficient when it comes to cold food, as the digestive system is quick to convert food to body temperature. So whether you have hot, warm, or cold food, your body will work towards digesting it with equal efficiency.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), having cold food can cause various gut related problems like bloating, puffiness, and cramps, especially in women. The practice states that the gut is extremely heat sensitive, and consuming cold foods sends a shock throughout the body which could lead to other complications like digestive sensitivity, fatigue, and sinus infections.

Some people have sensitive throats, and having cold foods may cause soreness, irritation, and even pain. Similar to when people have a cold, cold food is not advised to people with sensitive throats as it becomes highly reactive to lower temperatures.

Consuming cold food alters body temperature. In Traditional Chinese Medicine it is theorized that too much coldness in the body impacts the flow and circulation of fluids, leading to problem called blood stasis, which means that the blood is not circulating at its optimal level. Too much stagnation in women could lead to serious problems like cysts, endometriosis or fibroids.

Fruits, and many vegetables like carrot and radish are eaten raw. While we cannot change the way we eat fruits, it is always advisable to cook vegetables before eating them. In this case, the temperature of the vegetable has more to do with the presence of bacteria than direct impact on the body. Raw vegetables might contain harmful bacteria which can be gotten rid off by cooking. Therefore cold raw vegetables can be harmful.

Most research conducted on such topics stem from traditional practices like ayurveda. While consuming cold food could have any of the aforementioned effects, it is more often than not harmless to the body. We are all used to consuming cold food from time to time, and our body is very quick to adapt. While it is advisable to largely consume warm food, having cold food from time to time will not do too much damage to the body. So go ahead, knock yourself out with that ice cream on a hot day without worrying too much about the side effects of having cold food.