The ultimate way to keep warm is to eat?! What foods can keep the body warmer?

Winter is coming, and many people are concerned about how to eat to keep warm.

When the weather gets cold, appetite increases. There are many studies that support the rationality of increased appetite in winter.

However, what you eat is also important. What foods can make people feel warmer? Is it true that as long as you eat high-calorie foods, you can provide heat to the body?

I have found an article I wrote many years ago, slightly modified it, and reposted it for your reference.

Let me first tell you the answer to the second question: high calories ≠ high warmth. Eating high-calorie foods does not mean you can warm up.

Eating lard, cakes, cookies, fried foods...these are basically of no help in improving the ability to resist the cold.

Many people will ask: Why?

For the sake of convenience, we can think of the human body as a heating factory.

The fuel of this factory is the caloric components of food, including fat, starch and sugar. The combustion boiler of the factory is the mitochondria in human cells. The product of the factory is the energy produced by the human body, including heat to keep the body warm, and chemical energy to promote blood circulation, cell renewal, tissue repair, work and study, etc.

Eating a lot of high-calorie food is actually sending a lot of fuel to the factory. Without fuel, the factory will inevitably stop working. Therefore, in the long run, if the food eaten every day is too little and the calories are too low, people will definitely not be able to resist the cold.

However, even if these fuels are piled up like mountains, they may not necessarily burn smoothly and efficiently, allowing the boiler to fully release heat.

If there are too few "boilers" in human cells, or there is a problem with the feed pipeline, or the factory command system issues an order to reduce production efficiency... then even if there is enough fuel, the heat output will still not meet the demand.

So, who is the boiler? As I just said, it is the mitochondria in the cell.

The mitochondria in muscle cells are densely packed, so the more muscles a person has and the more full and developed they are, the greater the total number of mitochondria in their cells.

The greater the proportion of fat in the body, the fewer mitochondria there are, because fat cells only contain a large amount of oil and very few mitochondria.

It is clear from this that people with more muscles have stronger heat production capabilities, while people with a high fat ratio have weaker heat production capabilities.

Athletes are usually not afraid of the cold, and bodybuilders also wear very thin clothes in winter because they have full muscles and strong heat production ability.

Although many fat people have a thick layer of fat to keep warm, they are still no more resistant to cold than others because they generate less heat. Even if a popsicle is wrapped in a thick blanket, it is still a popsicle. Of course, those thin people who lack fat, have little muscle, and are just skin and bones are naturally even less resistant to cold. All they need to do is to increase their food intake, exercise well, build up their muscles, and increase the number of their "boilers" .

Since people with less muscle have too few "boilers", they naturally need less fuel. Once there is more fuel, it is easy to accumulate, that is, it will not be consumed and will turn into body fat, causing obesity. Therefore, if they eat the same amount of food, people with less developed muscles are more likely to gain weight, while people with full and developed muscles are less likely to gain weight .

Traditional health care says: Movement generates yang . After exercise, the whole body becomes hot because the "boilers" in the muscles work harder. However, there is more to it than just the boilers, there is also the pipe problem.

How is the oxygen used to help combustion delivered to the human body's heating plant? How is the heat generated delivered to the whole body? It depends on the blood flow in the blood vessels. People often say "hot blood", and the blood is really hot. Warm blood, like the heating pipes in the north, transports the heat generated by biological oxidation to all parts of the body. When exercising, the blood circulation speeds up, the body's heat generation increases, and the heat is delivered to the whole body at a faster rate, so people feel hot.

If the heating pipes in the house are blocked, or the hot water in the pipes flows too slowly, the house will definitely not be warm. The same is true in the human body. The blood vessels of the elderly are hardened and blocked, the heart's ability to pump blood is weak, and the blood flows slowly, so the heat production capacity will decrease , so they are more afraid of cold.

People who exercise regularly have a larger muscle proportion, a particularly strong heart, a strong blood pumping ability, and smooth blood circulation. The body's heat production and heat transfer efficiency are higher, so they are naturally less afraid of cold.

So, are there any foods that can make people feel warm ? Can those traditionally so-called "warming" foods really make people feel warm?

The so-called warm food is a term used in traditional medicine. As the name suggests, warm food refers to food that makes people feel warmer. The ancients' term is not abstract at all, but extremely concrete and easy to understand.

In fact, food can make people feel warm to some extent, but to different degrees. Therefore, many people have this experience : they feel cold before entering a restaurant, but when they come out of the restaurant, they feel warm.

This is because, regardless of protein, fat or carbohydrate, they all have some thermal effect. However, protein has the highest thermal effect. Of the calories contained in protein, 30% will be released as body heat, while carbohydrates only have 5%, and fat even less.

Some foods can provide more protein and make us feel warmer after a meal, such as meat, eggs, and especially lean beef and mutton . People will sweat all over after eating mutton hotpot, but it is impossible to achieve the same warming effect if they only eat cabbage and noodles. In fact, some weight loss methods require people to eat more lean meat, which is also to take advantage of the heat dissipation effect of protein, which "wastes energy".

When anemia occurs, the body's oxygen supply is insufficient, the biological oxidation efficiency decreases, and the body becomes more sensitive to cold. Therefore, iron-rich beef, mutton and animal offal are helpful in maintaining hemoglobin levels and fighting cold .

Thyroid hormone is like the control center of a heating plant. If the plant decides to increase its production capacity, the heating effect will naturally be greatly enhanced. When there is iodine deficiency, malnutrition, or long-term excessive fatigue, it may cause hypothyroidism, and the human body will be particularly afraid of cold. Through reasonable nutrition or the use of some medicinal materials, if it can help adjust the level of hormones such as thyroid hormone that promote biological oxidation, it is also beneficial to warm the body.

Some foods can promote digestion and absorption, allowing the body to absorb more nutrients from the same food, which of course will help produce more energy. However, other foods contain too many anti-nutritional factors, which hinder the utilization of nutrients for people with weak digestive ability, making them more afraid of cold.

Compared with "warm" plant-based foods, which are referred to in traditional health care, "cool" foods often contain more anti-nutritional factors.

There are also foods that can promote blood circulation, speed up the transport of oxygen and glucose, speed up the heat dissipation of the body surface, and make the body feel warm. Because without enough oxygen, the boiler cannot burn fiercely, and oxygen is transported by blood.

For example, eating foods with spices, such as chili, pepper, fennel, cumin, onion, ginger, garlic, etc., can help digestion and improve blood circulation , which is beneficial to improving the body's ability to produce and dissipate heat.

Besides, when the weather is cold, people like to eat hot food.

Cold food can cause the gastrointestinal blood vessels to constrict, which can reduce the efficiency of food digestion and absorption. Although healthy people can slowly warm the food to body temperature, it takes time and energy, and the cold stimulation itself can cause gastrointestinal discomfort in some people. Therefore, it is indeed a more reliable thing to eat some hot food when it is cold .

The digestion and absorption speed of food itself is related to temperature. When the temperature is lowered, the fat in animal food will solidify, making it more difficult to emulsify and absorb it. At the same time, eating starchy foods cold will increase the proportion of slowly digestible starch and resistant starch. Some studies have even found that even glucose water, which does not need to be digested, will be absorbed more slowly when it is drunk cold.

Therefore, people who are afraid of cold, weak, or have indigestion are more suitable to eat hot food. Of course, if you are very strong and have excellent digestion, you don’t have to worry too much about the temperature of the food.

In short, high-calorie foods may not necessarily make people warm, and don't use "fear of cold" as an excuse to eat high-sugar sweets and high-fat snacks. However, eating enough total calories, increasing foods rich in protein and multiple micronutrients, and using more spices that promote digestion and blood circulation can indeed make people feel warmer.

Fan Zhihong_Original Nutrition Information

Toutiao contracted author

Post-scientist at Beijing Food Nutrition and Human Health Advanced Innovation Center

Director of Beijing Nutritionist Association

Director of China Health Promotion and Health Education Association

China Association for Science and Technology appoints chief expert on nutrition science communication

PhD in Food Science, China Agricultural University