Diet-induced thermogenesis

One of the interesting properties of food, which has been utilized by some Eastern cultures for thousands of years and is very slowly making its way into modern scientific awareness, is their thermal effect on the organism. It is based on the fact that most foods have the ability to induce feelings of heat or cold in the body after consumption. This dietary property affecting metabolic behavior is the fifth rule in the Zone of Optimal Functioning, on whose principles we teach participants a holistic approach to nutrition and health.

Closer examination of this characteristic has revealed that the outcome is influenced by a spectrum of factors. For most plants, it is primarily various phytochemical substances, generally followed by protein composition, carbohydrate structure, digestibility level of the food, where energy is released necessary to produce this effect, and last but not least the energetic character (yin and yang).

The majority of nutrition experts do not recognize this property and do not take it into account. Often they dismiss it with the argument that it is nonsensical and an immeasurable parameter. As in most other cases, they are only partially correct, specifically in the second claim. That is, we are discussing an immeasurable parameter. The way in which food will induce feelings of heat or cold after consumption, or whether it will be thermally neutral, depends on many factors and cannot be expressed as a specific quantity. The only feedback remains the personal feeling after consuming the given food.

The ability of food to influence feelings of heat and cold via the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems of the autonomic nervous system can be experienced to some extent by everyone. A typical example is the cooling feeling after drinking beer in the middle of winter (refreshing in summer), or the heat after eating a chili pepper. Even though we mention extremes, a similar capability, but to a lesser extent, is possessed by the vast majority of foods (with the exception of neutral ones).

With a certain degree of variability, we can therefore define foods with hot or warming effects, and at the opposite end, we find refreshing and cooling groups. The rest falls into neutral effects, where the food does not manifest thermally in the body after consumption.