Is black sesame hot or cool?

Black sesame is a common food in our lives, because most people like to add some black sesame when cooking to make the food more fragrant, and the nutritional value of black sesame itself can play a very good role in the human body. However, when eating, you must learn to consider the nature of the food, because many people with poor stomachs can easily suffer from indigestion if they eat too much cold substances. So is black sesame a food that is hot or cold in nature?

1. Sesame is neutral

In traditional Chinese medicine, sesame is considered to be mild in nature and sweet in taste, and mild nature is between cold and warm. Therefore, sesame is neither a hot food nor a cold food, but a mild food. Neutral food means that it can be eaten by people with normal constitution and those with cold or hot symptoms. In addition to sesame seeds, representative foods among neutral foods include potatoes, corn, yam, sweet potato, eggs, loach, honey, etc. that we often eat.

2. Heat and warmth

Hot foods are generally foods that can reduce or eliminate cold symptoms. The foods we often eat, such as chili pepper, pepper, cinnamon, dried ginger, coriander, venison, etc., are typical hot foods. Warm foods are very similar to hot foods. They can dispel cold, warm the middle, and assist yang. Representative foods include lychees, flour, carrots, leeks, grapes, lotus seeds, etc.

3. Coolness and coldness

The properties of cool foods and cold foods are basically the same, with only slight differences in degree. Most cold foods can clear away heat, purge fire, and detoxify, and can be used to eliminate febrile diseases. Representative foods of cold nature include millet, wheat, shiitake mushrooms, cucumber, winter melon, spinach, oranges, pears, etc.

Tips for identifying the cold and hot properties of food

Generally speaking, you can look at the food’s color, taste, growing environment, geographical location, and growing season. Judging from the color, green plants are close to the ground and absorb moisture from the ground, so they are cold in nature, such as mung beans and green vegetables. Plants with reddish colors, such as chili peppers, peppers, dates, pomegranates, etc., grow close to the ground, but their fruits can absorb more sunlight, so they are hot in nature.

In terms of taste, sweet and spicy foods, such as garlic, persimmon, pomegranate, etc., are hot in nature because they are exposed to sunlight for more time. Foods that taste bitter or sour are mostly cold, such as bitter melon, bitter herbs, taro, plums, papaya, etc.

From the perspective of the growing environment, aquatic plants tend to prefer cold weather, such as lotus root, kelp, and seaweed. Some foods that grow on land, such as peanuts, potatoes, yams, ginger, etc., are buried in the soil for a long time, the plants are drought-resistant, and contain less water, so they are hot in nature.

From the perspective of their growing geographical location, foods that are in the shade and face north absorb more moisture and rarely see sunlight, and therefore tend to be cold in nature, such as mushrooms and fungus. Some foods that grow high in the sky or in the southeast, such as sunflowers and chestnuts, are hot in nature because they receive more light and heat.

The coldness or hotness of food is also related to the growing season. Foods that grow in winter are cold in nature due to their heavy coldness, such as cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, white radish, winter melon, etc. Foods that grow in the summer receive more rain and are cold in nature, such as watermelon, cucumber, pear, grapefruit, etc.