Just because things are cooling down doesn’t mean you have to. There are many simple ways to use food to warm us from the inside out. And it doesn’t have to involve eating a ton of chili peppers.

Spiced herbs and foods are a great way of keeping our internal fire alive. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, if you find you are sensitive to cooler temperatures, think constant cold hands and feet, then you may very well be yang deficient. Yang is characterized as fast, hard, solid, focused, hot, dry, and active and is associated with fire. In contrast, Yin is characterized as slow, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, wet, and passive and is associated with water, earth, the moon, femininity, and night time.

All of these characteristics are within us, however, sometimes we can flow out of equilibrium causing an excess or deficiency in one or the other.
Avoiding cooling foods will help with combating the aversion to cold. So for some, it's not the time for melons, mint teas, coconut water, cold salads or raw foods.

To bring heat back into the body, nourishing the liver and kidney meridians with warming foods are essential. A little bit of meat, like shrimp, chicken, beef are warming for the body, as are vegetables like shallots, pumpkin, spicy herbs and ginger.

An on that note, in this super simple recipe for a Cacao latte, I have included ginger. Cacao on its own is yang in nature and represents the fire element. It's a heart warmer and a stimulant. Energetically speaking it's beneficial for our heart chakra, which governs the way we love and feel love. In chemical terms, it's a stimulant, similar to coffee, but gentler on our adrenaline hormone receptors. Pairing it with ginger further charges it with yang energy, which is needed for those feeling the cold.

If this sounds like you then give this recipe a go, and see it helps with warming you up from the inside.

Cacao Latte

Serves 1

Ingredients:
2 tsp raw cacao
1-inch grated ginger 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2-1 tsp raw honey 300ml barista oat milk

Method:

1. Warm up the oat milk in a milk frothier or on the stove.
2. To a cup, add the cacao and the nutmeg, then squeeze out the liquid from the ginger into the cup. Alternatively, you can use one teaspoon of ground ginger.
3. Add a little bit of hot water into the cup, enough to mix the ingredients into a smooth paste. Once it becomes a paste, add a little bit more water to make it watery.
4. At this point, you can add the honey or a sweetener of your choice.
5. Finally, pour the oat milk into the cup and dust with a little cacao powder.