The Use of Watermelon in Chinese Medicine

By Marylin Zhang:

Do you feel overwhelmingly hot during the months of July and August?

Do you want to cool down?

For hundreds, if not thousands of years people have appreciated watermelons for their ability to reduce sensations of heat and discomfort during the hottest months of year.

Watermelons were used in the Middle East as long as 5000 years ago to help people get water during dry parts of the year and were introduced to China around 1000 years ago.

Chinese people from all provinces love to eat watermelon because it cools us down and of course because it tastes sweet and smells good.

Did you know watermelon has also been studied by Chinese Medicine for hundreds of years?

That's right, this sweet, cooling fruit can be very good for us if we consume it at the right time of the year.

The reason why watermelon is my first topic of Chinese Medicine nutrition is because it is so hot in Toronto right now and I'm eating watermelon to cool me down.

If you are feeling hot too, you can also eat watermelon to help cool you down and even protect your health for the upcoming fall and winter months.

In a moment we are going to look at the Chinese Medicine understanding of watermelon, but first I want to explain what goes wrong with our health in the summer.

Every year has four seasons and summer is usually hot and damp.

This damp heat makes us feel tired, cranky, sweaty, and lethargic.

If we use too much energy in the summer on work, sports or any other physically or mentally demanding activity, it can cause health problems not only immediately but also later in the year.

Chinese medicine believes in Yin and Yang, two mutually opposing philosophical concepts that relate to stillness and movement, cold and heat, earth and sky, damp and dry and many other things.

Chinese Medicine practitioners think that if there is an excess of Yang, it will lead to a problem with Yin and vice-versa.

It isn't as simple as saying the summer is very Yang and the winter is very Yin, since the dampness of summer has Yin elements, but the overwhelming heat really is an excess of Yang.

When we exercise our bodies we naturally generate heat, which is an increase in Yang, so in cool conditions like fall doing lots of movement can help keep us warm and improve circulation, but at the hottest time of summer too much movement can be very uncomfortable, leading to us overheating.

Chinese Medicine believes that not only is this immediately harmful during the summer months, but that it will lead to depression in the fall and winter so it is better to avoid excessive physical activity.

Seasonal health is a very complex topic in Chinese Medicine and sometimes we want to nourish Yang in the summer such as in the case of using moxibustion cones to apply heat to the outside of the body, but one major area we can all practice without worrying too much about theory is cooling down during the hottest time of summer.

There are many ways to cool down, but Chinese Medicine believes that some things like using the air conditioner can actually cause your muscles to tighten and contribute to muscle stiffness throughout the year.

A long time famous method of Chinese Medicine nutrition treatment has been to consume cooling foods which either nourish Yin (including fluids in the body), or act as diuretics (making you pee more and washing heat out of the body).

We'll talk about a diuretic, Green Tea in a future post, but for the time being let's look at how Watermelon can nurture the Yin of the body, cooling you down and making you feel better during the hottest time of the year.

The Chinese Medicine World Website (ZYSJ) says of watermelon:

归经 Effected Meridian:

入心、胃、膀胱经。

“enters the Heart, Stomach, and Bladder Meridians.”

性味 Nature and Taste:

甘，寒:

Sweet and Cold.

①《日用本草》："味甘，寒，无毒。

"The Daily Pharmacopia says: “it is sweet, cold, and has no poison.”注意 Special Precaution:中

寒湿盛者忌服。:

People with cold damp flourishing should not consume watermelon.

功能主治 Medicinal Properties:清热 解暑，除烦   止渴，利小便.治暑热烦 渴，热 盛 津伤 ， 小便不利；喉痹，口疮。

“clears heat and relieves summer heat, eradicates vexation and quenches thirst, assists urination, can be used to treat summer heat vexation thirst, heat flourishing with injury to the salivary fluids, difficult urination, throat obstruction, mouth ulcers.”内服：取汁饮。Mode of Ingestion: taken internally, its juice may be used as a beverage.Takeaways:Most people can safely eat watermelon during the summer in order to obtain more fluids, cool down, increase frequency of urination, and generally expel heat from the body.

In some special cases where people  have digestive issues such as frequent wet stools and diarrhea, it may be preferable to find a different strategy, but most people can eat some watermelon every couple of days in the summer without any major issues coming up.

From the Western Medical perspective Watermelon has high Vitamin A, B1, 6, C, Potassium, Magnesium, Fiber, Iron, and Calcium content.

It does have a somewhat high Glycemic Index, so people with diabetes should be cautious when consuming it, but it is generally well tolerated by most people.

A Simple Recipe for After You're Done Eating the Fruit:Did you know that you can boil the white inner flesh of the watermelon as a soup to relieve Summer Heat?

Simply take the Watermelon outer shell and scrape out its inner rind with a spoon or a knife.

Make sure you take only the inner white rind and not the green outer section, then place it in a pot of water and bring it to a boil, then reduce it to medium heat and simmer for around half an hour before consuming it.

You can also add a couple of dried red dates to sooth the digestion.

This is a common recipe that my Family use at home.

My Grandfather taught me lots about healthy diet and I'm looking forward to sharing what I know with you here.

In conclusion, Watermelon is a great way to cool down during the summer and it can help us relieve some of the real risks of overheating.

It can help us calm out minds, encourage saliva production, increase urination, and feel better.

If it is too hot where you are, why not head over to the store and get a ripe watermelon to enjoy tonight with your family?