Summer specials,

Hai friends summer is around with a lot of sweating, boils, rashes, dry skin,

Thirst, stomach pain, gas problem, hunger pangs, parched throat, constipation, urinary track infection, jaundice, typhoid  are a few of the problems that we need to tackle here.

Look out for more fruits and juices without adding too much of sugare, try to drink plenty fluids with natural sugar in them, the white sugar will give you more thirst to dilute it in the system, excessive salt also has the same effect one need to drink plenty of water to dilute them in the system so avoid both in excess and fried food is a no no until rains come, so bake the dish that u want to eat, may be it would help u keep ur cool.

Salad is the only alternative to any food here, the summer brings in lot of cucumber with which we can make many raithas, and sliced and mixed with any thing that the child ask for like pori it is very good when served with cucumber, shredded carrots, and some boiled peas and potato slices very filling, but always try to give more curd filled items, let there be a cucumber raita in ur lunch. Make a fruit cum veg salad like the tomatoes and spring onions, lettuce leaves cabbage leaves, with some sprouts available for noodles, and some sprouted green gram and other grams if you are a heavy worker, other wise stick on to only green grams sprouted, a little lemon and some cheese if you want  and some apples and guavas, grapes, mix all these and a dash of chat masala will make it an excellent food on its own..

Now the season for melons are plenty, stack them up one can have it as a slice, or juice with mixing with other fruits like oranges, or lemon with a little bit or pepper and dash of salt to make it a great drink, palm, tender coconut, sugarcane juices. Grapes are plenty green pink and red all over wonderful coolers. Musk melons, some do not like this but one can sweeten it with honey, and have it to cool off.

Go in for juicy vegetables stay on more a curd rice diet with a little bit of koottu from ashgourd, bottle gourd and entire gourd family give u tender veg during this summer season just add a little coconut masala and have it bland, or even cooked like olan will be great, without coconut but its milk. Chowchow is another tender veg,  Keerai or greens are costly but they are best to digest here with out much hassle highly fibrous to help u digest and avoid related problems.

The veg to avoid during this season is brinjal , murungakka, kind which increased the heat in the body. Avoid non veg like a plague it will bring in all kinds of pain all over.

What to stack the fridge with:

Plenty of lassi that too neer moar not the thick variety when u store this in plenty people in the house will use it to quench their thirst and will avoid sugar, now curd has to be churned and remove the butter from it, now this liquid when added with enough water to give a hazy liquid with a little lime if you want and a small pinch of salt not much but a little and a little sugar if there are no diabetics in the house, now make this a combination and leave it in dozens of bottle inside the fridge, for diabetics this is very good without sugar, it will help their thirst which we all know is a never ending process..

To pep the young make some lemon juice which one can dilute and take, some orange juices fresh sqeezed ones for the evening once they return form school, make it a variety of different fruit mixing them according to the blending and offer colorful ones, they make the children longing for more, once in a way have soda’s at home to add the fizz, just a little of the juice and a half glass of soda with some ice cubes made out of mint,

Or coriander blocks add a lot more color to these drinks for the children to be proud of while drinking.

Nothing like curd rice, that too cook plenty of rice and let it be in water for the next day consumption, if you have a stone vessel known as karchitti it is great even other wise other vessels will do but no aluminum vessel pl. now this if you make a base for your curd rice diet is more cooling than the direct cooked rice, even the water standing above the rice is good to cool off. Add more grapes and cucumber and make it crunchy for the children.

Now for the stomach ache due to heat, try a wet pack take the thin towel and in the afternoons, wet them and roll over your hip, all around and let it dry due to your body heat, it is a great cooler, if u have a tub at home then try the cool water dip, lie down inside the cool water with your head held up with a small cloth of wet towel on your head too. This helps the spinal system to cool off, and helps in maintaining temperature in the body.

Try the oil bath once a week with till oil, it helps a lot to cool off the sytem very much from outside and when massaged the entire body one can avoid the skin problem like dry skin, and rashes, for the red rash that appear apply palm[nungu] directly on to them or the tender coconut u can apply all over to help it heal.. the parched lips apply some milk cream, which u get once u heat the milk, let it cool now apply the thick cream layer a little on to your lips, always make it a habit to apply the entire cream once you have emptied the milk on to another vessel to store inside the fridge just use the base and apply all over your face this helps to keep young..

pictures by google, compiled by sunkan