7 Ways Hot and Cold Food Affects Our Body

Ice cream is much sweeter when cold, while ham is more savory when eaten warm. However, the difference in taste is only one aspect of the hot and cold debate. That’s why we decided to dig deeper and find other facts about how hot and cold food affects our bodies. And you can find out all about them if you stick around — we promise you’ll find a few surprises.

Bright Side did some research and found how differently hot and cold foods affect our bodies in negative and positive ways.

1. Those who choose cold meals consume more calories.

As a recent study showed, there is a common misconception that hot food has more calories because it fills you up faster. However, researchers found that people who choose cold over warm dishes tend to consume more calories. To be more specific, they consume at least 31% calories, at least 37% fat, and more than 22% carbohydrates. This problem was even more noticeable with people suffering from obesity, and one proposed solution would be to add a hot dish along with a cold salad.

2. Our body has more trouble digesting cold food.

The way our bodies digest food is by bringing it to our core temperature. This means that when we eat something cold, our body has to put in double the effort in order to first warm the food and then digest it. For example, hot soup only takes 15 minutes to be digested by our stomach. On the other hand, dairy, especially ice cold ice cream, will take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours.

This doesn’t mean that you should stop eating cold food since fruits and vegetables, in particular, are best to eat raw. What you can do with other cold dishes is to keep them in your mouth for longer so the enzymes can start breaking it down while warming it up.

3. Hot food tends to be more nutritional.

Warm food is indeed digested easier and, as a result, all the nutrients are absorbed a lot faster from the body. Not only that but when some vegetables, such as tomatoes, are cooked, the amount of lycopene is increased. Also, hot cereal, like oats, are rich in fiber and aren’t coated in sugar like cold cereal normally is.

However, one downside of cooking fruits and vegetables is that the vitamins melt away. So, the best thing you can do is cook them as little as possible. No matter how you choose to cook them, keep in mind that they don’t need to be like mush — just still a bit crunchy.

4. Cold water is absorbed faster than hot.

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