How to Stimulate Your Appetite in Summer

Most people have a poor appetite in summer, whether they are patients or healthy individuals, especially during the sweltering dog days. This is not unique to humans; if we observe animals at the zoo, we find that most animals in summer are also listless and reluctant to eat, indicating that this is a common seasonal phenomenon across the animal kingdom.

Body weight also tends to decrease in summer. Generally, medical science considers weight fluctuations within 3 kilograms to be normal. In autumn and winter, weight naturally rebounds. The common saying "putting on autumn fat" (tie qiu biao) describes how weight rebounds once appetite improves in the autumn and winter months.

However, some patients have a weak constitution. If they experience severe loss of appetite in summer, it can lead to malnutrition. Severe malnutrition causes progressive weight loss exceeding 3 kilograms, which impairs recovery. For such patients, every effort should be made to stimulate their appetite.

Chinese folk custom holds that one should avoid taking medicine during the dog days, because appetite is already poor then, and taking medicine further suppresses it. Thus, unless it is a serious or acute illness, medication should be minimized during the dog days. However, for certain patients—such as cancer or diabetes patients—discontinuing medication would worsen their condition. They must settle for the next best option: taking medicine while simultaneously finding ways to improve their appetite.

Most of the stomach-strengthening and digestion-promoting herbs commonly used in TCM are themselves foods, such as shanzha (Hawthorn fruit), stir-fried maiya (barley malt), stir-fried guya (rice-grain sprout), liu shen qu (medicinal leaven), and jineijin (chicken gizzard lining). Adding these to food to create medicinal meals can improve appetite.

Shanzha (Hawthorn fruit) not only strengthens the stomach but also lowers blood lipids and blood pressure. For people with elevated blood pressure and lipids, brewing hawthorn as tea, or adding an appropriate amount to stews or porridge, improves appetite while also lowering blood lipids and blood pressure. Hawthorn is particularly effective at promoting the digestion of meat. Those with poor appetite can stew 30–50g of hawthorn together with meat dishes. Chinese patent medicines such as Dashanzha Pills are also available at pharmacies; if preparing medicinal meals with hawthorn is inconvenient, one can directly purchase such patent medicines.

Chinese pharmacies also sell maiya (barley malt) and guya (rice-grain sprout). Some restaurants offer barley tea to diners; this barley tea is brewed from roasted barley malt. It has a mellow, refreshing taste and is rich in digestive enzymes that help people with poor appetite digest their food. Therefore, if appetite is poor in summer, one can buy roasted barley malt or rice-grain sprouts from a Chinese pharmacy and brew homemade barley tea to improve appetite.

Another TCM herb with stomach-strengthening and digestion-promoting effects is liu shen qu (medicinal leaven). As the name suggests, it is a type of qu (fermentation starter). Just as the starter used for making steamed buns at home is a leavening agent, liu shen qu is also a fermented preparation. It is made from liao liao (Polygonum flos), sweet wormwood (qinghao), xanthium (cangercao), adzuki beans (chixiaodou), bitter apricot kernels (kuxingren), wheat bran, and flour. It has the effects of fortifying the spleen and harmonizing the stomach, resolving food stagnation, and harmonizing the middle jiao, thereby improving appetite and promoting digestive function.

We can add a little liu shen qu when preparing food. Adding a small amount (10–30g) when cooking porridge or stewing soup can improve appetite.

Jineijin is the inner lining of the chicken's gizzard, which chickens use to grind hard food. TCM also uses it as a stomach-strengthening, digestion-promoting herb. However, jineijin has an unpleasant odor and is not suitable for making medicinal meals. Pharmacies sell Chinese patent medicines such as jineijin tablets and compound jineijin tablets; all serve to strengthen the stomach, promote digestion, and improve appetite. These are OTC (over-the-counter) medications that can be purchased and used directly.

Loss of appetite in summer is also related to excessive consumption of raw and cold foods, which are difficult to digest. Therefore, people with weak digestion should remember to avoid raw and cold foods during the hot season, especially such heat-relieving favorites as ice cream, chilled watermelon, and chilled mung bean soup. Eating too much of these worsens the appetite.

Besides, I often see some family members of patients forcing them to eat meat during the hot season, believing that these high-protein foods will help nourish the patient. This is neither rational nor scientific. Even healthy people have no appetite for fish, meat, and greasy foods in summer—let alone patients. Once overeating of meat and greasy foods leads to food stagnation, it becomes even harder to eat anything. This is the very definition of "haste makes waste."

During the hot summer season, we should primarily eat light, palatable, and easily digestible foods. Do not eat and drink indiscriminately and then rely on medicine to cure a ruined stomach—that is very harmful to health. Disease enters by the mouth; to protect the stomach, one must control what one eats.

In my clinical experience, many patients and their families are overly eager to nourish the patient as quickly as possible, completely disregarding the laws of nature. They have fed patients to death with all kinds of high-protein, high-fat foods. We must respect the laws of nature: for most animals, including humans, poor appetite and moderate weight loss in summer are an objective reality. If the appetite is not excessively poor, do not worry too much about it, and certainly do not force sick people to eat more or eat better.

If poor appetite reaches the point of causing malnutrition, do not rush to use drugs to stimulate appetite; instead, use the dietary therapy methods mentioned above. If those methods fail and the poor appetite affects normal life, it is time to consult a gastroenterologist for diagnosis and treatment.