Flash in the Pan

There's an old myth floating about that science suggests drinking hot drinks when you want to cool off and cold drinks when you want to warm my. The twisted logic says that your body is an incredibly efficient heating and cooling machine. If you're cold, the fastest way to get warmer is for the body's own furnace to kick in, and it will if you drink something cold, lowering your core temperature. When it's hot, you drink something warm, causing the core temperature to rise and the cooling system (known as sweat) to activate.

Why don't people actually act that way? Because intuitively, I think, they know that it doesn't make sense. Oh, it might if you were cold and your body wasn't going to react. But the point is that you're already cold, and your body knows that. As you lose heat, the body will work to replace it. Sure, drinking hot chocolate (close to mind at the moment as the temperature is near freezing here) will make the body think that it's warmer and, thus, reduce the amount of heat it needs to produce. But that's because you've just added heat and the body now is warmer. Which was the idea in the first place. And by the time I reach for iced tea in the summer, chances are that I've already been sweating and still hot.

So celebrate the season, and if you're in a colder climate, I'll heartily recommend hot chocolate with a dash of caramel sauce.

Labels: beverages, caramel, chocolate