Very often food and beverage temperature is harmful to our health. Food with the temperature close to the blood temperature (37°С) is digested the best. If the food temperature exceeds 55 degrees Celsius or lower than 10 degrees Celsius, it is very unhealthy, and especially for children and elderly people (for them, food and beverage temperature must be equal to 37°С). Wrong food and beverage temperature provokes irritation of mucosa of oral cavity, of esophagus and stomach; it hampers the digestion of proteins, thus, resulting in dyspepsia and development of acute and chronic diseases. According to a Chinese proverb “The hot food must not burn the lips, the cold food must not chill the teeth”.

Unfortunately, it is widely accepted to serve food and beverages of inadequate temperature. The food with a temperature close to the blood temperature (37°С) is digested the best. Wrong food temperature not only provokes irritation of mucosa of oral cavity, of the esophagus and stomach, but also hampers or even prevents the digestion of proteins.

Hot soups, coffee, tea, chocolate, and similar beverages are as dangerous for your stomach as ice water, ice cream, cold beer, and so forth. It is especially deleterious when swallowing in big draughts. Although, a sudden transition from cold to hot food is harmful to teeth, as well as to mucous tunic of a mouth, esophagus and stomach.

Digestion of warm food occurs slowly, this gives time for large albuminous compounds to decompose down to protein molecules and amino-acids fully. The cold food passes the stomach much quicker, but without proper digestion. Subsequently, undigested proteins enter the small intestine, where normal absorption of food occurs, however, in this case, the undigested substance cannot be absorbed here. Furthermore, instead of carbohydrate decompounding, bacteria of the meat and similar animal proteins start breeding. As a result, develops disbacteriosis, metabolism misbalances and various diseases start progressing.

Frozen foods and especially beverages are extremely unhealthy. They provoke very harmful irritation of stomach’s mucous tunic, which may result in spasms of stomach and bile passages, which, in turn, entails loss of appetite and general body disorders. Cold food increases excretive function and acidity of stomach’s content with subsequent lowering and weakening of the digestive effect of gastric juice. Especially detrimental is cold fatty food, for example ice-cream, as, on one side, a normal contractive activity of the gall bladder for feeding the duodenum with a bile takes place, on the other hand the cold results in bile duct’s sphincter cramping. If a patient suffers from any gall bladder disease, such as chronic cholecistitis, gallstone, the diseases may exacerbate.

After swallowing excessively hot food, burning sensation is felt in the mouth, throat and esophagus. Regular intake of hot food and beverages may result in development of malignant tumors of the oral cavity, larynx, throat and esophagus.  Hot beverages contribute to development of laryngitis and pharingitis. They provide background for sickness development, result in more often appearance of angina and acute respiratory diseases.  Very often, inflammation and hemorrhage of the stomach mucous tunic, and ulceration are can be observed. Regular intake of excessively hot food results in atrophy of stomach mucous tunic, which in turn, is followed by an acute decrease of excretion of hydrochloric acid and pepsin in the gastric juice.

The statistics convincingly demonstrates that gastritis makes up for more than 80% of gastrointestinal diseases. Presently, not only adults but also children of school age suffer from this sickness. Among the main causes provoking gastritis stands poor quality of food: greasy and rough, spicy and hot, high-calorie and misbalanced foods. Foods lacking major components such as proteins, vitamins, macro and microelements are also very unhealthy. Other causes of gastritis are bad dietary habits, smoking and alcoholic drinks.

As stated by Russian oncologist L. Shabad “It is undoubtedly established that cancer appears not once of a sudden, it is the last link of a long chain of preceding changes, which can be named as pre-tumor or pre-cancer ones.”  Chronic atrophic gastritis, especially with low acidity of gastric juice, diseases of duodenum, ulcers are known as pre-cancer sicknesses. In the Russian Federation, during the last decades the stomach cancer is in the second place amongst all other types and localizations of malignant tumors. Presently, all causes for incidence of stomach cancer along with other human tumors are not perfectly clear. However, epidemiologic studies devoted to specifics of evolution of gastrointestinal duct tumors keep demonstrating correlation between cancer incidence frequency and dietary peculiarities. Correct nutrition is undoubtedly very important for prevention of stomach cancer. Food should be taken on fixed times, it should not be excessively hot or salty; food with an excessive amount of spices should be avoided; smoked, overheated and over fried products should be reduced, prevalence of milk and vegetables in diet is preferable. It is better to avoid excessive consumption of meet and fried animal fats, and reduce consumption of products with high cholesterol content.

Regular consumption of hot, rough, improperly chewed food, alcoholic beverages abuse and smoking are among the factors which contribute to the appearance of esophagus cancer. These factors result in chronic inflammatory processes, which, if persisting for a long time, may provoke appearance of a malignant neoplasm. Cancer is one of the mostly frequent diseases of the esophagus, adding up to 70-90 % of all esophagus sicknesses. Largely this is a disease of an aged people, especially of men, 80% of all patients suffering from the esophagus cancer are men over 60 years old.

As stated by the Chinese proverb «The hot food doesn’t scorch the lips, cold food doesn’t chill teeth». The proverb implies the best food temperature. In ancient medical books special attention was attributed to the food temperature, in this way, as stated in the “Shi tzin” (Dietary canons) «Food and beverage: a hot yet doesn’t scorch, a cold yet is not icy».

As written in ancient Chinese medicine books, «When food and beverages are too hot or too cold, Yin and Yang harmony is broken». An excessively hot food courses “generation of fire” and accumulation of a toxic heat in the spleen, manifests in the throat, provokes tumor and throat encumbrance. As stated in many ancient medical books, hot food is the major origin of throats diseases. That is why the ancient doctors suggested: “Do wait until the food cools down otherwise the blood vessels and teeth will be damaged”.

The best food temperature is equal to blood temperature, which is about 37°С. Any deviation of food temperature from blood temperature is harmful to health, especially for underage kids and aged people, it often results in dyspepsia and general health disorders. Adults regularly consuming food and beverages with a temperature below 10°С and hotter than 55°С, can develop dyspepsia and other acute and chronic diseases.

Consumption of a very hot food is a habit gradually acquired in childhood. A kid accustomed to hot food supposes that merely warm soup is not tasty, and warm tee is not a delicious drink at all. It is evident, that the kid him- or herself cannot acquire a proclivity for hot food, this bad habit is formed under the influence of family and national traditions.