Hi Yogurt,
Just saw this post...
Well I am living in Asia now. I was trying to get the heating/cooling thing down, and was asking different Chinese people. They all seemed to have slightly different ideas of what was heating to THEM. That list is good but it might not be agreed upon by all. Here is what I got:
Apparently, heaty foods make them feel bad, usually a sore throat, maybe mucous, a headache, etc. If you eat too much you'll probably get sick, a cold or something. Fried foods are always heaty. Chocolate, definitely. And lots of people said orange juice is heaty, even though you'll see that oranges are on the "cooling" list... I decided that's probably b/c they drink pasteurized OJ which we know is toxic to the system.
On the cooling front, melons are esteemed cooling by all. Also a vegetable called "bitter gourd" which really is bitter, I don't like it, but they eat it b/c it's cooling. Also they drink special "herbal" drinks and soups that are cooling.
Most people could list off a bunch of stuff that was "heaty" but only a few things that were cooling. I am not telling this as a reliable guide but rather just as a glimpse into common perceptions of this concept.