Why is spicy food spicy

More than 40, subscribers can't be wrong. Through repeated exposure to low dosages of spicy compounds in our childhoods, then, we can acquire both a preference for and a resilience in the face of spicy foods.

This cultural hypothesis has two major limitations. If eating spicy food is what makes us like spice, why did we start in the first place? Even if we accept, for the sake of the argument, that repeated exposure to spiciness makes us tolerate it better, the fact remains that people often seek out spiciness, especially in cultures that already include it a lot in their cuisine — such as Mexican or Chinese traditions.

More to the point, they seek levels of spiciness in excess of what they can already tolerate. If the point is to make the sensation bearable, why do people keep seeking ever stronger burns? So, after all…. Capsaicin can make your mouth hurt a lot. You get sweaty, your eyes sting, some crying might be involved.

Capsaicin binds to TrpV 1 : the transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily V member 1, more easily rememberable as the vanilloid receptor 1. Capsaicin wreaks havoc on TRPV1; it binds to it and activates it.

And yet, we have chili eating contests, a food containing a lot of capsaicin. We know for a fact that even people who say they like chili in particular are not immune to the burning sensation it produces. Another point they raise, however, one that I find much more entertaining, is that eating spicy foods is a way to toy with danger. Much like a roller coaster, that danger is pretty much contained.

That bit about endorphins is also pretty interesting. They are a family of compounds that our bodies use to clamp down on stress and pain when needed.

But function-wise, they work very much like opioid drugs, causing euphoria and a host of other delightful effects, including, as mentioned, pain relief.

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Fine Cooking Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Sign Up Log In Follow. Double Check Do you really want to delete the list,? Cancel Delete. In the case of the hot pan, this pain serves an important purpose — it triggers an immediate reflex to remove your hand before it burns. In the case of a hot pepper that's not even actually hot, so to speak, the reason is less obvious.

Hot peppers contain an alkaline, oil-based molecule called capsaicin, which sneakily triggers the temperature-sensitive pain receptors in your mouth even though the molecule itself doesn't produce heat or cause any real damage unless you really overdo it.

Once capsaicin triggers these pain receptors, your brain is tricked into thinking your mouth is in danger — cue the burning pain meant to encourage you to stop eating whatever spicy thing you're eating. These pain receptors in your mouth can adjust to the capsaicin's trickery, though.

If you overstimulate these temperature-sensitive receptors by eating spicy food often enough, they're more likely to become desensitized to capsaicin. This is why people who eat spicy food frequently are able to handle it better than those who don't — the "burning pain" is dulled for them. For those who don't eat spicy food often, the burning sensation is either too much, and you stop eating it altogether, or you try to dull the burn by reaching for something you think might help cool your mouth down.

So, you ate the hot wings, and now here you are: Frantically searching the internet for some sort of spicy food hack — literally anything to put out the fire spreading through your mouth and keep you from sweating bullets. Armed with your new knowledge about the science of capsaicin, here are the do's and dont's of cooling your mouth down after eating spicy food:. DO reach for some dairy. Many milk-based products contain a protein called casein, which can help break down those capsaicin tricksters.

Think of casein as a detergent — attracting, surrounding and helping wash away the oil-based capsaicin molecules floating around your mouth, similar to how soap washes away grease.

The chemicals fool pain receptors whose real purpose is to register critical events, like damage to the skin and the inflamation that often results. The tenderness around an injury is caused in part by the response of these same nerves to chemicals released in the skin. We humans are peculiar creatures--we've taken a nerve response that normally signals danger and turned it into something pleasurable.

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