2024 Author: Jasmine Walkman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 08:29
Spicy gives taste and individuality to food and is an important ingredient in the cuisine of many cultures. If you have decided to give a boost to your food by adding a few chopped peppers or cayenne powder, prepare for serious heat. Too many of these spices can cause unpleasant burning in the mouth and tongue. This can be neutralized with the help of other foods. Sugars, acids and dairy products are ideal for calming the heat and would prevent the hotness from burning you.
You may want spicy foods, but sometimes too many hot peppers cause uncontrollable burning in the mouth. A sip of ice water helps for a moment - only a second later the fiery sensations return with the same force. Hot foods take their intensity from peppers containing a substance called capsaicin. Only a few things can help neutralize capsaicin - and water is not one of them.
Capsaicin
Capsaicin is an alkaloid oil and is present in varying levels, depending on the hot pepper used to make the food. Tolerance is a very individual thing for everyone. The seeds and the white membrane of the peppers contain the highest concentration of the hot substance. The burning sensation that makes you feel hot does no physical harm, but it can certainly be intensely painful, as it causes a chemical reaction in your neurological system.
Dairy products
Dairy products can soften the tone of warmth in your mouth. A glass of milk is an antidote that can often be used if you have consumed too many of the particularly spicy foods. Crops that use a lot of hot peppers in their diet predictably include dairy products in recipes to help keep the heat cycle less intense. One of the proteins in milk and dairy products called casein helps to break the shackles of capsaicin.
Alcohol
Capsaicin can also be neutralized by alcohol, but a cold beer, for example, is not a solution. Drinking cold beer will set you free for a moment, but the heat wave will keep coming back. A study published in the 1990 issue of the Journal of Physiology and Behavior found that beverages with five percent ethanol worked better than cold water to neutralize the heat of peppers. But drinks, such as hot brandy, only increase the degree and concentration of burns. The alcoholic beverage should not be hot.
Sugar
Sugar is a way to deal with the problem. The amount of sugar you need depends on how strong pepper you have consumed. The combination of sugar and dairy products is used in the production of ice cream, fruit pie or pudding - they can be a very effective way to neutralize heat.
Other "antidotes"
Acids such as lemon juice, tomato juice and others can help relieve the burning sensation in the mouth. Most crops include these elements, for example in curry, to help heat balance. Fatty foods can also bind to capsaicin and neutralize hotness more quickly. You can try peanut butter or bread soaked in butter if you can't quickly find milk or scotch nearby.
