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Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

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Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#131

Post by beeswax »

mindcrime wrote: post #124
blhack wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People go for the heat because it's fun. In my refrigerator right now I have a variety of hot sauces ranging from ~100,000SHU (Scoville Heat Units[1]) to 1,500,000SHU. The 1.5M sauce is way, way, WAY too hot to eat regularly, but it is kindof fun to put it on something and then see if you can get through it or not. I would put it in the same vein as playing two podcasts at the same time and seeing if you can comprehe…

Yeah, I use everything from jalapeno pepper to Carolina Reapers and everything in between at various times. I never make anything that's just plain loaded down with nothing but reapers, but I use a mix of peppers to make things that are really hot but also have a nice flavor. The heat just makes things interesting, but heat for its own sake isn't very interesting to me. You could buy pure, refined Capsaicin, but what…

Absolutely this.

This year I have been growing Bhut Jolokia (ghost peppers), Habanero, Scotch Bonnet and Jalapeños both in a small greenhouse and outdoors. I afterwards dehydrate the fruits to prevent mold and so I can store them over the winter.

My favourite blend for DIY chili powder is Scotch Bonnet mixed with Bhut Jolokia for both taste and heat.

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#132

Post by hvidgaard »

calvinbhai wrote: post #80

I'm not sure why people go for the heat. I'm from India and there are many hot/spicy options available. But most chili peppers are used for their flavor or color (e.g. Kashmiri Red Chilli powder is very red, less spicy) and varying the levels of heat/spiciness by adding more of less of it, instead of using the spiciest variety (like the ghost peppers that have caught the fancy of the west). I wish the flavor componen…

The general saying is that the extreme heat provoke an adrenaline response and increase endorphins and to some degree dopamine blood levels. I know I like the heat.

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#133

Post by asteli »

agentgt wrote: post #98

I used to be able to handle really hot peppers up in till college and then one day during college completely over did it . I'm not sure if that "day" was the cause of my increased sensitivity or if I just age related but now I can barely enjoy red pepper flakes. Oh it goes down just fine but later... later I'm writhing in pain rolling around in the bed at night ... and then later on the toilet ... well I think you kn…

I had a similar experience. I grew up eating spicy food, with no issues whatsoever, aside from the topside burn. At 21 I experienced a tipping point wherein my gut became sensitive to spicy foods. I had to rethink my relationship with spicy food, else cope with the symptoms you describe.

I am very curious what the physiological basis for this change is.

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#134

Post by danshapiro »

chrismcb wrote: post #126
jghn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you finding BBQ which registers as "the hottest food"? I can't think of a single regional BBQ style which would qualify as needle moving at all for me.

I'm guessing you're never met "the man" direction Dixie's BBQ. I'm not a big fan of spicy BBQ but there is definitely hot BBQ.

For the curious, this is a barbecue joint in Redmond, WA, just outside of Seattle and near Microsoft's headquarters. The owner, Porter, is famous for a hot sauce called "The Man" which is served out of a small, beat-up pot with a long handled spoon. If you get him talking, he'll tell you a story about someone trying to sell him capsicum extract-based sauce for his new BBQ restaurant (there's another interesting backstory about it being a car repair place previously). But it was too expensive, so he went upstream to his supplier and started buying it wholesale. He cooks it up with peppers, but the base is prefab.

It's also near-lethal... consume with caution.

Disclaimer: was last there >10 years ago, so much may have changed.

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#135

Post by teekert »

But, hours or a day or so of very serious discomfort aside, there don’t seem to be long-term dangers, per se, in eating very hot peppers. Biologists have observed, however, that administering capsaicin over long periods of time in young mammals does result in the death of the pain neurons, Bryant says. Setting the neurons off repeatedly wears them out, and they don’t grow back.

Pff had to almost read to the end for that.

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#136

Post by _ph_ »

jordigh wrote: post #50
huherto wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, yes. The burn is important. I was just trying to stress the importance of flavor. The best is when it is so hot but so good and the only thing you can do is keep eating. You know that it is really going to hurt when you stop.

I don't eat habaneros or ghost peppers for the flavour. I eat them for the burn. I guess the flavour is ok, but it's not the main attraction. Just like people don't really consume beer for the flavour, or non-alcoholic beer would be a lot more popular than it is, since it just tastes like beer without the bitterness of alcohol. https://xkcd.com/1534/

I have not met an non-alcoholic beer which tastes as the alcoholic ones. And there is no bitterness of alcohol, it is the hops which makes (some) beers bitter. Of course there are beers without much hops and consequently they are rather sweet in taste.

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#137

Post by tallanvor »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #55
khedoros1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mexican food is usually designed to be complemented by different peppers, but a lot of American foods are modified from European traditions, where spicy peppers are rarer. So, spiciness itself is a more unusual taste in our food. I think that the American culture (especially thinking about the Midwest) has the idea of "spicy vs not spicy", but not the idea of which flavor of pepper goes well with which kind of food.…

I generally thought the selection from the Midwest was bad - I'm from Indiana, and always lived in tiny to smallish "medium" sized towns. Often you are at odds with the grocery store, which may or may not carry much else. Most folks first intro to "spicy" food is Taco Bell and the local "authentic" Mexican restaurant. We (Midwesterners) simply haven't usually experienced anything else. Pure ignorance, really. Then I…

Meny usually has a few options, and some of the foreign markets have them as well, at least in Oslo. You can even find Bird's eye chili at Kiwi on occasion.

But yeah, Norway is a horrible country for food. You pay an arm and a leg for barely edible stuff, and if you want to get really good ingredients you have to pay double or more!

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#138

Post by scrame »

jordigh wrote: post #50
huherto wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, yes. The burn is important. I was just trying to stress the importance of flavor. The best is when it is so hot but so good and the only thing you can do is keep eating. You know that it is really going to hurt when you stop.

I don't eat habaneros or ghost peppers for the flavour. I eat them for the burn. I guess the flavour is ok, but it's not the main attraction. Just like people don't really consume beer for the flavour, or non-alcoholic beer would be a lot more popular than it is, since it just tastes like beer without the bitterness of alcohol. https://xkcd.com/1534/

That's an especially crappy comic, even for an xkcd.

We don't all agree that beer tastes bad, but a lot of Holden Caulfield-ish high school kids (the main xkcd shirt buying demographic) would agree to that to demonstrate their intellectual superiority. Like it's a open secret that people don't like beer, but it's just an excuse to get drunk, and ole Randall is holding his nose because beer is terrible but he still wants to drink. How precious.

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#139

Post by kaeluka »

hvidgaard wrote: post #132
calvinbhai wrote: post #80

I'm not sure why people go for the heat. I'm from India and there are many hot/spicy options available. But most chili peppers are used for their flavor or color (e.g. Kashmiri Red Chilli powder is very red, less spicy) and varying the levels of heat/spiciness by adding more of less of it, instead of using the spiciest variety (like the ghost peppers that have caught the fancy of the west). I wish the flavor componen…

The general saying is that the extreme heat provoke an adrenaline response and increase endorphins and to some degree dopamine blood levels. I know I like the heat.

I used to call it a 'pepper high'.

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#140

Post by kaeluka »

huherto wrote: post #11

Mexican here. I find it amusing that people focus on how spicy their peppers are. They are missing the point. There are many pepper varieties and each has a different flavor. That is the interesting part and how it mixes with different foods in a variety of recipes. Focus on the flavor, not the burn.

You're assuming that you know what 'the point' is. You don't, because it doesn't exist.
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