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Why do some humans love chili peppers?

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61–70 of 184 posts

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#64
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you don't eat potatoes raw do you? Nor do you eat an eggplant raw and many others. I don't understand the argument here

Eggplant and potato are aren’t fruits. Chiles are fruits, and most edible fruits are eaten raw.

Eggplants are fruits, in biology definition

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#66

I didn't know this was a thing until I met my partner, who has it (and so does her mother), but there is a couple conditions called fissured tongue and geographic tongue ( ex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fissured_tongue ) which effectively means that her tongue is a lot more sensitive to salt/pepper/spicy than average. To the point where black/white pepper alone might give the same intensity chilli gives to a "norm…

Holy trypophobia

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#67
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't tolerate? The world champions in chili eating contests are caucasian.

Quoted post unavailable.

This is uncharitable to the genetic diversity in the implied western competition. If there was a difference, it would express itself immediately

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#68
post #2

shouldn't it be most humans? China and India and most of asia have chilli peppers and so does africa. It is the minority that cannot tolerate chillies. prior to chillies, black pepper, ginger and garlic was used and if used in appropriate quantities gives you a similar result. chillies are just a lot more economical to grow.

Can't tolerate? The world champions in chili eating contests are caucasian.

I think that's less tolerance for spices and more just white guys being into weird frat house style competitions. I mean can you imagine a black Jackass

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#69
post #2

shouldn't it be most humans? China and India and most of asia have chilli peppers and so does africa. It is the minority that cannot tolerate chillies. prior to chillies, black pepper, ginger and garlic was used and if used in appropriate quantities gives you a similar result. chillies are just a lot more economical to grow.

pick a chilli from a plant and eat it like how an animal would do in the wild. you'll want to jump into a pond after that. The chilli plant evolved in such a way that humans don't like chilli pepper. Humans used cooking and drying and diluting and other modern methods to reduce the ill-effects of spices and enjoy its flavors in small quantities.

There's a huge range of "chili peppers", and the cultures where these are popular all refer to them by their individual names. see https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/chili-pepper-types/

It's not just varying levels of hot-ness that distinguishes them but a wide variety of flavor profiles and preparation techniques that enhance those flavors. Some peppers can absolutely be eaten raw and with seeds, others do well with drying and roasting prior to use, others are hot no matter how you prepare them and even if you remove the seeds.

I think the actual heat that folks react to is mostly just an acquired taste and NOT something that's been programmed in by evolution to keep humans from eating these things. You can get used to rather hot peppers, but even if you don't there's many which have a low-enough scoville number (in the 10000's), that the heat is controllable by using less and one can still enjoy the other aspects of pepper's flavor.

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#70
These two papers give a much better answer than this blog: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138904172... (why do humans increase their chili consumption) and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042654/ (antibacterial + disease-alleviating properties of capsaicin).

Besides the fact that capsaicin has antibacterial effects and exerts indirect disease-alleviating effects during bacterial infections (something our ancestors had to deal with a lot), eating chili triggers an endorphin high, but regularly eating chili makes you less sensitive and hence you have to eat more chili to get your little high. Taken together, these two properties of chili most likely have been the main drivers of it being adopted as a staple food in many cultures.

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