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Why do some humans love chili peppers?

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Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Japan, it’s very hard to find properly spicy food or nice chilli sauces. I’ve resorted to just eating plain cut chilli. A while back, I experimented with not adding more spices than was already provided in my meals. No pepper, no chilli. After about a month, I started experiencing new tastes and flavours from foods I’ve always ate. It was amazing. But I craved that endorphin high from spicy foods and have f…

One of the hottest things I've ever eaten was at a Korean-run Japanese curry house in NYC. IIRC you chose spiciness on a 1-5 scale. The first time I tried a 2 and it was damn spicy. Next time I tried a 3 and it ruined my lunch, my pride, my afternoon, and my evening.

There are plenty of curry places in Japan that do spice levels too.

However normal Japanese curry tends to be pretty mild as well as other food in Japan, including Japanese style Chinese places which often serve dishes like mapo tofu with no spiciness whatsoever.

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the hottest things I've ever eaten was at a Korean-run Japanese curry house in NYC. IIRC you chose spiciness on a 1-5 scale. The first time I tried a 2 and it was damn spicy. Next time I tried a 3 and it ruined my lunch, my pride, my afternoon, and my evening.

There are plenty of curry places in Japan that do spice levels too. However normal Japanese curry tends to be pretty mild as well as other food in Japan, including Japanese style Chinese places which often serve dishes like mapo tofu with no spiciness whatsoever.

There are Japanese curry places in SoCal that charge extra (~25-50c per level IIRC) per spice level. Since I couldn’t handle any more than 2/10 I found that a win-win :)

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had raw grated beetroot in my salad today for lunch, and very tasty it was too. I pulled it out of the ground five weeks ago, weighed 1.4kg - it's the purple-and-white stripey version, makes the salad quite colourful. Been cutting bits off it to grate every time I have a salad. For some reason, beetroot seems to keep extremely well in the fridge.

Best to do when fresh. Most when store bought are a few months old they are a lot tougher and harder to digest.

Oh, I started when it was fresh. It takes a while to munch through a 1.4kg root. And it actually seems to be remarkably unaffected by time, so far. Probably only a couple more salads left in it now.

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#155
post #71

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…

> The prevalence of the condition increases significantly with age, occurring in 40% of the population after the age of 40. Yikes! I love chilis and peppers. Couldnt imagine having this condition although my wife and kids may appreciate less spicy food.

A dental hygienist pointed out to me that I had geographic tongue when I was about 26 or so. I've been eating hot chilies since I was a child. Although, as I've gotten older I have noticed that eating too much at once will upset my stomach.

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#156
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.

I live in the Indian subcontinent. As long as I can remember, I have HIGHLY DISLIKED eating spicy food to a point when my sibling and I were kids, there used to be 2 dishes for lunch/dinner, one for the adults and one for kids. This is VERY unusual in our culture because kids are, out of this "practice of cooking 2 dishes" that parents train their kids to "eat chilli" from when they are very young. They are "trained"…

Maybe you have an allergy? For all of my life, I absolutely hated shrimp. Even smelling it from across a room would make me want to vomit. Then when I was in my mid-20's, I developed an allergy to crabs (which previously I loved) and I realized that reaction was the same I'd had to shrimp all those years.

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#157
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.

what? people eat and garnish food with raw chilis all the time.

If anything, processes like pickling can bring even more heat out of a pepper

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Indian subcontinent. As long as I can remember, I have HIGHLY DISLIKED eating spicy food to a point when my sibling and I were kids, there used to be 2 dishes for lunch/dinner, one for the adults and one for kids. This is VERY unusual in our culture because kids are, out of this "practice of cooking 2 dishes" that parents train their kids to "eat chilli" from when they are very young. They are "trained"…

Maybe you have an allergy? For all of my life, I absolutely hated shrimp. Even smelling it from across a room would make me want to vomit. Then when I was in my mid-20's, I developed an allergy to crabs (which previously I loved) and I realized that reaction was the same I'd had to shrimp all those years.

uh, not "allergy" levels. i dont get anything troubling.

i mean when i have food with lots of red chilli, i feel like i "dont want to stand the burning sensation". most people have a higher tolerance than me but i would prefer if it werent testing my tolerance.

its not like i cant or wont eat food with boatloads of red chilli....

i have a relative who takes red chilli powder, mixes some water and takes that with plain rice. that's "comfort food" for him, not for me...

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