Beat The Heat

BIOMEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES

What is the Best Way to Calm Spice?

Spice is a tricky feeling. Literally. Capsaicin, the alkaline in hot peppers that causes that spicy sensation, deceives the temperature-sensitive pain receptors in your mouth to make you think your mouth is on fire. But if you can overstimulate those receptors and often, they can adjust to the feeling and make you more tolerant to spice.

Luckily, capsaicin has one major weakness: fats. Fats can help dull spice immensely after being consumed. One food group that everyone knows is a very powerful source of fats, and that group is dairy. Dairies like milk, butter, ice cream, and sour cream are incredible relievers for spice solely because of the high fat contents.

What did i do?

I did what is called a "Science Fair Experiment." For my experiment, I tested 4 different food items after drinking hot sauce to see how long the relief would last for each item. I used milk, tomatoes, wheat bread, and sugar to find my results. After drinking half of a teaspoon of jalapeño Tabasco sauce, I would then stuff whatever I had to eat into my mouth and timed the length of the relief period. I then recorded the results for each item and found the mean.