We all people need food for getting energy. We need different food products for this process. Adding some hot and spicy taste to that food increases our feeling a little bit. The many foods such as chilly and other products are there to add that kind of feeling. But the first curiosity is, ‘’Why do we feel hot due to chilly?’’ It’s very interesting. It’s due to capsaicin. Capsaicin is known as the member of vanilloid family. Vanilloid are compound containing vanilloid, vanilloid acid, capsaicin, homo vanilloid acid etc. While we eat chilly, capsaicin comes in contact with our tongue than it interacts with the sensory neurons of tongue. Capsaicin is the member of vanilloid family so it goes in contact with receptor vanilloid receptor subtype 1 often referred as TRPV1. It is stimulated with heat and physical abrasion. Capsaicin gives just a normal heat to tongue. A small change occurs in trpv1 known as depolarization which is due to the capsaicin. It feels as a very hot substance has touched it. So it signals to the brain saying that its very hot. But in real it’s just normal and is tricking our mind. So chilly tastes very hot. There is also one effect of it, which is stomach burning. There are many small lining in the stomach. And when capsaicin interacts with then it burns our stomach. There is also another explanation about it. In my view the inner organ that is stomach is very sensitive like a wound. If we even touch a wound gently then it hurts and more than that, if we give it a feeling of heat then it will give us vigorous and bad feeling. Like that capsaicin gives stomach a small feeling of hotness and its sensitiveness makes our stomach burn.
After we feel hot due to chilly most of us may have a common feeling of drinking water. We drink water thinking that it will remove hotness but no any change occurs in it except for one or two second. In real the nature if capsaicin is to dissolve in oils or fat products such as ghee, milk etc rather than in water.
For explaining this I had done an experiment. You can try this at your home too. The explanation of the experiment is…..
(a) Take two cups of equal size and volume.
(b) Fill one-third part of one cup with water and again fill one-third of another cup with dairy products such as milk or cream.
(c) Add equal amount of chili powder or sliced chilly in both of the cups and stir it nicely.
(d) After stirring, taste the two solutions at certain interval of time.
In conclusion you will find that the solution of water and chili powder will taste hotter than that of solution of milk and sliced chilly. This activity demonstrates that the water has no any effect on capsaicin and it goes worth drinking water for getting rid of hotness caused by chilly. So we should always use dairy or fat containing products such as milk, cream, butter, ghee, bread with oil, etc to overcome such hotness.
Discovered by Kapil Sharma via Don Prince
