Are Spicy Foods Healthy or Dangerous?

What do you think? Are spicy foods healthy or dangerous? Such a mixed camp on this hot topic! This Tuesday, let’s put the fire out on some of the myths surrounding spicy foods and you can decide for yourself.

Tara’s Tuesday Tips:

Are Spicy Foods Healthy or Dangerous?

From hot sauce challenges on you tube to extreme pepper eating on TikTok, you can’t deny that hot sauce is having its moment of popularity in the foodie world. I’ve watched a few of these hot sauce challenges and I too occasionally wonder if these people consuming the hottest peppers in the world are harming themselves? How about for the rest of us simply splashing a few drops of hot sauce in our chili or on our nachos? What about me as I have taken on creating my own hot sauce recipes? Are these spicy foods healthy or dangerous? Let’s get to the bottom of this hot topic today.

The Science of Spice

One nerdy word you need to remember when we talk about spice: capsaicin. This is the chemical compound in peppers that produces the hot feeling we get when we eat something hot. Capsaicin is the chemical compound that tells your brain that the heat level is rising. Your body reacts by trying to cool things down. Some people will start sweating, others get flushed, or their eyes or nose will water. This is all temporary and subsides as the capsaicin is neutralized by your body. The level of reaction, time to neutralize, and your tolerance to the reaction determines your love or hatred for spicy foods.

7 Reasons Spicy Food Can Be Healthy

1. Eat Hot Sauce + Live Longer

Put hot sauce on my taco and live longer? OK! According to a 2015 study from the British Journal of Medicine, people eating spicy foods regularly lowered their mortality rate by 14 percent. You can check out the full study here.

2. Turn Up The Heat + Turn Down The Hunger

Adding spice to your food could help control your cravings + appetite. It has been found that people who eat spicy foods on a regular basis, consume less calories per day. This is especially true for chili pepper powders, hot peppers, cumin, cinnamon, and turmeric. Most people feel full sooner when eating these spices! Bonus = spicy foods tend to control sugar cravings.

3. Peppers For Heart Health

Spicy peppers can block the damaging effects of LDL cholesterol (the bad one). In addition to that, capsaicin helps reduce inflammation. Together, this is a recipe for your daily dose of spice helping to reduce your chance of stroke + heart attack.

4. Increase Metabolism

When we eat spicy foods, it has been scientifically studied that our metabolic rate goes up. Body temperature, respiration, increased energy expenditure. You know what this means? Faster metabolism = faster weight loss.

5. Increase Heat + Decrease Cancer Cells

Capsaicin, the “heat” ingredient in peppers, has been found to stop cancer cells from growing + multiplying! This UCLA study specifically shows us how capsaicin inhibits prostate cancer cell growth. Capsaicin is also an antioxidant+ high antioxidant intake is key to cancer prevention.

6. Spicy Food Is Healthy for Digestion

Contrary to popular belief, eating spicy foods can actually help digestion not hurt it. That magical ingredient, capsaicin, stimulates healthy gut flora production and improves overall health in the gut microbiome.

7. Fight Infections

Hot peppers help us fight infections a few ways. Firstly, the high antioxidant content helps boost immunity. Second, spicy foods tend to make our noses run. This helps clear congestion. You can even find capsaicin in some nasal sprays!

4 Reasons Spicy Food Can Be Dangerous

1. Extreme Heat Challenges

One chip challenges, hot sauce competitions, social media gone pepper crazy. There have been some occasional reports of these challenges gone wrong and the participants requiring medical attention for eating chips with hot sauce made from the hottest peppers in the entire world. Perhaps eating hot sauce because you like the taste not to challenge how much heat it takes to rupture an esophageal blood vessel is the best advice I have for this one.

2. Underlying Medical Conditions

If you have a gastrointestinal disease or condition, spicy foods could exacerbate your symptoms or condition. In this case, yes, spicy foods can be dangerous for you. Check with your doctor and know your personal tolerance level.

3. Skin Irritation

I can tell you with personal experience, this one is a real danger. If you are handling super hot peppers or hot sauce, wear gloves! The direct contact with capsaicin can definitely cause superficial chili pepper burns to your skin. If you happen to get the juices from the pepper on your skin, put vegetable oil, dairy yogurt or milk on the affected area and this will subside the burn.

4. A Few Miscellaneous Side Effects

I would not scale these as “dangerous” however, they can feel negative if you are experiencing them. If your body reacts to the capsaicin as the pepper travels through your GI tract, you might get hiccups, a hoarse voice, diarrhea, nausea, or painful bowel movements as the capsaicin triggers the receptors in your gut/rectum on the way out. Spicy foods don’t cause hemmorrhoids but they can certainly irritate those that are already there.

Let’s Put Out the Fire on This Debate

Spicy foods ARE healthy.
You need to build up your tolerance to spice if you aren’t used to it.
Spicy foods don’t cause ulcers or other gastrointestinal issues but can certainly exacerbate them, listen to your body if you have any GI problems.
Always wear gloves when handling hot peppers, and don’t touch your eyes!
If your hot sauce bottle has a warning label, respect it!!!!
To quench the fire of a reaction to something spicy, don’t use water. Anything oil or dairy based is best. On your skin or if you need a drink, water only makes the capsaicin spread quicker, don’t use water.

Food For Thought

I love hot peppers. Growing them in my garden, fermenting them, creating hot sauce, flavoring my salsas, and eating them. All of it is wonderful to me. If you can’t tolerate spice but want to, slowly build up your tolerance. Remember, even the hottest hot pepper can’t put out the flame on an otherwise damaging lifestyle. What you are eating with your spicy foods makes a big difference when answering the question if spicy foods are healthy or dangerous. One chip challenges are dangerous, getting pepper juices in your eyes or on your skin is dangerous, and as always, be mindful of what is on your plate or in your bowl. Outside of that, eat the peppers! Enjoy the spice of life! Eat good + spicy foods in the company of good + spicy people 🌶️.

Stay spicy, friends.

All the best,

Tara ❤️