“How much pain can it be?” You know the regret that comes when you take a bite of a pepper. Now there is no turning back, and at that moment you only think about getting rid of the pain. Especially if you are in a group meal, your reddening eyes and your small coughs that you put forward will show how difficult you are.
In the meantime, you can reflexively try to drink water directly. While you might think it would be good psychologically, the truth will reveal itself quite painfully—it was intentional—and you will find that the water has made the situation worse than it is. So what are we supposed to do then?
First of all, let’s briefly look at how bitter food burns our mouth.
Or, to be more specific, let’s look at why we have that burning sensation in our mouth. Here, different chemicals play a role for different foods. The most common is the chemical called capsaicin, which is found in hot peppers. Well, there are foods that are hot even though there is no pepper. Wasabi and mustard are examples of this.
These include an oil compound called allyl isothiocyanate (AITC). For this reason, these foods are not included in the Scoville table that we saw in the once very popular hot pepper eating challenges. These are measured separately because mustard alone has a fairly broad ‘bitter’ scale.
Let’s get back to capsaicin as we’re going over cayenne peppers.
When you eat cayenne pepper, this oil-based chemical chemically interacts with the thermoreceptors on your tongue (or roughly that area) that sense temperature change. The result is that burning sensation that we are all familiar with.
Okay, we’ve managed to burn our mouths so far, and we’re in pain. What to do now?
Let’s repeat what we learned. Capsaicin is an oil-based chemical. We also know that oil is not good with water. These two liquids do not mix. Therefore, the water we drink on capsaicin cannot dissolve it. Instead, it simply spreads the capsaicin over a wider area. This means more burning sensation.
So, what is the difference between water and products such as milk and ice cream that we see recommended everywhere?
Especially athletes will know well that milk contains a protein called casein. It is even sold as an additional protein source for athletes. Capsaicin, which creates a burning sensation in our tongue when we eat bitter, is a chemical that can dissolve in fat, and there is fat in milk.
In this way, casein dissolves capsaicin and cuts its relationship with the thermoreceptors in our tongue, which makes the feeling of pain disappear. Of course, for this to work, you need to make sure your dairy product contains casein.
Considering that ice cream is also a dairy product, it would not be surprising that it has a similar effect to milk. Therefore, if you are going to try a bitter dish that you are not sure you can handle, it would be more logical to have milk with you instead of water.
There is a solution for those who say “I can’t drink milk”. Apart from milk, sodas and foods such as carbohydrate-containing bread can also help relieve pain.
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