Eating spicy food has become a dietary trend. The reason chili peppers are spicy is due to a substance called capsaicin. However, few people know that spiciness is not actually a taste; there are no taste buds in the mouth that can sense "spiciness." Spiciness is actually a form of pain. Because of the body's self-protection mechanism, spicy foods are rejected as harmful substances in infancy. This is also why adults experience vomiting and diarrhea after eating excessively spicy food. But some people feel completely comfortable after eating spicy food, and even feel unwell if they don't have it for a few days. Why are people so obsessed with chili peppers?
Host: Hello everyone, and welcome to today's "Approaching Science." There is a food that everyone is very familiar with. Some people find it satisfying to eat, while others experience physical discomfort after eating it. What kind of food is this? You may have already guessed: chili peppers.
Every year, various chili-eating competitions are held around the world. No other food can command such appeal, attracting everyone from 70-year-old grandmothers to teenagers to participate. We rarely associate fiery competitions with Vitamin C, a substance often labeled as being in fruit juices, but which is actually present in high amounts in chili peppers. In 1937, Hungarian scientist Albert Szent-Györgyi extracted Vitamin C from chili peppers. For his outstanding contributions to Vitamin C research, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine that year. And today's program also begins with a chili-eating competition.
This competition was initiated by a folk group called "Spicy Tribe," organized by some chili enthusiasts. To prevent people who cannot tolerate spicy food from getting hurt, applicants must pass a test to participate. The test involves eating two chili peppers dry. The chili peppers used in the competition are the Qixingjiao (Seven-Star Chili) from Zigong, Sichuan.
At the scene: This chili is spicier than the average one. I can eat 20 of these at home, just eating them plain. I want to join too. But when I saw that little girl, I knew she was something else. She ate two, and her face showed almost no expression.
It seems that everyone's tolerance for spiciness is different. In China, residents of Hunan, Hubei, and the Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan regions generally have a strong preference for spicy food.
However, in the famous Chinese medical book "Compendium of Materia Medica," there is no mention of chili peppers dispelling cold, not even a single piece of information about them. But in "Yanxian Qing Shang" (Leisurely Appreciations for a Retired Life), written by Gao Lian of the Ming Dynasty, there is a passage that seems to be describing a chili pepper. Its name is "Fan Jiao" (Foreign Pepper). "Fan Jiao grows in clusters, with white flowers. The fruit resembles a bald pen head, is spicy in taste, and red in color, making it quite ornamental." So why is there no record of chili peppers in the Compendium of Materia Medica?
Zou Xuexue, President of the China Chili Association: "It was probably introduced to China in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, so it has been in China for about 400 years. One route was by sea, through Shanghai and Guangdong, which is why it's called 'hai jiao' (sea pepper) in some places. Another route was through the Silk Road, entering China from Xinjiang, so it's called 'hu jiao' (lake pepper) or 'fan jiao' (foreign pepper)."
It turns out that when Li Shizhen wrote the Compendium of Materia Medica, chili peppers had not yet been introduced to China. In the 15th century, when Columbus sailed and discovered the New World, he also discovered chili peppers in the primitive tropical rainforests of the Americas. In the 16th century, chili peppers finally arrived in China from Europe.
In "Yanxian Qing Shang," the chili pepper was included in a section on ornamental plants, which shows that at that time, it was used for decoration. But in these short 400 years, as a food, chili peppers have become popular all over the country.
Yu Yong, Vice Chairman of the Chongqing Hotpot Association: "Every day in Chongqing, the amount of chili peppers consumed by Chongqing people exceeds 270 tons."
The chili-eating competition began. In this round, contestants had to eat six chili peppers, and the first one to finish would be the winner. To increase the difficulty and the contestants' perception of spiciness, the organizers stipulated that while eating the chili peppers, they had to drink three glasses of water at 60 degrees Celsius. So, how does the perception of spiciness change under different temperatures?
Guest: The biggest taboo when eating chili peppers is drinking hot water. If you drink hot water, the stimulation to the mouth is very intense.
In fact, many foods have a spicy taste. But when people think of "spicy," the first thing that comes to mind is still chili peppers. Chili peppers contain a substance called capsaicin, which is the source of the spiciness in chili peppers.
In the Department of Stomatology at the General Hospital of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the study of taste and brain imaging is one of their research topics. However, in their experiments, capsaicin is rarely used. Capsaicin is often used in pain experiments. Why is that?
Expert: Spiciness itself is a comprehensive sensation. When we study pain, we sometimes use capsaicin to stimulate it, which produces a feeling of pain. This activates some pain-related areas in the brain.
It turns out that this spiciness that so many people are crazy about is actually not a taste. Doctors say that there are no taste buds in the human mouth that can sense spiciness. Spiciness is actually a sensation of pain. This is also why we feel pain when chili juice splashes into our eyes or comes into contact with sensitive parts of our skin. This characteristic can be used in military applications to create tear gas, tear gas guns, or defensive weapons.