[20 Jul] S1: The Science of Spice

Why does your body start to sweat when you eat something spicy?

• Eating spicy foods causes the body’s water potential to change, which leads to water leaving the body via sweating.

• Eating spicy foods elicits the same fight-or-flight response that your body has when it reacts to most threats.

• Eating spicy foods makes the body think that it is exercising.

• Sweating numbs the tongue so that the spice does not affect us much.

Why do some forms of spicy food burn your mouth and some burn your nose?

• Some spicy foods burn your nose because they only smell spicy but do not taste spicy.

• Some spicy foods contain compounds that stay in your mouth while other spicy foods contain compounds that float up to the sinuses of your nose.

• Spicy foods that are red burn your mouth while spicy foods of other colours burn your nose.

• Spicy foods that have seeds burn your mouth while spicy foods without seeds burn your nose.

What is the Scoville scale?

• It is a measure of the amount of capsaicin that can be diluted before the heat is no longer detectable to humans.

• It is a measure of the concentration of capsaicin in a certain substance.

• It is a scale of spiciness created by Henry Scoville.

• It is a scale of spiciness used by nutritionists and other culinary experts.

Studies show that spicy foods developed more in countries with warmer climates. Why is this so?

• Microbes tend to be more prevalent in warmer climates.

• Red pepper plants can only grow in warmer climates.

• Spicy foods help to protect those living in warmer climates from the Sun.

• The acidic pH of rain in warmer climates enables red pepper plants to grow abundantly.

Would you rather eat one whole Carolina Reaper pepper (around 1.5 to 2 million Scoville heat units) or ride the scariest rollercoaster in the world?

• One Carolina Reaper for me please!

• I’d rather scream my lungs out in the rollercoaster.

• If life is a metaphorical rollercoaster, bring on the literal one.

• Chew on a Carolina Reaper pepper while riding the rollercoaster. 😎

Help us teach you guys better!

Which school are you from?
Which topic are you learning in school right now?