Your days of feeling left out for getting the butter chicken while your friends get a vindaloo may be in the past.
For scientists say you can train yourself to tolerate – and potentially even develop a buzz for – eating spicy foods.
Dr Stuart Farrimond said the brain can initially associate spice with a ‘burning pain’, which is caused by a chemical compound in chillies. But as the brain learns the sensation is not harmful, this is replaced with a ‘dopamine hit’, suggesting the brain can be trained to embrace spice by gradually increasing intake.
When asked on the Unexpected Elements podcast why people have different tolerances to spice, he said: ‘There’s been a lot of research trying to explain this.
‘We’re not sure whether this is trained from an early age, or it is sort of genetics that are passed on.
A woman eating spicy food. Scientists say you can train yourself to tolerate – and potentially even develop a buzz for – eating spicy foods (stock image)
Dr Stuart Farrimond said the brain can initially associate spice with a ‘burning pain’, which is caused by a chemical compound in chillies. But as the brain learns the sensation is not harmful, this is replaced with a ‘dopamine hit’
‘It seems to be that it’s likely to be a bit of both.
‘But anybody, really, most people I would say, can train themselves to like chilli heat.’
Dr Farrimond said when consuming chilli heat, there is ‘a sensation of burning pain’ due to natural compounds found in chilli peppers.
He said: ‘The substances in there called capsaicinoids, it hijacks some of the pain fibres in the nerve.
‘And that has the effect of what really literally feels like a burning pain in your head because your brain can’t tell the difference between scalding heat.’
The scientist said the brain thinks this heat is ‘dangerous’.
‘And yet, many of us love it and that is because over time we learn this isn’t actually harmful,’ he added.
‘And when we’ve experienced that discomfort which fades, we get like this dopamine hit which is this feel-good rewarding brain hormone.
‘This is this sort of thrill you get, the same you get on going on a rollercoaster, after your boss at work says that’s an amazing piece of work.
A selection of peppers and chillies in a supermarket. Dr Farrimond said when consuming chilli heat, there is ‘a sensation of burning pain’ due to natural compounds found in chilli peppers (stock image)
‘This uplift feeling.
‘We get this almost like an addictive buzz after we’ve had a spicy meal.’
And, the scientist said eating spicier and strong-tasting foods while pregnant will mean children are more likely to enjoy them and ‘they’ll be a less picky eater when they grow up’.
‘That is because, if you have those foods when you’re pregnant, and when you’re breastfeeding as well, the flavour substances – the flavour compounds – as the brain develops, the baby realises that these substances, they aren’t harmful because mummy has been eating them,’ he added.
‘So when I’m born I can intuitively know that this isn’t actually a harmful thing.
‘So you could have prepared your child beforehand by having lots of curries and lots of spicy foods when you’re pregnant.’
