Why Does Chili Make Me Sweat?

I love my chili spicy, yet

if I eat lots, I start to sweat.

And even if it’s cooled a lot,

it still can make my mouth feel hot.

Why does that burn still hang around

in chili that has cooled way down?

I like the heat hot peppers bring,

but do they really have to sting?

The chili that you eat contains

a chemical that can cause pains.

It’s called capsaicin. It’s the thing

that gives your chili heat and zing.

Your mouth and throat have quite a lot

of nerve cells that react to hot.

They fire if foods turn out to be

so hot they could cause injury.

These same cells also will begin

to fire if something cuts the skin.

They send a signal to your brain

that makes it sense both heat and pain.

Capsaicin makes nerves fire, but

there is no heat, and there’s no cut.

This makes you think that heat is there,

and you can “feel” it everywhere.

It’s like capsaicin plays a trick.

The brain’s reaction is quite quick:

your throat feels burning all around,

so your brain acts to cool you down.

It sends more blood to your throat’s skin,

which should pull heat out from within—

but since there’s no real heat in it,

this doesn’t help your throat one bit.

The brain may also make you sweat:

sweat normally will cool you. Yet

while your skin cools, your throat will not

feel cooler; it will still feel hot.

So clearly all these things won’t treat

your burning throat, since there’s no heat.

But you might be surprised to learn

that drinking milk can ease the burn.

’Cause milk has casein, which will bind

with the capsaicin, and you’ll find

that soon enough your hot cells should

stop all their firing. You’ll feel good.

Then you can eat that spicy meal

and never really have to feel

the burn and pain. Now you can boast

that you can eat more hot than most!

COOL FACTS ABOUT FOODS THAT MAKE US FEEL HOT OR COLD

• Humans aren’t the only animals that feel a burn from eating chili peppers; squirrels, deer, mice, and most other mammals will not go near the hot stuff. But birds have no problem eating the spicy peppers, because their nerve cells don’t respond to capsaicin.
• Scientists believe that peppers evolved to make capsaicin in part to keep seed-digesting mammals from eating them. It turns out that when mammals eat any kind of peppers, their digestive process destroys the small seeds. That would be bad for the plant. Birds, on the other hand, carry the pepper seeds in their guts and then release them with their droppings. This ensures that the chili seeds will be spread around to make new plants.
• Peppermint contains the chemical menthol, which acts somewhat like capsaicin, except that it makes us feel cool instead of hot. It stimulates cold receptors, nerve cells that are normally turned on by cold temperatures. It can also stimulate our pain receptors, causing a tingling sensation. Menthol is used in chewing gum, candy, toothpaste, and cough medicines to give our throats a cool feeling, even when we’re not cold.
• People often gulp water after eating spicy hot foods. But water doesn’t help relieve the burn. Capsaicin is an oily compound that repels water, so water will just spread the chemical around the mouth and make the burn worse. If there’s no milk around, try a few spoonfuls of yogurt or sour cream. That should do the trick.