Are you addicted to spicy food? Here are five signs you need to aware of it
Nowadays, eating spicy food is gaining popularity. We can easily find videos or short videos showing people eating spicy food and taking on the challenge to eat spicy food at a high level. They look like they are enjoying themselves.
They will enjoy the taste, the heat, tingling the tongue, and need some more spicy food. Even they could intake enormous portions of spicy food on daily basis.
If they do not eat any spicy food, they would feel something off in their life.
Have you guys felt the same feeling from the above sentences? I have!
If we had the same feeling and experience above, can we be called addicted to spicy food based on the above experiences?
Let’s explore it! Before we explore it, we should know the definition of spicy food.
What is spicy?
We can use many words to describe how food tastes. Words are made of human senses when we eat or drink. How we taste inside the mouth, smell, and temperature.
We have known the five basic tastes. They are sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami.
How about spicy?
Spicy isn’t a part of the basic taste, but rather a sensation that could occur inside the mouth.
Spicy is a sensation when eating something containing capsaicin that can occur become the sting or the heat. The tongue receptor detects hot temperatures from capsaicin and it can irritate the tongue. It would damage our taste buds.
Capsaicin has different types in each pepper or ingredient that have the same sensations as spicy. Therefore, people can feel pain in their tongues, especially when eating spicy food.
We know spicy food can cause a lot of discomforts, BUT why do people still want to eat spicy food?
Why do people love eating spicy food?
There are many reasons, we can find or hear from people who have experienced it. Sometimes it could make people want to try eating spicy food based on the curiosity. After they watch videos or photos which show people eating spicy food deliciously and appetizingly, they will try too.
Some people will sweat or feel pain while they eat spicy food, but they keep eating it. In my case, I also felt that way. I didn’t know why until I found scientific reasons which surprised me
According to Journalhow (2022), while people eat spicy food and feel all the sensations, their brain accepts the signal that they are supposed to avoid that food. We should be aware of the intense pain and the high heat of spicy food, but in reality, we keep eating it.
Inside the brain, they turn on danger mode. The mode makes our body ready to survive. Therefore, the brain starts to release endorphins to help decrease the pain.
After the situation calmed down, the brain pushes the dopamine dose to reward our bodies for successfully survive from unpleasant sensations.
Here is the reason why people love eating spicy food. Spicy food can mislead our brains by releasing feel-good hormones to fight unpleasant feelings. Based on experience, we possibly feel both pleasure and pain from eating spicy food and we will crave it more.
Because of those things happen in the brain, people want to eat spicy food and consume it daily as a must. If that happens, they won’t have an appetite when the food isn’t spicy and won’t eat at all. They will prefer to consume large portions of spicy food because they already have a high tolerance for spicy food. If it occurs, people would be addicted to it.
People sometimes don’t realize it if they’re addicted to eating spicy food. They should be alert and should pay attention to their bodies because they could help us. The body also could tell the sign, it shows there was something wrong happening inside.
What are the most alert signs for someone who should stop eating spicy food?
According to several studies, there are some good signs and bad signs of eating spicy food. The good signs would show and prove if we eat spicy food in the right amount, not overeat it. Vice versa the bad signs, could appear if we overeat spicy food.
I would share the signs, and we should keep it seriously if we start experience it. There are:
- We feel the burn for a long time
The burn comes from the pepper or any type of pepper and has a high level of capsaicin. We can feel intense heat and sting. It could occur around our chest, stomach, or throat. Although the pain inside the mouth has begun to calm down. It is not the same as what is happening in the body. - We had an unpleasant feeling inside our stomach
The heat and the process of the digestive system make us uncomfortable. We can feel hurt, or go back and forth to the bathroom. Our bodies would be weak, dry, and dehydrated from all the pain of eating spicy food. - We are not enjoying food other than spicy food
We overeat spicy food until our tolerance is already high and spoiled our taste buds. Taste buds are already damaged because we eat spicy food and consume huge portions daily. We will lose our appetite and not enjoy eating food without the spiciness. - We had a “loose stool”
We knew the heat from spiciness caused an uncomfortable feeling inside the stomach. It would lead to an after-effect and make us rush to the bathroom several times because we can’t control it. It also would lead to diarrhea and that symptom is common for people who can’t handle spicy well. - We had an unstable sleep schedule
This part is connected to the first sign. If we had a burning feeling, especially in our chest, it would be horrible when we lay down. We don’t have any choices instead to wait until the burning calms down, but what if it takes too much time to relieve the feeling, our sleep schedule is going to be a mess.
Those signs are alerting us to realize it. We should stop eating spicy food and start reducing the intake of spicy food in our daily life.
But what if we can’t control ourselves through the process of eating less spicy food?
Should we reduce spicy food after experiencing the alert sign?
Yes, you should! I believe we can do it!
If we should, How do we do that?
A thoughtful way to overcome our addiction to eating spicy food, we could use a food journal to track how much spicy food we eat and make a certain time to eat spicy food, not every day.
Another way, we could prepare ourselves before we want to eat spicy food. Here is the list:
1. Make sure your stomach is not empty before eating spicy food.
2. Bring any dairy product as a precautionary step before we feel the pain.
3. Start with the lowest level of spiciness even if it doesn’t taste great as before.
4. Not only eat spicy food but also add some carbohydrates.
5. If you can’t control your desire to eat spicy food, you should always remember the painful after-effect of eating spicy food.
We could take a baby step and discipline to ourselves based on those lists. Furthermore, we can restore our taste buds and can taste other flavors of food again. Of course, we can enjoy eating many foods.
We are doing it in slow paced but sure. I hope we can overcome the addiction to eating spicy food based on the alert signs and prepare ourselves if we want to eat spicy food. I believe we can do it together!
