Posted on 03/01/2015 10:47:08 AM PST by PJ-Comix
“Absolutely,” Hayes says. “Anecdotally we absolutely know it’s true. It’s not, ‘If you didn’t start eating it at five, you’ll never learn to love it.’”
LOL! I also know this is TRUE! There is a misconception that folks in South America love spicy food. Not true. South of Central America they actually HATE spicy food and have almost no toleration for even mild spiciness. My wife is from Venezuela (originally Colombia) and when I first met her she had absolutely NO toleration for even the least bit of spiciness. Once I made sure to get MILD salsa and she almost choked on it.
However, over the years I've sort of made her try some spicy food that wasn't too hot. Mainly jalapeno in the scrambled eggs. I can't stand eating flat scrambled eggs without something in them to spice it up and usually I go with jalapeno although if I am out of it, I use hot sauce. Anyway, over the years my wife has developed a tolerance for spicy food and now she really likes it. I believe I have opened a whole new gastronomic world for her since spicy is almost always preferable to flat tasting food. So I know first hand that one can develop both a tolerance and a love of spicy food.
I find eggs do a lot to cover the taste of hot spices.
Sorry ... no hot food for me!
I don’t understand the logic of burning out your taste buds with spices.
I don't understand people who enjoy cremating their taste buds!
My idea of salsa is spaghetti sauce. The kind without that spicy basil stuff in it.
Of course.
The more one eats something the more one can get used to it and like it.
Also, as we get older our tastes can change and extreme tastes don’t seem as extreme.
Oh, yes, 100%.
If for some reason I haven’t had spicy food in a while, I need to reacclimate.
OTOH, my son, ratboy, eats habaneros neat.
Good source of Vit. C, too.
/johnny
More like ENHANCING the taste of the food you are eating. Scrambled eggs are much too flat tasting and MUST be enhanced with jalapeno or hot sauce.
I have no sense of smell, so my tolerance for spicy food is likely higher. Even so, I don’t like it torturously hot, but a little spice adds interest. In fact, that’s exactly what regular old black pepper does, and most people use that on at least some foods.
I didn’t start liking spicy food until I was in my 20’s.
Guacamole is the go to cooling agent for me. Anything with fat in it will cool the palate. Milk is good too, water just spreads the Capsaicin.
The great thing about jalapeno’s is they burn twice, so you follow it up with ice cream. The next day you say ‘Come on Ice Cream’!!!.
I’ve loved spicey foods for a long time, but some work for me better than others, and I’ve found that I’ve lost my tolerance for whole jalapeños, which are comparatively mild, due to digestive discomfort, seeds probably. Some peppers have always been difficult to tolerate though, for instance Thai hot peppers. It’s so severe it’s almost like a chemical burn with blistered lips. I don’t see how a tolerance can build for blistering, lol. I’d say there are limits for most people, imho, even those who love hot foods.
When I have a cold, I like to eat chili spiced with hot sauce so I can feel the heat in my chest.
Spicier foods are popular in hotter environments.
Besides lowering core body temperature by promoting surface blood vessel flushing and sweating, they also mask the taste of foods that are on the raggedy edge of spoiling in the heat, and they act as a vermifuge for parasites.
Besides, they release endorphins...
I note that in a few days, Publix will be having a BOGO sale on chili. Gotta get me some and then spice up with hot sauce.
Taste is always a matter of taste. People who make a statement about what I should or should not like are like liberals who are always trying to tell me what is best for me.
To some degree, one can educate and retrain their tongue, and throat to tolerate hot spices, but at some point, the troika of your
Heart, Blood Pressure and Stomach will rebel and say, No! Not Acceptable. You have been warned. If you take even one bite more, the three of us will send the whole thing back upstairs by express elevator, whether you’re ready or not.
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