Spicy food is consumed around the world. From the Mediterranean to Southeast Asia to Central America, you’ll find a whole host of hot stuff out there just waiting for you to enjoy it. You’ll also find a lot of wise-sounding advice about the dangers of spicy food. This stuff ranges from the possibly plausible to the absurd to the truly bizarre. However, are there any real dangers of spicy food?
The Real Dangers
With natural spice, there are very few dangers you’ll encounter when eating spicy food. That is, unless you have a sensitivity to a particular type of spice. Food sensitivities are individual, and there is no way to know if you’re sensitive until you try it. Some people do have a negative reaction to certain spices, and that can range from stomach cramps to diarrhea.
There are also dangers of spicy food if you have an existing medical condition. For instance, if you have gastric ulcers, chances are good that dining on a spicy dish isn’t going to make them feel any better. With that being said, modern medicine has found that capsaicin (one of the most common types of spice, and the substance responsible for the heat in all peppers) can actually help prevent and even heal ulcers.
In addition, if you experience heartburn, you can expect spicy foods to exacerbate the effect. To be clear, spice does not cause heartburn. However, it can make episodes worse as the spice is carried back up the esophagus by stomach acid. Finally, don’t believe the myth that the dangers of spicy food include the development of hemorrhoids. It doesn’t.
The real dangers of spicy food are more common sense things. For instance, if you get spice in your eyes, it will burn a great deal. If it gets in your nose, expect the same result. The higher the rating for a pepper on the Scoville scale, the higher the likelihood that handling raw peppers without gloves will cause contact dermatitis in the area the pepper touches, too.
Potential Issues
With those myths out of the way, we do need to tackle a few potential issues that have arisen, particularly with the appearance of pepper extracts. These are so hot that you should not handle them without latex gloves. Super-hot extracts can cause real physical damage. This includes blisters to the lips and the soft palate of the mouth. If you’re sensitive to spice, it can also cause debilitating stomach cramps and diarrhea.
So, feel free to dig into that paella, or indulge in some spicy Thai food if your taste buds are craving it. There are very, very few dangers to spicy food, particularly traditional dishes. However, exercise caution when any extract is used and remember that this is an ultra-concentrated version of what you’d find in the actual pepper. Let common sense be your guide, and enjoy the wide world (and many positive health benefits) provided by spicy foods.