We’ve all been there. You’re out for dinner with your friends or family and you decide to take a bite of something you’ve never tried before. The next thing you know, your mouth is on fire and you don’t know what to do. Congratulations, you’ve just got a big, burning mouthful of capsaicin.
What the heck does that mean, though? It means you’ve got to get your hands on something capable of neutralizing the capsaicin.
What Is Capsaicin?
Okay, so maybe this is all new to you and neutralizing capsaicin sounds like an awesome idea but you’re still wondering: what the heck is capsaicin?
Put simply, it’s what’s responsible for setting your mouth on fire. It’s the active chemical ingredient inside chili peppers that gives them their distinctive heat that causes you all that excruciating distress. Some folks think it’s awesome; some folks think eating spicy things and testing the limits of their taste buds is great fun. If you’re not that kind of person, though, and you’re not having fun, you’re in luck. There are quite a few ways you can get some relief and go about neutralizing capsaicin.
Effective Relief for Neutralizing Capsaicin
What you’ve got to remember about neutralizing capsaicin that it’s an oily substance, and it binds to pain receptors. That means you’ve got to do something to break it up and move it along, something that will help dissipate it. Your first reaction might be to start gulping down water, but that’s not going to help at all. Water does nothing for neutralizing capsaicin; sometimes, it can actually spread it around and make the burning even worse.
One of the simplest and most effective cures for neutralizing capsaicin is milk, and other dairy products. It helps to break the bonds that capsaicin forms and stop it from digging into your pain receptors. That’s why so many cultures that cook with chilies and such also use dairy in a lot of their recipes: it helps take the edge of the heat. So if your mouth is burning remember to grab a glass of ice cold milk, or even better, a great big bowl of ice cream is perfect for neutralizing capsaicin and soothing the burn.
Sugar is also a great, effective way to go about neutralizing capsaicin when it’s burning you up. That’s probably why ice cream is such a good foil for spicy foods. The only trick, though, is that how much sugar you need is totally dependent on how much capsaicin you’re trying to neutralize. If this is the route you go, you could totally end up dumping more than a spoonful of sugar down your throat. Proceed with caution.
Other Alternatives
Other things that are great in a pinch when it comes to neutralizing capsaicin include acids like lime and tomato juice, or lemon juice. It cuts through the ability of capsaicin to bond with your pain receptors pretty quickly. Fatty foods also help, because capsaicin binds to it more readily than with what it can find in your mouth.
There is one more antidote, too, but your mileage may vary. Believe it or not, alcohol can actually do a lot for neutralizing capsaicin. Just don’t go pounding shots trying to get rid of the fire in your mouth; you may end up with a bigger problem than the one you started with.
For Everything Else
Unfortunately, spicy foods aren’t the only way you can encounter capsaicin. Maybe you’re cooking something spicy and that tricky capsaicin oil gets from your hands and onto your skin, or into your eyes. It can happen to the best of us. If that’s the case, you might be in for a whole world of hurt, but don’t worry. There are definitely ways of neutralizing capsaicin when it gets somewhere other than in your mouth. You can definitely get the relief you need.
Capsaicin on Your Skin and in Your Eyes
If you think that burning sensation you get from eating spicy food is bad, imagine getting it on your skin, or in a cut. It can cause an incredibly uncomfortable, sometimes painful burning sensation. If that’s the case, though, some of the tricks you’ve learned about how to take care of capsaicin that’s burning your mouth can also work on your skin.
Just remember: water by itself doesn’t do anything to stop the burning. Capsaicin is an oil; it binds to pain receptors, and you need to break that bond to stop the burning. Water can actually cause the oil to spread around and get even worse. One of the most effective ways of neutralizing capsaicin on your skin is vinegar, a strong acid, which will go to work fast breaking up the bonds to your pain receptors and providing relief.
You can also soak the area in corn starch, which is effective in neutralizing capsaicin because it actually draws it up and out of the skin. The most effective way to neutralize capsaicin on the skin, though, is applying rubbing alcohol and dish soap. It quickly and effectively breaks up the capsaicin and flushes it clear of your skin, offering almost instantaneous relief.
Now, what about if you somehow get capsaicin in your eye? For starters, you’ll be in for an incredible amount of pain and discomfort if this happens. That burning sensation in your mouth? So much worse when it’s happening in your eyes. If it does somehow happen to you, the first thing you need to do is start blinking fast. Blinking fast will cause your eyes to build up tears, which will help in flushing out the capsaicin.
If the burning persists, neutralizing capsaicin in your eyes can be accomplished by two more methods: milk and saline. Much like it takes the burn away from inside your mouth, milk can be used to flush the capsaicin from your eyes. You can either fill a bowl with cold, whole milk and dunk your face in it or put it in a spray bottle and apply it directly.
Saline solution works much the same way. When applied as a spray to the eyes, it will break the bonds of the capsaicin and flush it out. Just make sure when you’re done you keep blinking, so that tears will help get rid of anything left in your eyes.