If you’ve been doing any reading lately in either the foodie or the medical communities, then you have no doubt seen the word capsaicin being flung around. There are some very exciting things going on in medical research with this edible chemical compound, which is extra-exciting for those of us who love spicy food.
Why is that? Because capsaicin is a compound located in chili peppers. It’s what makes your mouth overheat and your eyes and nose water when you bite into some Szechuan chicken or some tasty Indian curry. It’s important to note here that not everything we call a pepper contains capsaicin. But if you’re unsure, just bite into it. If it’s hot, it’s got capsaicin.
Capsaicin 101
Before we go any further, let’s define capsaicin very quickly. When extracted, capsaicin is substance similar to oil. It repels water, it can be used as a coating agent, and on its own, it is colorless and odorless. Within a pepper itself, capsaicin is thought to be an evolutionary protective system to keep mammals from crushing pepper seeds when they eat the pepper, thereby destroying the plant’s ability to spread itself around.
What the plant didn’t count on was our ability to look past the pain, and even come to love it, in search of delicious flavor. Interestingly, birds are not affected by capsaicin at all – likely because when birds eat a food with seeds, they tend to scatter the seeds around with them. But this fact brings up another interesting point – if you’ve ever tried to make a pepper less spicy by removing the seeds, you had it wrong. Capsaicin doesn’t live in the seeds, but rather in the white pith that surrounds the seeds, mostly. Get rid of that next time you want to cool down your plate.
When your nerve cells come into contact with capsaicin in your mouth, they instantly register a sensation of heat and pain. The brain quickly shuts this down, and the capsaicin works to inhibit the sensation transmitters in your mouth. That’s why you often come away from a plate of hot wings with numb, tingly lips.
Why Look for Capsaicin?
If you’re already looking for the foods highest in capsaicin, you probably know a little about why you’d want them in the first place. But the true breadth of capsaicin’s benefits to human health may shock you. There are at least a dozen ways that capsaicin can have a profound effect on our health, and several more that are currently being studied by top researchers in the medical field.
We know that capsaicin helps to relieve pain from migraines, sinus infections, arthritis, back ache, abdominal cramps, injuries, and more. We also know that capsaicin as anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties. These two facts mean that capsaicin can help heal and prevent ulcers, despite the fact that spicy food often gets blamed for ulcer formation. Capsaicin can also boost heart health, keep the immune system healthy, aid in healthy digestion, help heal certain skin conditions, reduce feelings of depression and anxiety, aid in fat loss, and that’s just the start.
Currently researchers are looking into capsaicin as a cure for both certain types of cancers and Type 1 diabetes. All of the research has shown promising results so far, and may help us not only cure these diseases, but also learn more about certain diseases and how to prevent them.
That’s a pretty impressive rap sheet, and I barely touched on everything capsaicin can do. So, it’s no wonder that folks are looking for foods that have a high capsaicin content. Not to mention that it’s great to eat! For those who love that spicy zing to every bite, capsaicin ranks right up there with the most delicious foods you can name. And capsaicin can also be mildly addictive, due to the way it boosts the production of certain brain chemicals. In other words, when you gotta have a plate of hot wings, you really mean it!
Scoville Units
Capsaicin is located solely in hot peppers that are in the Capsicum family. In order to know which ones have capsaicin, and how much is in each kind of pepper, we use the Scoville scale. This scale uses a unit of measurement called a Scoville, which just shows how much concentrated capsaicin there is in a pepper.
Sweet peppers like bell peppers have no capsaicin whatsoever, although it does still count as part of the Capsicum family. Just think of bell peppers as the black sheep of the family. The scale after that goes from about 100 to about 15,000,000 – a pretty hefty difference.
- 15,000,000: At the top of the scale is pure capsaicin extract, just to illuminate the difference between the concentrate on its own, and the concentrate when contained in food.
- Between 1,460,000 and 1,560,000: The Carolina Reaper and the Trinidad Scorpion do hold Guinness World Records for most capsaicin; however, since neither is commercially available, most people don’t know it.
- 1,000,000: The pepper that most people think of as the hottest pepper in the world is the Ghost pepper, or the BhutJalokia. It held the Guinness record till 2013.
- Between 350,000 and 100,000: Habanero peppers are likely the hottest pepper that most people in the States have tried. These are also called Scotch Bonnet peppers and Bird’s Eye peppers.
- Between 50,000 and 10,000: Thai peppers are next, and you can believe that Thai peppers pack a huge punch. Just try an authentic Tom Yum soup if you don’t believe me.
- Between 8,000 and 25,000: Serrano peppers are most often used in Mexican dishes, and while it looks like a jalapeño, don’t be fooled. These peppers are much hotter.
- Between 10,000 and 5,000: Chipotle peppers are known for having a delicious smoky flavor as well as a nice little kick.
- Between 5,000 and 2,500: Finally, we arrive at the humble jalapeño, the foodie world’s favorite garnish. This pepper features in so many types of cuisine, it’s hard to tell who does it best. Many people find it interesting that the jalapeño is so far down the list, considering how hot they find this pepper – but that just shows you how powerful capsaicin really is.
- Between 2,000 and 1,000: Poblano peppers and Anaheim peppers are the next two on the list. These frequently end up stuffed, or wrapped in bacon, but give them a try as a standalone ingredient as well.
- Between 1,000 and 100: Cubanelle peppers and pepperoncini are the lowest ranking peppers on the Scoville scale. They have so little capsaicin that they usually come across as sweet to most taste buds.
Just for fun, want to know where your favorite hot sauce ranks on the scale? Frank’s Red Hot Sauce is a 450, and Tabasco ranks between 2,500 and 5,000. Sriracha, on the other hand, scores between 2,500 and 8,000. There are definitely hotter sauces out there – look for sauces with habanero bases or scotch bonnet bases for something with more capsaicin.
How Does the Scoville Scale Know?
When measuring the amount of capsaicin in a particular pepper, what is it exactly that each of those numbers represent? In order to create this scale, a man named Wilbur Scoville devised an organoleptic text in 1912. First, he extracted the pure capsaicin from the pepper by dissolving dried pepper in alcohol and letting the alcohol evaporate.
Then, he diluted the capsaicin in sugar water, and used a panel of “trained tasters” to determine how spicy the human mouth found each dilution. A number is assigned based on how many dilutions it took before the tasters could no longer detect any heat at all. Obviously, the fatal flaw here is human subjectivity, as well as a phenomenon called sensory fatigue – once a person becomes used to tasting heat all the time, it can be hard for their taste buds to keep up. Desensitization occurs quickly in these tests.
Modern day versions of Scoville’s tests have shown results that vary up to 50% between one lab to the next, so that’s a pretty good indicator that the Scoville test is not really accurate.
But while the numbers are probably…off, to say the least, the comparison on the scale is likely still fairly accurate. There is still likely to be ten times the capsaicin in Thai peppers as there are in jalapeños. Whether the numbers are 5,000 to 50,000, or closer to 3,000 to 30,000 makes little difference for our purposes.
Also, remember that Scoville rating can change quite a lot with the particular specimen of pepper. Peppers can be extremely variable, with one pepper rating several magnitudes above its neighboring pepper on the Scoville scale. Additionally, dilution can make a difference. For example, pepper spray is usually rated about 5,000,000 on the scale – but depending on the dilution, this could vary by a factor of 10 according to law enforcement experts.
The point here is that, while the Scoville scale is a fun way to look at things, and it can help us understand the difference between peppers, it doesn’t really tell you exactly how much capsaicin you’ll be getting in a serving of peppers. The only way to know for certain would be to extract capsaicin and use the extraction in cooking; or to use other capsaicin products.
Capsaicin Ointment and Capsules
There are other ways to get capsaicin besides food. Capsaicin cream is often given to patients after surgery, to treat nervous system problems, to treat arthritis pain, to help relieve the mouth sores caused by chemotherapy, and to get rid of psoriasis.
When using capsaicin as a topical ointment, it can’t be just applied and forgotten like another cream. First, it’s a good idea to wear gloves when applying it, unless you want the same tingly heat in your fingertips. If the cream is especially potent, that could definitely hurt. Second, you only leave capsaicin on long enough to feel the tingly, hot sensation – then you remove it. All it needs is for your nerve cells to begin reacting, and the full benefits of the capsaicin will take place.
It’s important to not get the cream anywhere near your eyes or nose; unless you are treating sores around the mouth, keep it away from the mouth as well. Pepper spray is actually made with capsaicin (police grade pepper spray contains more than five times the amount of capsaicin as a Ghost pepper). Getting your medicinal ointment in your eye or nose will have an effect similar to being sprayed with pepper spray.
There are also supplements that contain capsaicin, commonly used for weight loss, digestive health, and anti-bacterial properties. And while capsaicin does tend to push the digestive system along, by fighting bacterial infections in the intestines, capsaicin can reduce diarrhea over time.
Capsaicin capsules are also sometimes used to treat emphysema. Capsaicin forces the body to make more mucus, and to make it thinner. Thinner mucus will move more freely out of the lungs, helping to strengthen the lung tissue and to fight off medical conditions like this.
Who Should Avoid Capsaicin?
For the most part, capsaicin is a safe supplement or topical ointment for just about anyone. It is never made in a concentration that could prove dangerous, and even if you were to get it in your eye – a quick rinse and some time will solve the problem. But there are some people who should leave the capsaicin and the spicy foods to others.
It is possible to be allergic to capsaicin. If you experience hives, swelling, difficulty breathing, or any other signs of an allergic reaction, stop taking capsaicin and stop eating spicy foods. It may be unrelated, but it is better to see your doctor first than to guess.
Additionally, if you find that your hands are covered in capsaicin, and you need to touch your eye or nose but don’t want to spread the chemical? Rinse your hands with apple cider vinegar. Water won’t get rid of all the capsaicin from your hands, as it is water repellent.