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| New research revealed that eating hot food three times a week lowers the risk of early death |
IF VARIETY is the spice of life then spice is an aid to life itself.
Never mind an apple a day to keep the doctor away. If you want to deter the Grim Reaper from paying you an early call spicy food is the way to go.
A seven-year study of nearly 500,000 Chinese people aged 30 to 79 found that those who ate spicy food most days were 14 per cent less likely to die early than those who ate spicy food less than once a week.
A spicy diet also significantly lowered their risk of dying from cancer, heart disease and respiratory problems.
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| The Carolina Reaper chilli is the hottest in the world |
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| Columbus brought chillis to Europe with all their health benefits |
The key ingredient is capsaicin, a chemical found in chilli peppers, which is commonly known to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
After questioning each of the 487,000 participants in the study about their general health and eating habits, scientists tracked them over the next seven years.
The researchers, whose findings were published in the British Medical Journal, are at pains to stress that the Chinese have a very different diet and lifestyle to people living in the West.
They also said that the benefits of spicy food were even more marked in those who don’t drink alcohol. Below we explain why spicy food and chillis in particular are so good for you and also correct a few misconceptions.
? According to the American Association for Cancer Research, capsaicin has the ability to kill some cancer cells. In particular turmeric, the yellow spice found in curry power and some mustards, is thought to slow down the spread of cancer and the growth rate of tumours.
Some experts claim that turmeric has the same effects on the body as certain cancer drugs.
Sprinkle turmeric on kebabs, roast veg or in soup and combine it with black pepper to increase your absorption of turmeric by 2,000 per cent.
? Chilli peppers can help to reduce cholesterol and are a good source of betacarotene and potassium.
? Capsaicin is not found in any other foodstuff. It is so potent that our tastebuds can identify it even when the concentration is a mere one part per million.
? With chilli peppers, size does matter. Generally speaking the smaller the pepper, the hotter. The hottest peppers in the world are all less than three inches long.
? When Beyoncé wanted to lose weight in a hurry she drank maple syrup with chilli for a couple of weeks.
She was spot on with the chillies – they really can help you to lose weight.
Capsaicin has a thermogenetic effect, meaning it makes the body produce more heat and cranks up your metabolic rate so you carry on burning more calories for 20 minutes after you’ve finished eating.
Also if your weight-loss regime is boring, adding chillies to enliven your meals means you are more likely to stick to your diet.
One study showed that adding red pepper to soup made people eat fewer calories.
? The heat that chillies generate in the body increases blood fl ow, which makes for a strong cardiovascular system.
? Spicy foods can help to ease depression and stress because they boost the production of serotonin, the body’s own home-made feel-good hormone.
? Why does biting into something spicy make you feel as if your mouth is on fi re? It’s because capsaicin binds to the thousands of pain receptors in the tongue, known as VR1 receptors.
This sets off a sensation similar to the burning feeling you get when your mouth comes into contact with something that is hot in temperature which is why we refer to spicy food as being “hot”.
? Most of us try to counteract that burning feeling by drinking water.
Big mistake. Capsaicin is an oil-based compound so it won’t dissolve in water. Instead sloshing water around your mouth just disperses the fieriness even more.
You are much better off drinking milk or yogurt, which contains casein protein that will bind to the capsaicin and prevent it binding to the pain receptors on your tongue.
Eating anything fatty or sugary is always good for cooling yourself down after a particularly spicy meal.
? Though careless ingestion of chillies might cause discomfort, capsaicin is also a pain reliever, due to its warming effect on soft tissue.
This is why it is so often used in creams for treating pain in muscles and joints.
? We can thank Christopher Columbus for introducing chilli peppers to we Europeans. He discovered them along with America in 1493.
? Botanically speaking chillies are berries, not vegetables. There are 140 varieties of chillies grown in Mexico alone.
? People who love spicy food are known as pyro-gourmaniacs. Pyro refers to fi re, the “gour” comes from “gourmand” and “maniac” presumably means they’re mad.
? Eating spicy food often causes us to sweat. This is known as gustatory perspiration or sweating caused by taste.
? Contrary to popular belief spicy foods do not cause ulcers. I t was proven in the 1980s that the opposite is true. Eating spicy food actually stimulates production of mucosa, the protective lining of the stomach.
? It is advisable to wear gloves when handling an unfamiliar type of chilli as some oils blister the skin.
? The “hotness” of spices is measured in Scoville Heat Units (SHU), named after Wilbur Scoville, a pharmacist from New England who in 1912 invented the process for measuring the heat produced by a foodstuff.
Jalapenos on average range between 5,000 to 7,000 SHU, tabasco between 30,000 and 50,000 and habanero peppers average between 200,000 and 300,000 SHU.
The current world record for the hottest pepper is the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T, measured at 1,463,700 SHU.
? Those late nights in the curry house are not just an excuse for a load of rowdy blokes to sink a few more pints after the pubs close.
They are in fact a bonding exercise. One study indicated that when a group of people all ate a bird’s eye chilli , they worked better as a team.
Their motivation to work together in games even superceded the desire to win more money for themselves.
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