Why You Shouldn't Grab A Soda To Save You From The Heat Of Spicy Foods

Spicy food is a hot matter of preference. The sensation from spicy food can range anywhere from tingly to painful. Peppers are the ingredient creating that sensation in your food through a lipid called capsaicin. Everyone's taste receptors perceive this lipid differently — someone covered head to toe in tattoos might draw the line at medium salsa while a child might look forward to some Sichuan hotpot for dinner — though it is possible to increase your spice tolerance over time.

Wherever you land on the spice spectrum, you should know how to save your tongue should you encounter food with too much kick. Our first instinct to cool our tongues is by drinking something, but some beverages harm more than help. In this case, soda is a terrible way to quench the burn of spicy food because, like water and alcohol, it causes the capsaicin to cling to the oral pain receptors, intensifying the discomfort.

Soda, water, and alcohol lack enough oils to temper intense irritation from capsaicin in your mouth. You might find momentary comfort from drinking them, but it's not enough to relieve you completely. Even the coldness from these beverages doesn't do much because we can perceive spiciness and coldness at the same time. That's why we have Carolina Reaper ice cream out there.

To reduce irritation from spicy food, it's better to go with starchy and sweet foods that have fat in them because capsaicin is hydrophobic and lipophilic — it doesn't dissolve in water, but it can dissolve in fat. Drinking milk is standard because it contains casein, which pretty much grabs the capsaicin from your mouth and drags it down with everything else when you swallow. An alternative method is to use a highly acidic food because acids neutralize alkaloids like capsaicin. Squeezing lemon juice into your mouth after eating spicy food can also prevent the pain from lingering, allowing you to recover sooner.