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I’m learning how to cook, which has been an adventure. The other night, after an encounter with some particularly spicy Italian sausage combined with even spicier barbecue sauce, my roommates and I found ourselves wondering if eating spicy foods could kill you. I mean, it can certainly cause intense pain and chest tightness; so can too much spicy food kill you?
Well, according to everything I could find on the internet, probably not. I could only dig up a few cases where pepper killed and none of them were typical. In one, a four-year-old with pica (a penchant for eating things that aren’t necessarily nutritious) breathed pepper in and experienced respiratory failure. This medical study documents eight known cases of pepper deaths, seven of them homicides. Other research has shown that in high doses, consuming pepper can be lethal, but even I don’t put enough pepper in our food to qualify as a lethal dose. Even spice allergies are generally mild. In fact, spiciness is pretty tame; it doesn’t even kill your taste buds, since it registers in the pain sensors on our tongue. Spicy food doesn’t even cause ulcers, as we used to think, but it actually can help secrete new stomach lining and help treat them.
Pepper spray is a different beast, though. It’s not meant to be lethal (it’s often hailed as the best non-deadly defense weapon), but it can be in extreme cases. Earlier this month, a Bel Air man died after police used pepper spray to restrain him after he threatened to kill his family. However, examiners said the effects of the pepper spray were exacerbated by his 550-pound girth and high stress, which led to breathing problems and made the pepper spray lethal. Also, asthmatics and people with intense allergies can experience respiratory problems from pepper spray, which can sometimes result in death.
Overall, though, it looks like spiciness may do more good than harm. They may not kill people, but new research shows that they can help kill cancer cells. Spices can also help kill bacteria and prevent food from spoiling, which explains why some ancient cultures were so fond of piling on the pepper (I’m looking at you, Thailand). All in all, it looks like we ought to rethink the names of the world’s hottest peppers – Bih Jolokia, which translates to “poison chili pepper” and Bhut Jolokia, which means “ghost chili pepper.” Still, with an astronomic 855,000 and 1,001,304 Scoville units respectively (compared to 30,000 for cayenne and 300,000 for the habanero), it doesn’t sound like anything I’ll be using for salsa anytime soon.
Comments (14)
Comment
This will surely be a gross generalization, but as you get closer to the equator (and hence hotter climates) the food gets spicier. Want bland food? Go to places like Iceland. Part of this may be because peppers and the like don’t grow well (or at all) in northern climes. But I suspect too that equatorial climates have a greater need to prevent spoilage (as you mention) and also to hide the taste of slightly spoiled but still usable meat. So here’s to hot climates, and their contribution to our culinary delight!
posted by Chip Overclock on 9-27-2007 at 7:41 am
There’s also the part about spicy foods making you sweat more, which has a cooling effect if there is any air movement to evaporate it.
posted by Miss Cellania on 9-27-2007 at 7:48 am
I love spicy foods!
But one day an overly spicy Wasabi dumpling almost got me.
Wasabi is one of those spices that doesn’t hit your tongue right away. After I bit and swallowed that spiciness filled my sinuses and I literally stopped breathing for a few seconds.
Kinda scary.
I know now not to O.D. on the wasabi.
posted by Sweet Pea on 9-27-2007 at 8:27 am
Thai culture may be ancient, but they didn’t have hot peppers, or any peppers for that matter. Capsicums all come from the Americas. But it sure seems to be what they were looking for. rb
posted by arby on 9-27-2007 at 8:47 am
I just had a tooth extracted and was told not to eat any spicy foods during the healing period – seems that the natural healing process is not as effective (blood doesn’t congeal easily with spice around).
posted by TerryS on 9-27-2007 at 9:08 am
I love my Mom. She is the sweetest person you will ever meet, but she’s not a cook. Just as an example, one of her specialties was a meal called “glunk” it consisted of brown rice, cheese, and cream of mushroom soup… Consequently my father and I became fans of adding spices and lots of em to our food. While eating hot chilis has lots of benefits (very good for allergies), the downside is that you get sort of immune to lesser levels of heat, and now only habaneros can make me sweat. And if I cook for my friends or kids I have to have someone else taste it along the way, to make sure its not so hot that I’m the only one who would enjoy it.
posted by Scott on 9-27-2007 at 9:29 am
There’s this book called “Why Some Like It Hot” (I don’t remember the author) that I read for an anthropology course. Basically, it deals with how people and the food we eat have co-evolved, and how this relationship provides survival benefits. Chilies and other spices retard bacterial growth, and if you graph out spiciness of food compared to warmth of climate (food spoils faster in warm places) there’s a direct relationship. It’s a pretty interesting book, and talks about lots of other foods as well.
posted by gibson8tor on 9-27-2007 at 10:28 am
Anyone remember that college student who died after the Red Sox beat the Yankees for the pennant in 2004? She was hit in the eye with pepper spray when police tried to break up the riot. Non-lethal, my ass.
posted by Iris on 9-27-2007 at 12:03 pm
Spicy foods may not kill you outright, but they may leave you wishing you were dead long after the mouth-burn is gone.
posted by Lalita on 9-27-2007 at 1:40 pm
When I was about 15 years old, my father took me out late one night to an all-night resturant in Dallas. It was known for its great Mexican Plates. And Hot Jalepenos. Two Cops sat down at the next table and both ordered the “Special”. It came, and one cop tolod his pal to go easy on the pepper as it was very HOT. Well the buddy didn’t listen, and plopped the whole pepper in his mouth ! His gasps and facial contortions along with repeted demands for more water were funny to the extreme. More so because it was a small dining room and everyone heard this go down. The cop was so embarrased that he got up and left !!
posted by Skip Harrington on 9-27-2007 at 1:44 pm
I did my HS chemistry project on Capsaicin and there was research suggesting that in cancer patients who had mouth sores from chemotherapy, the “burning” of the hot peppers actually helped them. The peppers whetted their appetites and made their mouth sores less painful. There was even a recipe posted for the cayenne pepper caramel candies used in the study. It’s actually really good and now “spicy caramels” are a holiday tradition for my family!
posted by Farfalla on 9-27-2007 at 2:07 pm
One day I went to a Chinese Buffet with my grandma for my birthday. I’m a huge fan of sushi so I got some but added too much wasabi with the soy sauce. My eyes started to tear up my nose started to run and burn like hell and every noise in the Buffet was immediately silenced like I had gone deaf. So in otherwords, I don’t know if you would of killed me if I ate a whole chunk of if I wouldn’t of grabbed my sprite. I think my nose started to bleed too.
posted by Kensouke on 12-27-2007 at 2:52 pm
Did anyone read about the “pepper homicides?” People are killing their kids by making them inhale pepper. How jacked up do you have to be to even think of something like that?
posted by HeatherDawn on 3-6-2009 at 11:05 am
I grow Trinidadian Scotch Bonnet peppers. Most Scotch Bonnets have a heat rating of 100,000–350,000 Scoville Units. For comparison most jalapeños have a heat rating of 2,500 to 8,000.
They are amazing!
posted by MattG on 3-6-2009 at 7:58 pm