A local fried chicken restaurant calls their spiciest chicken WNFA (we're not fucking around), and it's exactly as it says on the tin. When I have enough of it and I've gotten past the initial "why am I doing this? this is stupid, I should stop," I genuinely experience a form of euphoria. The next day is sheer hell though, so I don't do it often. And that's how boring my life is, occasionally eating fried chicken to get mildly high.
I believe I have been to the same restaurant you're referring to, and honestly I believe that the WNFA chicken is likely to be a psychoactive substance. I've only had the barest bite of it, and it is enough to scar me mentally; and to eat an entire meal seems like it would be prone to mind-altering, just like how a stab wound is body altering.
Hyperbole aside, it is interesting to see the sheer breadth in tolerance across friends and family. I'm far from a spice masochist, but I've never shied away from heat since my teenage years. What I find more interesting is the amount of stereotypical spice and heat avoidance I've seen from white family and friends; an example of which I recently heard from a friend, “I don't add spice to my chili, since I know some people don't like that.”
I'm genuinely confused by people who avoid adding additional flavour to their food. Heat avoidance I can understand to an extent, some folks are more sensitive to heat and pain sensations than others. But spice avoidance even from your garden variety spices genuinely befuddles me; and I can not understand how some people do not come across using things like Rosemary, Basil, or Cumin in their cooking.
> I can not understand how some people do not come across using things like Rosemary, Basil, or Cumin in their cooking.
I'll explain it to you :)
I think a lot of people cook how their parents cook. I taught my mom how to better season her cooking, to great success, but I don't blame her for not ever really learning. She learned from my grandma who spent her life on a tiny farm in the prairies, I'd be surprised if they came across cumin very often.
So, you grow up eating beef and vegetables seasoned with salt and pepper and homemade butter and eventually your palate doesn't really require the same stimulation and variety that people with access to more varied ingredients do. It's not that plain-eating-folks aren't aware there's more variety out there, but if they've spent their whole life _without_ those other options, it's just not something their body naturally want. As someone who appreciates music, it'd be easy for me to look down upon those with less developed palates, but to what end? People enjoy what they enjoy, I don't think there's any superiority to be had in liking basil just like there's no superiority to be had in liking djent.
"it'd be easy for me to look down upon those with less developed palates"
I live in florida. There are people here that literally carry Sriracha sauce in their car. I will have people over for breakfast [eggs, bacon, toast, muffins], they will go to their car, and pour Sriracha sauce all over their eggs. It's pretty normal for them to put it on everything they eat. Eating just a potato seems strange to them, it needs that burning sensation. I think it is almost the opposite of a developed palate - it's more like they lost their ability to detect and enjoy simple flavors. Like an alcoholic that can't be in a social setting without liquor.
I think that's the keyword here. The behavior you're describing does sound very dependent, but those dependent on alcohol are a minority. I don't have numbers on capsaicin, but I'd be comfortable betting that the need to spice everything is also not the norm.
If taste and flavor preference is largely environmental as is argued, it makes sense that extremes exist on the edges.
Is it really 'looking down on'?
If someone has a slower car (than them), would it be the same?
I know i have a 'less developed palate', than many as i like the same things day after day after day, then i change something and remain the same again. I occasionally enjoy a vindaloo and other indian food. I know people that chop and change and cook and experiment, and they can tell immediately if I've under-salted a pasta or over-cooked some vegetable.
To some of us, food is fuel, and that's it.
I fear people nowadays take any form of comparison as an insult.
Right, it's conflating development stage with a value judgement thereon.
Someone else might acknowledge that increased complexity is typically an indicator of a later development stage, while preferring or finding moral goodness in an earlier stage of development, or having no value judgement on it at all.
Meh. I don't know how I'm supposed to phrase that in a way which won't offend, but my gut is you don't care and you're just being needlessly argumentative and annoying.
Let's go with "people who've had less opportunity to try novel ingredients and flavors". Does that work for you rendaw?
>What I find more interesting is the amount of stereotypical spice and heat avoidance I've seen from white family and friends; an example of which I recently heard from a friend, “I don't add spice to my chili, since I know some people don't like that.”
>I'm genuinely confused by people who avoid adding additional flavour to their food.
I think there's a communication breakdown here. They're not saying they don't like flavorful food, they're saying they don't like spicy food. "Spicy" and "spice" are two different things, but are often used interchangeably by folk who aren't much into, or don't know much about, cooking. The comment your friend said should (I think, at least) be interpreted as, "I don't add spicy spices to my chili".
Now, I could be totally wrong, and you'll come back to confirm that your friend used absolutely no spices whatsoever, at which point... how does it even taste like chili? :)
EDIT: Cute anecdote; I have to use the word "seasoning" whenever cooking with my two year-old. If I say "spice", she immediately assumes it's gonna be "spicy" and begins to flip out lol.
Chili oil is like setting a 15 minute timer for me. Ten minutes in, my gut starts making terrible noise, and five minutes later, there's no chili oil in my system anymore.
Tastes delicious! But I learned a long time ago that it's an ingredient I need to avoid whenever I'm eating while on the run. Err, on the go.
On the flip side, I never understood the "coffee makes you poop" meme, but it's apparently a similar biological reality for a lot of people.
I know some coffee in the States has / used to have 160b (Annatto) in it. I react to any foods with much 160b. I generally shower afterwards as well for a clean butt and hell was being out on a few hour trip and eating a food I didn't recognize as being on the bad list.
Coffee sets a timer for me - if I had a decent amount of chili the night before, or at lunch with a coffee, the fun begins as they encourage each other.
It's not just something in coffee. I think it's psychological. I used to need to go after the first cup of the day, but now just pouring the coffee in the cup sends me to the bathroom before I even take a sip.
> I'm genuinely confused by people who avoid adding additional flavour to their food
It's not a flavour, it's just pain. You can experience capsaicin on any mucuous membrane of your body. Your tongue and lips just happen to usually be the most convenient ones, but you're not using your taste buds on capsaicin.
Nothing wrong with enjoying painful food. I like exciting my pain neurons too. But not everyone likes pain, while far more people enjoy flavour.
Adding spiciness is not adding pure capsaicin seasoning. Spicy peppers have flavor, but you don't taste it if all you can focus on is the pain. As tolerance to capsaicin grows, so does appreciation for the flavor underneath the heat.
Did you not read the parent comment? Literally the next words after your pull quote was "Heat avoidance I can understand". The comment was about non-heat generating spices.... you know, the things that add flavor without heat.
Or do you find "Rosemary, Basil, or Cumin" to be "painful"???
Otherwise, please do this community a favor and actually *READ* what others say before rushing in and disagreeing with people for something they didn't say.
I've been noticing it around social media lately. People are so aggressive with random strangers on the internet over the most harmless of things. Someone says "Hey I like the color blue" and the next thing people are insulting their mother. Its crazy. 50% of responses on sites like twitter regardless of the topic are just people calling the poster some variation of political insult. People dedicate their entire existence to hating people like Musk. I dont get it, why intentionally be angry all the time. What happened to civil conversation.
To be fair, reading your post I thought, "Was I projecting?" because I've definitely been guilty of purposely diving into a heated convo and doing what I can to keep it at that level. I even said as much in the middle of a heated HN discussion that I'm sure can be dug up, and I've abandoned commenting entirely a couple of times because I realized it in the moment.
It can, unfortunately, be an outlet for people who are dealing with some shit, and they might not realize it. Not saying that's what's up with OP, but I think it's why I've done it myself a time or two, despite usually being civil and open to a conversation.
I learned the hard way about the possibility space of spice perception. Covid killed my ability to tolerate spice. I used to eat spicy wings with abandon but now something as pedestrian as a fast food spicy chicken sandwich requires additional beverages to be tolerable.
Maybe a mild food allergy? I know someone who has that reaction to rosemary and another friend who has it from tomatoes. A simple skin test showed both to be an allergy vs palate issue. Could just be sensitive to spices but it is a fun thing to figure out.
I wondered this the first and only time I had a burrito at Chipotle. Turns out for all the years before that chain existed, Americans were just putting up with flavorful Mexican-American options, when what they really preferred was the most flavorless version possible.
It really depends on your raw material. If it is high quality & tasty then no spices are needed. You get a fresh bronzini from the Mediterranean, you don’t want to ruin it. You grill it, add just some olive oil, oregano and lemon and that’s it. Same for a grilled wagyu beef steak, a bit of salt and maybe some black pepper.
Now if you give me a piece of chicken, of course I will need a ton of spices to make it edible. Indians and the American south have found the best in my opinion (curry and cajun ftw).
If you want to experience a pepper rush with minimal topical pain and maximum enjoyment, buy/grow some fresh Carolina reapers and let them soak in a bottle of vodka or tequila for a couple of days. You can actually taste the pepper beyond the heat and still get a nice endorphin rush when you take a shot of it. It's also great for spicy margaritas
Baker Creek Seed Co (rareseeds.com) is my favorite place to order seeds from. Nice family run business with an absolutely massive selection of seeds. Free shipping.
We raised chickens when I was a kid, and I still raise meat animals today. When I was quite young, meaning no harm, I wrote the name of one of the chickens on the package, to the horror of my sisters. They promptly wrote the same name on all the packages. I've since learned a little more sympathy for people who fall more on the friend side of the friend/food continuum.
I wonder if we ever start to see application-specific biocomputing systems integrated into server farms, we might really start calling our servers "livestock".
When I get a really good spicy time going, I get a kind of tunnel vision and feel like I'm in an altered state. Space and time seem different.
I used to think I had no limits until I ate a Carolina Reaper whole. The pain in my mouth was tolerable, but it caused a stomach pain that felt like my gallbladder had returned, lasting for one absolutely hellish hour.
Yes sir! Good food makes you cry and weep. It is not mere nourishment but an experience dividing the mind and the senses. A test(taste) of your will. A committment to live now and today because tomorrow the ass will be decimated.
Good fried chicken is like a narcotic, it can just knock you out. The Boondocks have an episode about it called "The Itis" and the effect is very real.
Following extra spicy foods with a pint or two of milk neutralizes the post pyrotechnics, for me. If lactose intolerant, sugar works, but not as well(Perhaps in large/unhealthy quantity?). YMMV.
Edit: I always presumed the high after spicy food was endorphins.
Basically, as I understand it, capsaicin can be psychoactive in the same sense that, for example, running or BDSM can be psychoactive: an endorphin rush which can cause a feeling of euphoria.
The milk helps some, but in my experience on absolutely can blow past that point so that the next day you're getting the same tingles from the other end.
I've had one experience with smelling a bowl that had some mexican style dish with habaneros over it. Just the smell made me salivate so much I could feel it in the back of my mouth as a pleasurable anticipation.
Dave's Hot Chicken in SoCal uses carolina reapers to spice their most spicy fried chicken. I really couldn't finish more than 1/3 of it. I've no idea how people eat this and remain unhurt.
dave's doesn't seem to do so any longer, but makes you sign a "waiver" for the hottest spice levels now even though they've toned it down quite a bit at this point. howlin' rays (which dave's copied) still uses carolina reapers and is no joke with it's howlin' spice level.
I grew up in a family that ate spicy food on a regular basis. So much so that we had one case where the waiter, seeing children at the table, advised us against taking what we wanted, namely a pizza named "diablo".
I watched him as he waited to intervene a few steps from us, platter in hand. Eventually he gave up.
In any case my experience, after 30 years of eating spicy food, is that I apparently don't feel the usual effects people who like spicy food do.
What happens instead is that the spice forces me to eat slower and thus get more flavour out of the dish. After all, "spicy" is technically not a flavour, so it mixes well with just about anything.
I did have a period of gradually increasing the dose, though, at the end of which I discovered that capsaicin is also excreted through urine. It is not a pleasant experience.
Capsaicin receptors also get “used up” over periods of long exposure, so you become less sensitive to the sensation. It sounds like you’ve been exposed to it your whole life, so have simply adjusted to it.
If you abstained for an extended period of time (6 months?) that Diablo pizza would probably blow your head off.
I've noticed ie in India that long time exposure severely numbs all your taste buds, so folks end up over-salting, over-sweetening etc. which definitely goes in bad direction re long term health. Or one can accept that non-spicy foods taste very bland, which is rather sad world TBH.
Many ie french are like this, they politely refuse going extreme re chilli, but once you get to fine tastes of that cuisine that would be completely gone you understand them. And join them, even as Indian/curry food lover
I feel like the word "spice" is doing the work when we really mean "heat". There is a lot of variance in the spice used in India, and a lot of them can contribute to the feeling of heat or "spice" that Indian food is famous for outside. There are a lot of spices in Indian cuisine which are the primary sources of taste and character in dishes, while not necessarily being "hot".
>What happens instead is that the spice forces me to eat slower
Thats interesting. It is the opposite for me. When I get hit by spicy/hot I start shoveling more and more food into my mouth to lessen the hurt. Somehow I find air hitting insides of my mouth after some super-spicy food more painful than more of the same spicy food :p. I couldn't figure it out.
I find that food tastes bland without spice. I carry around capsicum powder for when eating out in case they don't take spice sincerely enough. Edit: handling ghost peppers easefully is my current tolerance level.
Someone attempted to argue with me that vanilla ice cream is "spicy" because vanilla is a spice. While pedantically true, that's not a person I'd ever want to eat dinner with.
But it is an annoying ambiguity in English. You would probably say that curry paste is spicy even it had no capsaicin, which does happen. People also mean "has spices" when they say "spicy". I have heard Russians use the word Russian word "bitter" to describe the pain sensation of capsaicin too.
I prefer the Spanish word "picante" - stingy. It stings, it causes pain. It's not a flavour like a spice would be.
The problem is that there just isn't a good English word to distinguish it, I have to explain every time that I don't mean flavour, I mean pain. (Russian also has this problem, ambiguity is in every natural language.)
I have heard older Soviet Russians use the word горко, but this was about ten years ago. They were trying to express that the food tasted bad and they really just called it bitter when they meant it had capsaicin.
I've found this distinction to be dialect-dependent. That is Indians tend to make a sharp distinction between spicy and hot, and Americans tend to treat spicy and hot as synonyms.
Spicy, as in "using chili peppers," meaning it has capsaicin gives a bit of a lie to this. You literally just add capsaicin to food to make it spicy in many places. Is how they can give a number score to how spicy to make it. Leaving out the capsaicin does not change the base flavor profile at all.
Now, it is confusing, as spiced food is typically not spiced with capsaicin. Rather, spiced food has traditional spices and is often not spicy. (Think spiced rum. Not "hot" at all.)
One of the most stupid and authoritarian laws to exist. Although, you don't hear of 13-year-olds doing random chemicals bought for a tenner from headshops and dying anymore. They're just sold as the more popular drugs.
The war on drugs is going about as well as Russia's war on Ukraine.
I personally support the legalisation of psychedelics so it's not a law I support, but I've always found it a very clear and fair piece of legislation, if one accepts that the government legislates within a certain framework of precedent.
If we take a look at countries like Germany or the Netherlands we see a cat and mouse game where each parliament outlaws the latest psychedelics and then the psychedelic community unveils their new analogue or precursor. We can mark the years by small additions to the basic LSD molecule. We've gone from 1p-LSD and 1cp-LSD to 1V-LSD and now onto 1B-LSD. The stimulants and dissociatives communies seems to favour flouride, it's easy to and doesn't bind to much.
The UK law bans anything sold primarily for inducing psychotropic effects, while the scheduled substances sections at the end add very fair provisions for items commonly sold as food. That's why it's actually an exaggeration to say the law could affect the spicy food trade, as food trades are one of the explicit exemptions.
>The UK law bans anything sold primarily for inducing psychotropic effects
You may have misread, but this is not correct. The act claims to ban substances that are _only_ used for their psychoactive effect. From the act:
"The act only captures substances which are solely for human consumption for their psychoactive effects."
I'll agree it's a given the number one reason for the use of cannabis is to get high, whatever that means. That said, it's also inarguable that pain relief is a significant and not uncommon reason to use weed also. I worked in a community in south America where a group of south american Mormons (yes, the ones who don't drink coffee) grew cannabis to produce a tincture for the treatment of arthritis pain. Research seems to agree (there needs to be more, it's a new subject for modern research) that it's a useful substance in pain management.
The UK psychoactive law is non-scientific and inconsistent, which is unfortunately common. Alcohol and nicotine have real psychoactive effects, and both are sold only for their effects, yet they are legal. The difference is an established power base controls one and not the other.
Cannabis wouldn't fall under this law, you're right. It's not intended to cover cannabis though, as that is already legislated for by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
This law was designed to combat so-called designer drugs and it has been successful in eradicating British production of these items, which mostly now takes place in the Netherlands, Germany and China
Tobacco and alcohol are also covered along with foodstuffs in the Schedules. They have long standing cultural acceptance and importance. The government does what it can do combat misuse of alcohol through taxes (along with minimum pricing in Scotland) and to combat the use of tobacco products through taxation and packaging/advertising restrictions.
What would a scientific version of the law look like in your mind? What are the inconsistencies?
Most US states don't remove the right to vote from a felon unless they are incarcerated or on parole (and many not even then). Employment discrimination is generally more of an issue than civil rights for felons, because almost noone supports hiring felons anywhere.
That link says nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, medicines, and anything that is a food is exempt. That would seem to include capsaicin, along with other stuff like Robitussin and nutmeg that can potentially be hallucinogenic if you megadose them.
“prohibited ingredient”, in relation to a substance, means any psychoactive substance—
(a) which is not naturally occurring in the substance, and
(b) the use of which in or on food is not authorised by an EU instrument.
So it sounds like Capsaicin produced naturally in things like hot peppers would be fine. But artificially produced Capsaicin added to food might not be.
As the original article notes it does appear to have a psychoactive effect beyond the sensation of burning pain (though if a sensation of pleasure is a psychoactive effect why wouldn't a sensation of pain be?).
I found additional sources going into the likely pharmacology of this effect:
> Namely, capsaicin and vanillin (and anandamide itself) are all agonists of the TRPV1 receptor, which stimulates production and release of endogenous anandamide. When mixed with N-linoleoylethanolamide and N-oleoylethanolamide from cacao, which inhibit anandamide breakdown, the levels of endogenous anandamide are augmented further. When breakdown of anandamide is inhibited pharmacologically or genetically, anandamide is able to produce a state of intoxication similar to tetrahydrocannabinol in rodents and nonhuman primates
Interesting, that does remind me of times that some people would experience a brief “glow” feeling after consuming a handful of “inferno” chicken wings.
Psychedelic shrooms are not ordinarily consumed "as food", though they are eaten. But they taste like ass and often cause nausea. The primary purpose is unambiguously to get high.
Also, psilocybin is probably still scheduled explicity from before the law was passed.
Robitussin (dextromethorphan) is now a prescription in several countries for its abuse potential, like codeine. It is a dissociative hallucinogen that can be abused, but it is generally considered a poor substitute to other substances like ketamine, rarely a first choice.
Nutmeg is a deliriant on really high doses, and most deliriants are not controlled substances, though they may be classified as poisons. The reason is that tripping on deliriants is generally considered unpleasant, and enough to turn people off quickly.
Turns out just about everybody, all around the world, loves authoritarian laws when they agree with the alleged goal, or when the psychological propaganda worked on them. If it's not the children, it's grandma, or someone else.
Turns out there are a small number of actual anti-authoritarians who have always been consistent. And then there are countless hangers-on who proclaim to be an anti-authoritarian resistance when it suits them. It's funny, the fact people co-opt it shows that they see it as a noble and worthy ideology, yet it's still one they're happy to discard the minute some talking head put on TV by a corporation tells them to be outraged.
I'd love to be put in contact with some of these true Scotsmen^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H anti-authoritarians. I need staunch moral support in my tireless, lonely fight against the soulless minions of orthodoxy who blithely kowtow to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 [0]. My perfectly fine produce deserves the embrace of the free market; it isn't up to some pencil-pusher in Washington to have the final say in how much lead there is in a tomato, it's between God, Man, and the Invisible Hand.
Are you one of the countless hangers-on who proclaim to be an anti-authoritarian resistance when it suits them?
I don't think a world where Yelp and the BBB managed the food safety ratings of restaurants would be a good one. That's a "solution", but is it a solution?
Besides, my tomatoes are certified safe by Nutr-Alert and SafeCo. SafeCo even lets me doctor the lab results myself, for a little extra! I'm still in negotiation with PureFood, but I'm sure this little speedbump will be ironed out before you know it. Iron is good for you, anyway; they don't even test for that.
>>>just about everybody, all around the world, loves authoritarian laws when they agree with the alleged goal, or when the psychological propaganda worked on them
You made a really strong claim in the post I'm quoting, and suggested that you are among those hardcore anti-authoritarians whom you lionize. But this is a real(ish) world example of that belief being challenged, and instead of explaining your principled stance, you're playin' around; you suggested you had "hit a nerve". Ah, right, I guess I'm just too emotional. Gotta stand up for what's right! No, not like that.
Of course I'm being facetious about my leaden tomatoes, but so too are you, and other readers of these words should think about how the "anti-authoritarians" actually practice their claimed stances, and where they don't.
You can make the argument for basically anything to be psychoactive then:
* good food
* alternating hyperventilation/slow breathing
* sex
* social interaction
* nervous breakdowns
We set up boundaries around what is "psychoactive" (like how some people do not consider alcohol to be a drug, or somehow different from other drugs), but fundamentally it's not like the brain isn't constantly drugging itself anyway. If your brain is not changing at all, how do you even experience something?
I have a similar difficulty with the definition of "drug" itself, which is "a substance that has a physiological effect when introduced to the body". Literally anything that participates in physics is a "drug".
Brassica plants, taste and smell, make me physically nauseous. I theorize that this is a genetic disposition.
Asparagus makes your urine smell of fresh mown grass, except that mine doesn't, and I cannot detect that odour in another person's urine after they have ate asparagus. We... uh... ran some experiments to determine this. I theorized for a few years that this was a genetic thing, and sure enough, research published recently (in the past three years) bears this out.
My wife thinks that cilantro tastes of soap. And I theorized this is a genetic disposition. Research in the past few years bears this out. But cilantro to me, is a mild hallucinogenic and also a skin irritant. Which I theorized was a genetic response. And sure enough, in the past few years, research indicates that cilantro on certain people can act as an hallucinogenic. I have gained an appreciation for Mexican food more so of late.
Here, we present the results of a genome-wide association study among 14,604 participants of European ancestry who reported whether cilantro tasted soapy, with replication in a distinct set of 11,851 participants who declared whether they liked cilantro. We find a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) significantly associated with soapy-taste detection that is confirmed in the cilantro preference group. This SNP, rs72921001 (p = 6.4 × 10−9, odds ratio 0.81 per A allele), lies within a cluster of olfactory receptor genes on chromosome 11. Among these olfactory receptor genes is OR6A2, which has a high binding specificity for several of the aldehydes that give cilantro its characteristic odor. We also estimate the heritability of cilantro soapy-taste detection in our cohort, showing that the heritability tagged by common SNPs is low, about 0.087.
What was interesting is that, until I was dating my future wife, in 2008, I didn't know of anyone who thought that cilantro tasted like soap. A friend several years before mentioned that some people find that cilantro tastes of soap. As I was aware of my reaction to cilantro from years earlier, and then meeting my future wife who thinks cilantro tastes soapy, like all good science I was like "huh, that's odd, based on these two polar opposite reactions I wonder if there is a genetic component to it." And I did some digging, and signed up to answer some questions and do a blood test, and a few years later, there was a study published. My wife is from Indiana, 2nd generation immigrant, of Italian descent. I am Welsh whose ancestry in that country goes back at least 12 generations with no outside mixing, or so I am told.
Not to belittle you or anything but have we not known all of that for a lot longer than a few years? I remember as a child 25+ years ago being told about the cilantro and asparagus thing (being genetic). Although I suppose that could have just been common knowledge and not proven.
Yes, it has been noted for probably longer than I have been alive. It is only in the past decade they found the cause for this. Common knowledge, but not proven, as you say.
Cilantro contains thujone which is a neurotoxin, the same as found in absinthe. So I'm kinda like a dolphin using a puffer fish to get high. There are various studies in this compound, and others, and it is a controlled compound regulated by the EU.
I have independent verification by friends who are scientists and medical doctors at one gathering who have conducted observations that my pupils dilate, my eyes become bloodshot and, in the words of one observer, "I become more whoo-whoo. Whooo! Whoooooooo!" whatever that means. As my normal demeanour flips between "I don't want to be around people, you're all so tiring, I just want to be quiet" and a hyperactive Robin Williams amped up on caffeine and sugar, I am guessing I become even more "Whoooo! Whooooooooooooo! Let's par-tehhh!" I am probably over-compensating for something. The video recordings are cringeworthy.
We've done independent blind tests of "is this psychosomatic" or do I truly have a reaction. Multiple blind tests of a single subject (me) by multiple qualified observers over the course of several days do indeed bear out that I have an unintended reaction to cilantro, the oils from cilantro and the active ingredients in cilantro. Direct contact of the cilantro on my skin makes my skin itch and become red and bumpy. When I imbibe even small amounts of cilantro, no more than you would get in a standard serving with a meal, to me, it feels like I am drunk and whoozy for about 20 or so minutes before the effects pass. Again, to reiterate, I suspect my extreme reaction to cilantro is genetic and gives me a sensitivity and reaction that most of the population doesn't have, much like some of the population also detects cilantro tasting of soap. Though I suspect these are very different genetic markers.
Very interesting. What you describe sounds consistent with thujone from my experiences with absinthe and thuja leaf (though with significantly greater amplitude of effect). The flips to quiet are perhaps a bit uncharacteristic.
Could be interesting (if so inclined) to try chewing on sprig of Thuja cedar - it has very high thujone content, so could confirm that thujone is the active chemical causing this effect.
You didn't mention any hallucinatory symptoms. If you eat cilantro before laying down in a dark room and closing your eyes, do you get hypnogogic imagery (dreamlike visualizations experienced before falling asleep)? I think thujone can promote that for me a bit, but I'm not very thujone sensitive.
I hadn't thought about thujone sensitivity being so variable between people: certainly an interesting lens to view the historical popularity of absinthe.
Almost everything is genetic, so no surprises there. Cilantro has always tasted like soap to me. As a kid, I couldn't really even be in the same room with the herb. However, my wife frequently makes me eat it because she likes it. As a result of frequent exposure, I no longer find the taste offensive. I guess the point is this: there may be a genetic component to whether or not cilantro tastes like soap, but it may also be possible to learn to like the taste of soap.
I have had this reaction to cilantro as well. It was very fun and enjoyable. The odd thing is that it's only happened once, with freshly picked cilantro from my garden. I haven't been able to reproduce the effect, although I would like to. I didn't know about this feature of the plant, so thanks for posting.
> Then, while there is still some residual burning sensation remaining, the flush of endorphins gives this blissful, albeit a bit drunk, state (“Live is beautiful, I love you all, awesome…”).
Or, as they say in German, "es ist schön, wenn der Schmerz nachlässt" (it's great when the pain goes away). Then again, you also wouldn't intentionally hit your finger with a hammer to experience this feeling - so my approach to spicy food is "know your limit": I enjoy it in moderate amounts, but keep away from the kind of spicyness where after a few bites you feel like your mouth is on fire and you can't taste the food anymore...
I think there are two different states when the pain goes away - relief and euphory.
These can be mistaken occasionally - as in the Rabbi and the goat joke/parable. But in most cases, it is clear if a state would be desirable if there were no discomfort before. (As a side note, it is why I am skeptical about people praising the Kambo ceremony - taking a frog poison.)
Ad hammer - I mention that in another blog post (curious if you refer to this or if it is a nice coincidence). In any case, there is a difference if something is only a temporary discomfort or causes long-term harm. Instead of using a hammer, one can get spanked or (safely) flogged.
I learned a little jingle growing up that my mom passed down from her mother, and presumably some even older source, but I can't find it with a quick Google.
Your body can react to the pain excitation in some slightly harmful ways, such as diarrhea, overproduction of mucus, altered digestion, etc.
True, the capsaicin itself doesn't harm your body, but the pain can in itself cause some slight damage (and like any drug, an overdose of capsaicin can be very dangerous).
At the very least you will get "burnt" a second time when the capsaicin leaves your body again. Maybe there are people who also like this sensation, but I for one could do without it...
The combination of spicy and numbing that the Chinese call málà is particularly mind bending. The tingly numbing enhances the spice which enhances the tingly numbing. A proper Sichuan hot pot is practically a drug (and indeed in some cases people have been known to use poppy in the broth, at least according to Fuchsia Dunlop).
It plays hell on all of the mucous membranes it comes into contact with, stomach and intestines included. I'm not sure if it can give you an ulcer, but in my experience, if you've already got one, it can be debilitatingly painful.
> The most common causes of peptic ulcers are infection with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) and long-term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, others) and naproxen sodium (Aleve). Stress and spicy foods do not cause peptic ulcers.
I used to adore spicy food and about 4/5 Thai spicy was my jam. But sometime in my late-20s my body decided it didn't like it anymore and now if I so much as smell a pathetic jalapeño I have to run to the bathroom. I can eat a couple pickled peppers and get away with it but even "mild+" at whatever Asian establishment is too much.
I'm not sure that's how I perceive capsaicin myself; but the guy who bred the Carolina Reaper is a recovering addict (in the usual sense, street drugs and alcohol), and he certainly describes his creations in similar terms:
I live down the road from the NMSU Chile Pepper Institute, so I’ve eaten many hot things. While I can’t grow anything, I have friends and family that have purchased seeds from their store and tried growing many varieties of Chile peppers. I have found the how it is grown has as much impact on hotness as the plant itself (in my experience). A friend grew some Ghost peppers (Bhut Jolokia), supposedly one of the hottest peppers, but it really wasn’t too hot. I wonder if over watering, like with wine grapes, dilutes the “flavor”?
Yep, that's exactly it! Overwatering really seems to reduce the amount of heat each pepper contains. It's known in Chilli growing circles to only water your plants right on the "edge" of when they next need it, basically letting them 90% dry out before you re-water, this is to retain maximum heat in the pods, and to stop the plants from becoming oxygen starved.
I love chilli, and have ever since I was a kid. I don't particularly enjoy novelty heat levels though, it's got to complement the food your eating in a balanced way. I find the Ghost/Bhut Jolokia to basically be on the good side of that threshold, anything over a Ghost I find is simply too overpowering.
I was young and in a pretty ropey state of mind, living in a drab town in the Midlands in the sleety grey winter. A friend had tried it before which is where I got the idea. It tasted nasty and bitter, unsurprisingly for something you use by the pinch.
Within an hour or two I became unpleasantly high, which made me regret what I'd done and worry myself into a classic bad trip state. It lasted for a long time, don't remember much of the evening, went to bed, couldn't sleep, missed an awards ceremony.
Next three days I was like a zombie - heart racing even sitting still, cotton-mouth, trouble stringing words together. Along with galloping shame and self-loathing.
To this day my friends give me shit me about it, whenever nutmeg is mentioned. I count myself lucky that it wasn't worse and that I still have friends from that time.
Just no, capsaicin doesn't make it into the brain to do chemical changes there, which I think is what one typically means by psychoactive. By the authors' definition sugar and salt would also be psychoactive substances, and hitting your foot with a hammer would qualify as a psychoactive experience.
I’m not sure it’s directly psychoactive as he stated in the post, it does agonise the TRPV1 receptor; but that doesn’t directly create a sense euphoria. When agonised it triggers the production of endogenous anandamides and those anandamides bind to the CB1 receptor which is responsible for euphoric feelings.
Vanillin does the same thing. So does dancing and some forms of yoga.
But foods like cacao (or significantly dark chocolate) directly contain anandamides which cause euphoria.
Cacao also has re-uptake inhibitors that make the euphoric feeling last a lot longer. This is why ancient civilisations like the Olmecs, Aztecs, and Mayans would mix drinks of cacao, vanilla, and capsaicin. And modern Mexican chocolate often mixes in pepper. Without Cacao the anandamide induced euphoria is very short lived.
Does still-active capsaicin taken orally enter the body and affect vanilloid receptors systemically to a significant extent though?
Seems like if it's just about the ability to trigger a signal at the peripheral side of some sensory nerves, that's quite a bit of stretch to "psychoactive substance", to the point that the same argument applies to e.g. photons.
I ate a Carolina Reaper pepper. Once. It's the not spice that got me, it wasn't that bad. It's the aftermath of feeling like complete shit hours later that ruined it for me. My stomach hurt a lot, and while this is probably TMI, even my urine was spicy. Now I just stick to the normal flavorful spicy stuff, no more stupid spicy.
Yes. I didn't want to mention nutmeg because I really, really would not recommend anyone try it. It's dangerous and it's a bad high, I've tried. My dosage was subhallucinogenic but felt like being stoned, except I also had intense muscle cramps that made the whole thing a terrible time.
And as a hallucinogen it's a deliriant which means you could literally run into traffic thinking you're taking a stroll through a beautiful forest(this is an actual deliriant trip report that exists btw, though the drug was datura).
Thanks for the further context. I have heard about its bad effects as well, but amazingly (or maybe rather unfortunately?) I never experienced such negative side effects. I guess it sounds like I was more in the subhallucinogenic dosage like yours, where I felt stoned, but did not have any cramps. Mostly just felt dehydrated later.
It's not even hot in the normal sense. It doesn't burn your mouth. But swallow an eyedropper of it, and you are in for an hour long ordeal. Milk and water does nothing. Your entire body will tingle and sweat, and you will feel confused and disoriented like a high dosage of antihistamines. It completely changed my conception of what capsaicin can do to you.
Honestly, I have eaten some insanely hot peppers and sauce. The whole "coming out" thing is not really a problem for me. What is a problem, is that I have some acid reflux issues, and if I'm not careful about when I eat spicy food and when I go to bed, and neglect to take either an antacid or drink some milk/eat some yogurt after a session of very spicy food, I can end up in severe pain.
Does this mean I'm eating large quantities of psychoactive substance since childhood? For context, I'm from southern part of India where some of spiciest food in all of India is part of day to day food. I eat pickles fairly regularly and can't go more than a week without eating "that" spice.
The sayings from previous generations are more spice = more anger. I wonder if that's related.
I’m not convinced about “psychoactive” but the Carolina Reaper sauce I have dies give me this fuzzy, tingling sensation all over my face that feels really good. Though maybe the reason I’m conditioned to like it so much is the only other time I get that same sensation is from sex. Hot sauce, as good as sex.
I recently learned that there was basically no spicy-hot food in the Old World before Columbus. Apparently Indian black pepper, or something called long pepper which has a little more kick, were the hottest spices around.
Can anyone confirm or deny this? The internet seems to agree. It still seems crazy to me.
I can confirm that chili (and bell) peppers are new-world plants. They got the name "pepper" as an analogy to the main source of spiciness, black-pepper, which is from an old-world plant.
In fact I believe the only nightshade used as food in the old-word was the Eggplant, with potatoes and tomatoes also being new-world.
So prior to 1492, there was no tomato in Italian food and no chili in Thai food.
Old-world food was a hell of a lot more boring before the Columbian exchange. It transformed food so much that most of what we think of as "traditional" cuisines in various old-world countries or regions are largely products of the 16th century or later.
The exchange also cut the rate and severity of previously-regular famines dramatically, enabling a huge population boom and economic expansion (see: Mann's 1493). Mainly due to maize and potatoes, maize being incredibly efficient on a calories-per-acre basis, and potatoes being stupid-easy to grow almost anywhere, having decent caloric content and not-bad nutrient profile (gotta eat the skin, though) and being easy to store for the medium-term to cover gaps when other crops fail (you just... leave them in the ground)
> Old-world food was a hell of a lot more boring before the Columbian exchange.
Turnips. It was mostly wheat, barley, and rice with a side of turnips. Not the modern turnip that’s been through 20th century breeding for some semblance of flavor, mind, but an “heirloom” variety that is even more boring than turnips are now. The only flavor worth mentioning was in the leafy parts.
"It's not even the same sport" - Jules from Pulp Fiction. /s
Allyl isothiocyanateallyl isothiocyanateAllyl isothiocyanate (AITC) is the organosulfur compound with the formula CH2CHCH2NCS that gives horseradish its unique flavor.
Do our eyeballs have vanilloid receptors? Why does it irritate our eyes if the full effect comes from taste bud neurotransmitters? I think capsaicin must be doing some other work as an irritant beyond the specific receptor.
TRPV1 is the receptor that mediates irritation. It's not actually a taste receptor. It's expressed all over the place, probably the eyes too. The fact it's also in the mouth and associated with spicy food leads to the common misconception that it's a taste receptor.
I can't wait till the western world capitalizes on numbing spice like pink pepper the way the east does. Folks love to focus on capsaicin, but it's just one piece of the puzzle.
Yellow rice mixed with scotch bonnet hot sauce and grilled chicken breast marinated in spicy bbq sauce is my favorite food on earth. I can eat it for lunch and dinner.
Eating super spicy food definitely leaves me feeling kind of drunk.
Have met others who have this and others who doesnt believe me/think Im exaggerating.
Having Crazy Wings in Melbourne for the first time, and I was seriously tripping. It felt like an Out of Body Experience and time felt like it slowed down
That could be really good. There's a Mexican salsa that's just habanero and red onion, either finely diced or pureed. Surprisingly tasty and not nearly as fire-y as you'd expect. (I think traditional? Learned it from some Mexican friends so don't really know how common it is)
Now that you mention it, once in Santa Fe (NM) I had a great dinner in a Tex-Mex... I felt the conversation went wild due to some substance --- I suspected thc --- but this really rings only a partial bell... why I never felt it so strong in Asia, where I consumed more capsaicin?
I remember vividly when Flamin' Hot Cheetos came out (where I lived) and the ruckus they caused at my middle school. We inexplicably had vending machines full of junk food in the main lobby and kids would line up to empty the machines within minutes of lunch hour starting since, at the least, they only turned them on at lunch. They were eventually banned because some administrator discovered that kids were getting "high" from them, and replaced with regular Cheetos. Good job.
