Does spicy food make you sweat? If so, why?

[mcarbone]

During the recent heat wave, the question of why countries with hotter climates tend to have spicier foods came up among my roommates and I. One controversial theory that I’ve read is that spicy foods makes you perspire and thus cools you down, but one of my roommates swears that spices don’t make him sweat. Why do the hotter countries have spicier foods? And do spices even make one perspire?

[Tequila_Mockingbird]

Found a neat article here that says basically in hotter climates food will spoil faster. So we started using spices to fight the microorganisms. Not sure about the sweating thing, though this article did mention it in passing. Personally I like to set my barbeque sauces on fire with a few habenero peppers and enjoy at least two beers with my rack of ribs. If I’m not sweating, it’s not barbeque.

[Gozu_Tashoya]

The way I understand it, not only do spices and vinegar (featured widely in Cuban and Filipino food) help retard spoilage, but that it also helps people from noticing when their food has gone bad. Not all the way “you’re going to get deathly ill from it” bad, mind you, but just that first “not so fresh” stage. 'Course, I have no cites for this, so take it with, ahem, a grain of salt.

[Turbo_Dog]

As far as why hot climates have hot foods, I’d say it’s because that is where the peppers are pretty much indigenous. You think the Irish were sunsabitches about potatoes? No, they just grew very well there, didn’t take a lot of money to grow them, so that’s what they ate.

For the sweating part, yes, if you eat something spicy enough, you’ll sweat. I’m just taking a WAG here but I’d say that the reason is because spicy food is somewhat of an irritant, like pain or stress. Start munching a habanero and your body goes apecrap and you sweat, your nose runs, your eyes water, you swear a lot and jump up and down to help relieve it. And eating chilis will cool you down. I’ve heard many times the same thing that you have and it does work. The jury is out though on whether it’s from the extra sweat or if when your mouth is on fire and the veins in your forehead are throbbing, that you just don’t give a darn that it’s 115 degrees at the moment;)

[kinoons]

I’ve lived in NM for 20 years, so I’ve become very acustom to spicy hot foods. What the majority of the population (even locally) finds hot I find plesently flavored. When I do find something that is very hot I dont often sweat, but I do feel my sinuses clear and occasionally get a little nasal drip.

As far as why, Green and Red Chile grows here very well, and its a staple crop of New Mexico

[Shiva]

*Originally posted by Turbo Dog *
As far as why hot climates have hot foods, I’d say it’s because that is where the peppers are pretty much indigenous. You think the Irish were sunsabitches about potatoes? No, they just grew very well there, didn’t take a lot of money to grow them, so that’s what they ate.

No culture I know of relies on Capsicum to provide a majority of their calories.

By the 1800s, Irish peasants were eating a daily average of 10 potatoes per person. The potatoes supplied about 80% of the calories in their diet. The peasants used potato fodder to feed their animals, animals which provided milk, meat and eggs to supplement the peasants’ diet. This dependence on one food crop was dangerous, but no other crop had ever proved to be as reliable.

http://www.sunspiced.com/phistory.html

‘Hot’ foods are popular in hot climates for the two reasons already covered.

Potatoes and Peppers are both Solanaceous crops. The selection of certain traits deemed desirable by mountain dwelling Amero Indians and the totally different choices made by their tropical cousins has resulted in the two very different foods we enjoy today.

In other words, man has molded these two plants to meet his needs, not vice versa.

[evilhanz]

Welcome to the Straight Dope!

Interestingly, Capsaicin, the active ingredient in many spicy foods has some remarkable and well-documented health benefits including lowering blood pressure, reducing choloesterol, and increasing metabolism. One interesting side-effect is that this oil tricks the nerve endings in your mouth into thinking that it is burning. The result? You brain triggers several cooling mechanisms including increased circulation which causes your skin to flush, and sweating. Search the SDMB archives and Google for details on both aspects.

Your friend’s body probably cools very efficiently or has a well-develoepd tolerance.

[mcarbone]

Thanks everyone. evilhanz, what you said makes sense but i’ve been unable to find anything on it on google - anyone have a link (that’s not the cornell research - thanks for that). About my roommate, he actually sweats a lot more than the usual person - I wonder if that’s a sign of a very efficient cooling system.

[evilhanz]

It’s all in your search terms, try “capsaicin effects” or “spicy food health benefits”. Here is one example of many that describe its physiological effects.

Capsaicin stimulates receptor sites known as vanniloid receptors (VR1) in sensory nerves called nociceptors, which specialize in sensing pain. These are exactly the same receptors that the body employs to perceive heat discomfort, and that is why stimulating them by eating capsaicin-containing peppers makes our tongues feel like they are burning even if the pepper is cold.

From another:

Capsaicin causes the watery eyes and runny nose, the sweating and burning, and the thirst you experience when eating the hot food. The chemical stimulates pain receptors all along the digestive tract. But capsaicin not only stimulates pain receptors, it also appears to block transmission of some pain signals. This might explain, in part, why people get accustomed to hot foods and can tolerate increasingly hotter dishes

[mcarbone]

You are right - it’s all in the search terms. I’ve got a handle on it now…