Why does our tolerance for seriously spicy food increase as we grow into adulthood?
Our taste-buds are the same as they were when we were children, and yet our ability (or even desire) to ingest chillis, tabasco, <insert spicey food of choice> changes. Is there a physiological basis for this shift?
(Yes, I’m sure you were the heroic child who ate raw chilli peppers pickled in hot sauce while blindfolded and with your right hand tied behind you back, and you didn’t just not flinch, you even begged for more like Oliver Twist. I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about average kids.)
In general, kids like boring, bland food (not just non-spicy). We used to get the best bleu cheese from Clemson when I was a kid and I thought it was sooo nasty - now I’d be so thrilled!
Isn’t just tastes either - when I was a child fireworks were so loud I had to cover my ears; it was literally painful for me to hear them. Now they’re not too loud at all. Is that the same sort of thing as the taste thing? I’m sure my hearing has just gotten less acute, as a result of decades of loud music, fireworks, sirens, etc.
(As a child, I did order plates of lemon wedges and pickles at restaurants. The waitstaff would stand around watching me eat them and laugh. But I didn’t like hot things, or “grown-up tastes”, like aged cheeses or coffee or whatever. I did like beer, though. I still don’t like coffee.)
Also, is there a reason that when people get older (middle age and beyond) they become less able to tolerate hot foods, or greasy foods, or even unfamiliar foods, or whatever? My parents’ stomachs are a million times more sensitive than mine - why is that? I don’t think they always were…
children tend to like familiar food. And bland, not-very-spicy food. (Which is what they started with, as babies.) Only as they get older do they start to become willing to ‘experiment’ with new, different tastes.
in older people, the taste buds seem to become less sensitive. Thus people will want increased amounts of spices (and salt) on their food as they grow older.
Yes, pain receptors are invovled to one degree or another with hot and spicy foods.
Yes, our taste buds become less sensitive with age, just like our other senses.
There is probably an aspect of aquired tolerance at work - if you went on a very bland diet for awhile, then resumed eating very spicey foods suddenly they would probably seem hotter than before, at least for awhile.
I’ve seen speculation that there is some instinctive avoidance going on - children avoid certain bitter or strong-tasting foods that, coincidently, contain substances that in very high amounts can damage growing and developing cells. Pregnant women also can develop strong aversions to hot, spicey, or strong flavored foods. This may be a factor in morning sickness, where the body attempts to rid itself of substances that might harm a developing fetus. Anyhow, many of these same chemicals are much less risky for adults, and may even have some health benefits at that point of the life cycle.