Posted November 16, 2004 by Nick Lindauer in Peppers
 
 

Warning: Jalapenos are about 5K-50K Scoville Units hot; red savinas are about 300K-500K S. U. hot.


The hot sensation will (start to) go away on its own in 10 to 30
minutes, depending on your unique individualness. It takes about 3
months of daily chile eating to build up a decent tolerance to the
capsaicins <= the hot of chiles. (Let your tolerance lapse and even mild hot sauce will be "strike" you as mildly hot.) Capsaicins are soluble in alcohol and lipids (oils or fats), but not water. So booze is sort of ok for pain relief, but milk, cheese and cream have the requisite lipids AND also, their casein protein is attracted to the same pain receptors as the capsaicins. So after the capsaicin is lifted off the pain receptors by dissolving into the lipids, the casein blocks some of the pain receptor sites so the dissolved capsaicins cannot re-attack. (I prefer vanilla Haagen-Dazs.)


Nick Lindauer

 
The Original Hot Sauce Blog