Do you love spicy food? Are you always gobbling down the next hot chip, or seeking out new fiery foods to try? Love for spice is actually a trait unique to the human experience. Our propensity for spice is an anomaly in the animal kingdom. The spiciness we taste when we eat foods like chilies or curries is caused by the triggering of receptors in our mouth called TRPV-1 receptors. These TRPV-1 receptors send a signal to our brain letting us know how to react to certain triggers. The TRPV-1 receptor tells your brain that your mouth is literally on fire. That is why your mouth will feel like it is burning and you may start to sweat after eating spicy food. Your brain thinks your mouth is literally on fire! This TRPV-1 reaction leads all other animals to stay away from spicy peppers. The only other animals that also eat these spicy plants are birds, who don’t have the TRPV-1 receptors at all, and therefore taste no spiciness when eating the plant. Why humans eat these plants then, is a nuanced question, one that we might look to history to answer.
The history of spice and its use in food is complex. Tradition and evolution have both affected the way spices have been used and the ways they are used today. In general, countries closer to the equator use more spice in their food than those further from the equator. One theory for why this is the case, is the antibacterial qualities of many spices that are used in those regions close to the equator. Before fridges, food spoilage was a huge issue especially in hotter climates, where food goes bad faster. Spices reduce the amount of dangerous bacteria living on food, by inhibiting bacterial growth. These spices were probably not implemented because their users knew they could kill bacteria, but those who did use the spices were less likely to get sick and die, and were therefore able to pass down their food traditions like the spices they added to their food.
Now that it is more clear why people used to eat spicy food one may ask why we still eat spicy food. We have refrigerators, and other ways to keep food edible for longer periods of time. Spice should no longer be needed. As Erez Yoeli and Moshe Hoffman, research scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology and MIT's Sloan School of Management, stated, the continued use of spice is not because of one specific reason, but many. Spice at this point has become a tradition. People who grew up eating spicy food also have a tolerance for it, and are used to eating their food with many spices. If this is the case, foods that are not spicy might often be considered bland, and food with more spices just plain tastier. This is why spice endures.
In the end, many people like spicy food regardless of the reasons humans started to seek it out. Just remember next time you have that bowl of spicy ramen that you are eating a food flavored with an ingredient that has saved thousands of human lives and is rooted in millennia of culture.
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