Current Events > drinking water helps minimize spiciness of foods

(+) Yeah! (+)

it's kind of bizarre how people think water makes it WORSE. it's like they are trying to be "that guy" who is woke to the truth.

is milk better? sure. but i eat spicy food, i drink water, and it helps.

case closed my babies!!

---

I eat spicy food, so you're bad, and wrong, and probably smelly.
---

i always thought so

bloodydeath0 posted...

it's kind of bizarre how people think water makes it WORSE

Couldn't be more opposite of my experience. Water and milk were always the go tos. I use to eat hot stuff as a kid to put on a show
---

sounds like spicy to you is sriracha. obviously the hotter the food or sauce the less likely it is for water to work because it just spreads the oil around your mouth. For some foods you'd need to drink like a gallon of water at once to help it dissipate. For not so spicy "spicy foods" there's less of that to spread so enough water can get it all out of your mouth fairly quick.

---

I drink bread instead.

*sips bread*

---

TheVipaGTS posted...

sounds like spicy to you is sriracha. obviously the hotter the food or sauce the less likely it is for water to work because it just spreads the oil around your mouth. For not so spicy "spicy foods" there's less of that to spread so enough water can get it all out of your mouth fairly quick.

Interesting. I was just making it worse on myself as a kid then
---

Water doesn't do much except spread it around the mouth. It may not necessarily make it worse, but it's not gonna make it better either.
---

This is another one of those things that people say even though they're very easy to disprove, like that nonsense about microwaves cooking food from the inside out.

Hey why don't you try actually putting something in the microwave? Guess what, it's still frozen in the middle.
---

Try doing that with a bag of Paqui's chips

Nope. Ive been eating spicy food since I was a young boy and I regularly put ghost pepper sauce on my food at the least if I want some spice. Whenever it got tough, milk was better. Whereas water only temporarily brought relief before it came back a little stronger. If it did work for you, youd probably have to drink a lot more water than you would milk.
---

Guide posted...

I eat spicy food, so you're bad, and wrong, and probably smelly.

only the last one is true

---

what if you swallow the water instead of swishing it around in your mouth so instead of the spiciness spreading around your mouth it just goes down into your stomach instead
---

ThyCorndog posted...

what if you swallow the water instead of swishing it around in your mouth so instead of the spiciness spreading around your mouth it just goes down into your stomach instead

my intestines are still in decent shape so this doesn't bother me

---

ThyCorndog posted...

what if you swallow the water instead of swishing it around in your mouth so instead of the spiciness spreading around your mouth it just goes down into your stomach instead

Even if I swished my water around, I can swish the milk around just fine and still get rid of the spice. Besides, the short amount of time the water is in your mouth still spreads it in your mouth more than milk would.
I'm sure water helps, but you'd have to drink so much for it to have an effect on the spicier stuff compared to milk. At that point, why not milk?
---

You guys are making me want milk
---

My experience is that milk and water both provide relief as they hit your tongue, but once off, the pain seems to come back with a vengeance.

Really the best way is to build tolerance. My experience (as an extreme spicy food fanatic) is that you can build a really strong tolerance in approx one to two weeks. You can also lose it with the same time period. So say you start off with some ghost pepper sauce. First time you eat it, prepare for your tongue to be stabbed with a bunch of tiny needles over and over, and tears. But eat it every day for 4-5 days, you can tolerate decent amounts of it no problem. Eating raw chillis, seranos etc with certain dishes on the side, easy peasy.

But then you stop eating spicy for two weeks and come back, a jalapeno will cause you much pain, you have to start over.

EverDownward posted...

You guys are making me want milk

it's the lactose intolerance. we poop too much then we get tired.
---

In the most simplest terms, a Scolville unit is a measure of how many units of water it takes to dilute or neutralize capsaicin oil. That's why, depending on how many units the sauce is, water can make it worse unless you drink TONS of it. Oil and water don't mix. With milk, its the creaminess of it that helps. Its thicker it coats the mouth longer and keeps the oil from touching your raw mouth. Once that dissipates the heat will probably come back but if you keep drinking it and keeping your mouth coated until the oils leave your mouth on their own it will help more than water. Theoretically, pure cream would be better than just Milk. Also fat free or low fat milk won't help as much as full fat milk.

---

TheVipaGTS posted...

In the most simplest terms, a Scoville unit is a measure of how many units of water it takes to dilute or neutralize capsaicin oil.

interesting. i didn't know this.

also i've seen people have ice cream on deck when eating spicy foods which i'm all for

---