Name: Why Hot Peppers Set Your Mouth on Fire
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How does a chili pepper make your mouth feel like its on fire? When you eat peppers, capsaicin molecules fit into the heat pain receptors of your mouth, sending a false signal to your brain that's identical to the one it would receive if you ate something literally burning hot.

The chemical that makes chili peppers so hot evolved to keep animals from eating the plants.

Why Hot Peppers Set Your Mouth on Fire

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How does a chili pepper make your mouth feel like its on fire? When you eat peppers, capsaicin molecules fit into the heat pain receptors of your mouth, sending a false signal to your brain that's identical to the one it would receive if you ate something literally burning hot.

The chemical that makes chili peppers so hot evolved to keep animals from eating the plants, but humans have learned to like the sensation.

The chemical that makes chili peppers so hot evolved to keep animals from eating the plants, but humans have learned to like the sensation.

Body & Brain

Why Hot Peppers Set Your Mouth on FirePublished: December 20, 2024David Pogue: Here at the Berks Pepper Jam in Bethel, Pennsylvania.Speaker 2: Smell that. Mm!David Pogue: An annual festival of food, entertainment and contests, all centered on chili peppers.Woo! Bring it on!Speaker 3: We begin our contest with the long hots. Let's turn up the heat. Eat!David Pogue: And we're off.Zesty with just a hint of poison.Speaker 3: Round two. We're going to start with the Red Fresno pepper.Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat!David Pogue: Got to be some easier way to learn about molecules.Speaker 3: All right. Are we ready? Eat!David Pogue: That was not designed for human consumption.Speaker 3: Round number four, habanero peppers.Eat! Eat! Eat!David Pogue: It hurts my body. I didn't know I had are on fire.Speaker 3: 10 more seconds. You got this.David Pogue: I can't.Speaker 3: No! No! Don't do it! No!The Orange Copenhagen pepper. Eat!David Pogue: What am I doing? Oh, man. Oh my god.Speaker 3: Don't do it!David Pogue: I want it.Cheers!Speaker 3: No!David Pogue: So I'm the first to fall. How does a pepper's capsaicin convince my mouth it's on fire?Not recommended.I think I'll find the answer here at Penn State University's Department of Food Science.John Hayes: We all study food. So you have psychologists and microbiologists and engineers.David Pogue: I'm here to see John Hayes. He knows a thing or two about the active ingredients in these.John Hayes: So when you went and tasted them, what did you experience?David Pogue: Oh, man. My gut twisted, my tongue burned, my flesh burned, I cried. I got red, my nose ran.It's like putting your tongue on the stove and leaving it there.John Hayes: That was an aversive response. This plant has evolved a chemical called capsaicin and the reason it makes that is to keep animals from eating the chili pepper.David Pogue: Oh, man. The chili festival people never got that message. And we're just a really stupid species?John Hayes: Exactly. We're one of the only species that learns to like that sensation.David Pogue: Ultimately, pepper plants are playing a pretty good trick on humans as well. Capsaicin really is a key ingredient. It has a long spindly tail attached to a ring.John Hayes: That ring end fits into a specific receptor that's expressed all over your body.David Pogue: That's just our tongue.John Hayes: Not just your tongue.David Pogue: Oh, man.John Hayes: This receptor, this lock, is actually a heat pain sensor.David Pogue: Normally, the receptor called TRPV1, activates when it in contact with something over 106 degrees. The result is a pain message to the brain.Ouch! Something's hot!John Hayes: It's a warning signal to tell your body danger.David Pogue: And here's the tricky part. When you eat peppers, those capsaicin keys fit into the heat pain receptors in your mouth, altering their sensitivity.John Hayes: So what the capsaicin does is it fits into this molecular thermometer and it lowers the temperature at which it activates it.David Pogue: Like a changed thermostat, they now activate at body temperature, sending a false signal that's identical to the one your brain would receive if you ate something literally burning hot.It lowers the temperature at which we feel burning pain.John Hayes: Yes.David Pogue: But it's not actually burning us?John Hayes: Correct.David Pogue: I'm not going to see scar tissue-John Hayes: No.David Pogue: No matter how hot it is, it's all a fake out?John Hayes: Absolutely.

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Why Hot Peppers Set Your Mouth on Fire

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