"Unspicyfying" mouth?
 

Having been born a Finn, I'm used to very bland and mild food, but living in Texas, I end up having a meal every now and then that just leaves my mouth on fire. I won't even go into what it does to my stomach...let's just say I should be buying stock in the company that makes Pepto.

Anywho, I was wondering if anyone knew of a neat trick to make the mouth feel a little less on fire rather quickly? Cold water helps but only for a few seconds. I don't know if there IS a solution, but if there is it'd be nice if it were something like "eat ice cream" as opposed to "burn off all of your taste buds". :)

My wife's family makes very hot foods all the time, some of it is very sadistic. They all drink milk with them as they say it helps. I am not much of a milk drinker so I just use the old bread and butter trick. But you should build up somewhat of a tolerance for it after awhile.

I was always told that milk counteracts the burning.

Maybe a chemist bould break it down for us.

I always found bread is useful for "unspicifying". Other than water, I'd like to know some other ways as well.

i am a big fan of milk when anything too spicy comes around. Does it acutally help? i dunno. But i like milk anyway, so id like to think it does.

Milk is apparently the winner. Here's a link to a page that explains spiciness and the antidote to it:

http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/taste9.html

The active ingredient in hot peppers is a chemical called capsaicin which binds to the taste buds and causes all that wonderful pain. And "bind" is the word -- it doesn't go away quickly. But casein, a protein in mix, can "unbind" the capsaicin from the taste buds. To quote the article:

"Scientists now believe that casein in the milk is responsible for its cooling effects. According to Robert Henkin of The Taste and Smell Clinic in Washington, D.C., casein is a phosphoprotein that acts as a detergent and strips the capsaicin from the nerve receptor binding sites in the mouth which are contained in the taste papilli. The casein in milk is in the form of calcium caseinate, which constitutes about three percent of milk. Other possible cool-downs containing casein include milk chocolate and some beans and nuts.


The article goes on to talk about how quickly milk calms down the mouth, and gives an average time of several minutes. But in my personal experience, it has worked faster. I'm not a fan of hot Mexican food, but I do like hot Indian food, and Indian cuisine comes with its own "de-spicifying" dish: raita, a thin yogurt/cucumber soup served cold with many meals. A sip of raita almost instantly tames the heat from the fieriest curry. I wonder if yogurt is a better cure for heat than average milk -- it might have more casein in it, being a semi-solid, fermented product. Or maybe, being somewhat thick, it coats the mouth better than milk. Yogurt is also easier to digest for those of us who are older -- and with milk, the ability of many people to digest it takes a real nosedive somewhere in the 20s.

So if I were you, I'd keep a little yogurt nearby as an antidote.

I'm of the opinion that if your nose isn't running, it's not hot enough :) Still, sometimes I'll get something a little TOO spicy...milk definitely helps, but if it isn't available, sugar can help, too. Yep...straight sugar.

I've heard milk, cheese, and bread. I can vouch for the milk.

When I lived in San Diego, and had access to "real" mexican food (smiles at the memory) I used to use a shot of pure lemon juice, swished in my mouth, worked for me but destroyed the taste of that wonderful cilantro.

I just use milk, or get a big slice of cheddar to act as a chaser to the jalapeno pepper.

Milk is the correct answer.

Well, I'm more of a layman than a chemist. Basically, the lactose in milk absorbs the hot oils and washes them away. Water, on the other hand, swishes them around in your mouth (since oil doesn't mix with water) and makes it much worse.

Milk always works for me. :)

I think that the spiciness is caused by an acid. So anything that is basic (like milk) would help to neutralize it. Anything creamy I would tend to think would work better, so whole milk, cream, or ice cream would work even better than skim milk.

hah water just spreads the pain all down your throat....

in all seriousness, i vote for the milk.

I've heard that those saltines also work but I forget why. I think that it's because of the dryness and the rough texture. Kind of like licking a napkin I guess. So if you don't have access to milk, maybe you can try that.

In addition to milk, cream cheese works wonders too!

sour cream works well too. Another good trick is sugar or sugar water. In fact, the Scoville scale used to measure the heat of a pepper is the number of units of sugar water needed to nullify the heat of the pepper.

Milk is the way to go.

I would start with something slightly basic such as milk - why? Think of soap. When a base is mixed with animal fat, it creates soap.

Where am I going with the soap? Read on ...

Soap is a hydrocarbon with a hydrophylic (water loving) region and hydrophobic (water hating) portion. Soap works by encapsulating oils because the hydrophobic portion will interact (molecular forces) with the oil (hydrocarbon) and the hydrophilic region is encapsulated by a hydration shell (by water) and washed away.

What you are doing in essence is creating a detergent which will wash away the spicy oils.

Dishsoap would work very well - regrettably with the side-effect of a very nasty taste.

The protein explanation of milk makes a lot of sense. I would not be suprised if a protein in milk were a competitive inhibitor of "spicy proteins".

It's funny - a naturalist would laught at this because they realize that the spicyness is a chemical defense that plants employ.