Capsaicin is a psychoactive substance

> I can not understand how some people do not come across using things like Rosemary, Basil, or Cumin in their cooking.

I'll explain it to you :)

I think a lot of people cook how their parents cook. I taught my mom how to better season her cooking, to great success, but I don't blame her for not ever really learning. She learned from my grandma who spent her life on a tiny farm in the prairies, I'd be surprised if they came across cumin very often.

So, you grow up eating beef and vegetables seasoned with salt and pepper and homemade butter and eventually your palate doesn't really require the same stimulation and variety that people with access to more varied ingredients do. It's not that plain-eating-folks aren't aware there's more variety out there, but if they've spent their whole life _without_ those other options, it's just not something their body naturally want. As someone who appreciates music, it'd be easy for me to look down upon those with less developed palates, but to what end? People enjoy what they enjoy, I don't think there's any superiority to be had in liking basil just like there's no superiority to be had in liking djent.

>What I find more interesting is the amount of stereotypical spice and heat avoidance I've seen from white family and friends; an example of which I recently heard from a friend, “I don't add spice to my chili, since I know some people don't like that.”

>I'm genuinely confused by people who avoid adding additional flavour to their food.

I think there's a communication breakdown here. They're not saying they don't like flavorful food, they're saying they don't like spicy food. "Spicy" and "spice" are two different things, but are often used interchangeably by folk who aren't much into, or don't know much about, cooking. The comment your friend said should (I think, at least) be interpreted as, "I don't add spicy spices to my chili".

Now, I could be totally wrong, and you'll come back to confirm that your friend used absolutely no spices whatsoever, at which point... how does it even taste like chili? :)

EDIT: Cute anecdote; I have to use the word "seasoning" whenever cooking with my two year-old. If I say "spice", she immediately assumes it's gonna be "spicy" and begins to flip out lol.

Chili oil is like setting a 15 minute timer for me. Ten minutes in, my gut starts making terrible noise, and five minutes later, there's no chili oil in my system anymore.

Tastes delicious! But I learned a long time ago that it's an ingredient I need to avoid whenever I'm eating while on the run. Err, on the go.

On the flip side, I never understood the "coffee makes you poop" meme, but it's apparently a similar biological reality for a lot of people.

> I'm genuinely confused by people who avoid adding additional flavour to their food

It's not a flavour, it's just pain. You can experience capsaicin on any mucuous membrane of your body. Your tongue and lips just happen to usually be the most convenient ones, but you're not using your taste buds on capsaicin.

Nothing wrong with enjoying painful food. I like exciting my pain neurons too. But not everyone likes pain, while far more people enjoy flavour.

> “I don't add spice to my chili, since I know some people don't like that.”

Give them an ole "he who controls the spice, controls the universe!!"

I learned the hard way about the possibility space of spice perception. Covid killed my ability to tolerate spice. I used to eat spicy wings with abandon but now something as pedestrian as a fast food spicy chicken sandwich requires additional beverages to be tolerable.

My mother in law experiences mild ‘spices’ like oregano or yellow mustard as too spicy and burning.

Genetics? Who knows but they’re out there.

I wondered this the first and only time I had a burrito at Chipotle. Turns out for all the years before that chain existed, Americans were just putting up with flavorful Mexican-American options, when what they really preferred was the most flavorless version possible.

They have a bland palate because they grew up eating bland food.

Either that or they think that food that tastes good is somehow bad/sinful or makes them feel out of control. Orthorexia is an example of this.

It really depends on your raw material. If it is high quality & tasty then no spices are needed. You get a fresh bronzini from the Mediterranean, you don’t want to ruin it. You grill it, add just some olive oil, oregano and lemon and that’s it. Same for a grilled wagyu beef steak, a bit of salt and maybe some black pepper.

Now if you give me a piece of chicken, of course I will need a ton of spices to make it edible. Indians and the American south have found the best in my opinion (curry and cajun ftw).

So then I need to eat the fried chicken on the side like a sucker???

You can also grow habanada peppers which are habaneros bred to have no spice: https://www.rareseeds.com/habanada-sweet-pepper

Do you know a good source for seeds? I bought some on the internet once and they turned out to be green Serranos lol.

Does this make a standard shot of vodka better or worse? I can already barely tolerate plain vodka, but its my favorite alcohol to mix.

I just watched a Netflix mini series about a guy who kept eating his friends to feel euphoric.

Haha, yes, yes I do. We actually raised and slaughtered chickens growing up and I refused to eat them because I called them my friends, so doubly yes.

Chicken as cattle not pet?

friends not food

Basically, as I understand it, capsaicin can be psychoactive in the same sense that, for example, running or BDSM can be psychoactive: an endorphin rush which can cause a feeling of euphoria.

The milk helps some, but in my experience on absolutely can blow past that point so that the next day you're getting the same tingles from the other end.

>Edit: I always presumed the high after spicy food was endorphins.

That was my assumption too.

dave's doesn't seem to do so any longer, but makes you sign a "waiver" for the hottest spice levels now even though they've toned it down quite a bit at this point. howlin' rays (which dave's copied) still uses carolina reapers and is no joke with it's howlin' spice level.

I like to think of it as nature's way of telling me not to do it so often.

I've noticed ie in India that long time exposure severely numbs all your taste buds, so folks end up over-salting, over-sweetening etc. which definitely goes in bad direction re long term health. Or one can accept that non-spicy foods taste very bland, which is rather sad world TBH.

Many ie french are like this, they politely refuse going extreme re chilli, but once you get to fine tastes of that cuisine that would be completely gone you understand them. And join them, even as Indian/curry food lover

Someone attempted to argue with me that vanilla ice cream is "spicy" because vanilla is a spice. While pedantically true, that's not a person I'd ever want to eat dinner with.

I've found this distinction to be dialect-dependent. That is Indians tend to make a sharp distinction between spicy and hot, and Americans tend to treat spicy and hot as synonyms.

Spicy, as in "using chili peppers," meaning it has capsaicin gives a bit of a lie to this. You literally just add capsaicin to food to make it spicy in many places. Is how they can give a number score to how spicy to make it. Leaving out the capsaicin does not change the base flavor profile at all.

Now, it is confusing, as spiced food is typically not spiced with capsaicin. Rather, spiced food has traditional spices and is often not spicy. (Think spiced rum. Not "hot" at all.)

I personally support the legalisation of psychedelics so it's not a law I support, but I've always found it a very clear and fair piece of legislation, if one accepts that the government legislates within a certain framework of precedent.

If we take a look at countries like Germany or the Netherlands we see a cat and mouse game where each parliament outlaws the latest psychedelics and then the psychedelic community unveils their new analogue or precursor. We can mark the years by small additions to the basic LSD molecule. We've gone from 1p-LSD and 1cp-LSD to 1V-LSD and now onto 1B-LSD. The stimulants and dissociatives communies seems to favour flouride, it's easy to and doesn't bind to much.

The UK law bans anything sold primarily for inducing psychotropic effects, while the scheduled substances sections at the end add very fair provisions for items commonly sold as food. That's why it's actually an exaggeration to say the law could affect the spicy food trade, as food trades are one of the explicit exemptions.

And if you read into it you see that it was brought about to subjugate some voting demographics

https://www.vera.org/reimagining-prison-webumentary/the-past...

Whether this is true or not, it's certainly enraging.

It defines food as:

> Any substance which—

(a) is ordinarily consumed as food, and

(b) does not contain a prohibited ingredient

> In this paragraph—

“food” includes drink;

“prohibited ingredient”, in relation to a substance, means any psychoactive substance—

(a) which is not naturally occurring in the substance, and

(b) the use of which in or on food is not authorised by an EU instrument.

So it sounds like Capsaicin produced naturally in things like hot peppers would be fine. But artificially produced Capsaicin added to food might not be.

Robitussin (dextromethorphan) is now a prescription in several countries for its abuse potential, like codeine. It is a dissociative hallucinogen that can be abused, but it is generally considered a poor substitute to other substances like ketamine, rarely a first choice.

Nutmeg is a deliriant on really high doses, and most deliriants are not controlled substances, though they may be classified as poisons. The reason is that tripping on deliriants is generally considered unpleasant, and enough to turn people off quickly.

Won't somebody please think of the children??

The literal meaning of "drug" is just dried plant matter.

I'm reminded of this video by your definition: https://youtu.be/IeLGP2dsjME

The other definition I've seen is "a substance that changes how the body functions" which I think is a bit easier to categorize.

What was interesting is that, until I was dating my future wife, in 2008, I didn't know of anyone who thought that cilantro tasted like soap. A friend several years before mentioned that some people find that cilantro tastes of soap. As I was aware of my reaction to cilantro from years earlier, and then meeting my future wife who thinks cilantro tastes soapy, like all good science I was like "huh, that's odd, based on these two polar opposite reactions I wonder if there is a genetic component to it." And I did some digging, and signed up to answer some questions and do a blood test, and a few years later, there was a study published. My wife is from Indiana, 2nd generation immigrant, of Italian descent. I am Welsh whose ancestry in that country goes back at least 12 generations with no outside mixing, or so I am told.

Yes, it has been noted for probably longer than I have been alive. It is only in the past decade they found the cause for this. Common knowledge, but not proven, as you say.

Cilantro contains thujone which is a neurotoxin, the same as found in absinthe. So I'm kinda like a dolphin using a puffer fish to get high. There are various studies in this compound, and others, and it is a controlled compound regulated by the EU.

I have independent verification by friends who are scientists and medical doctors at one gathering who have conducted observations that my pupils dilate, my eyes become bloodshot and, in the words of one observer, "I become more whoo-whoo. Whooo! Whoooooooo!" whatever that means. As my normal demeanour flips between "I don't want to be around people, you're all so tiring, I just want to be quiet" and a hyperactive Robin Williams amped up on caffeine and sugar, I am guessing I become even more "Whoooo! Whooooooooooooo! Let's par-tehhh!" I am probably over-compensating for something. The video recordings are cringeworthy.

We've done independent blind tests of "is this psychosomatic" or do I truly have a reaction. Multiple blind tests of a single subject (me) by multiple qualified observers over the course of several days do indeed bear out that I have an unintended reaction to cilantro, the oils from cilantro and the active ingredients in cilantro. Direct contact of the cilantro on my skin makes my skin itch and become red and bumpy. When I imbibe even small amounts of cilantro, no more than you would get in a standard serving with a meal, to me, it feels like I am drunk and whoozy for about 20 or so minutes before the effects pass. Again, to reiterate, I suspect my extreme reaction to cilantro is genetic and gives me a sensitivity and reaction that most of the population doesn't have, much like some of the population also detects cilantro tasting of soap. Though I suspect these are very different genetic markers.

Perhaps different cultivars/varieties have varying levels of the active compound?

Your body can react to the pain excitation in some slightly harmful ways, such as diarrhea, overproduction of mucus, altered digestion, etc.

True, the capsaicin itself doesn't harm your body, but the pain can in itself cause some slight damage (and like any drug, an overdose of capsaicin can be very dangerous).

It plays hell on all of the mucous membranes it comes into contact with, stomach and intestines included. I'm not sure if it can give you an ulcer, but in my experience, if you've already got one, it can be debilitatingly painful.

(1) Heartburn, (2) Ass pain when it comes out the other side.

Isn’t it a deliriant? I won’t touch those.

As in, it hurts to pee? Or it hurts to be peed on?

Yes. I didn't want to mention nutmeg because I really, really would not recommend anyone try it. It's dangerous and it's a bad high, I've tried. My dosage was subhallucinogenic but felt like being stoned, except I also had intense muscle cramps that made the whole thing a terrible time.

And as a hallucinogen it's a deliriant which means you could literally run into traffic thinking you're taking a stroll through a beautiful forest(this is an actual deliriant trip report that exists btw, though the drug was datura).

Which cracks first, your mind or the toilet bowl?

Potatoes, maize/corn, tomatoes, chile peppers, chocolate.

Old-world food was a hell of a lot more boring before the Columbian exchange. It transformed food so much that most of what we think of as "traditional" cuisines in various old-world countries or regions are largely products of the 16th century or later.

The exchange also cut the rate and severity of previously-regular famines dramatically, enabling a huge population boom and economic expansion (see: Mann's 1493). Mainly due to maize and potatoes, maize being incredibly efficient on a calories-per-acre basis, and potatoes being stupid-easy to grow almost anywhere, having decent caloric content and not-bad nutrient profile (gotta eat the skin, though) and being easy to store for the medium-term to cover gaps when other crops fail (you just... leave them in the ground)

"It's not even the same sport" - Jules from Pulp Fiction. /s

Allyl isothiocyanateallyl isothiocyanateAllyl isothiocyanate (AITC) is the organosulfur compound with the formula CH2CHCH2NCS that gives horseradish its unique flavor.