Looking Back – Some Final Thoughts

Attempting to capture how I feel about each sauce through facial expressions

I cannot believe a month has already gone by! Looking back on my project, I’m feeling a mix of emotions – pride (for challenging myself and my skills), exhaustion (coming from my total overextension of my time and abilities in my extracurricular commitments), and curiosity (I’ve got a strong desire to learn more and continue testing my spice limits). If given the opportunity to do my project over again, I would have wanted to do more – more cooking, more posting, more research – it just simply felt like there weren’t enough hours in the day (but what else is new). Despite that, I am still as excited about this project as I was when the ideas first started storming last spring, and I’m leaving the month of January feeling excited about a chili-laden future.

I have two main takeaways from my independent study this month:

1. I like spicy foods. I’m certainly not going to be eating whole habaneros just for kicks any time soon, but I’ve really learned to enjoy the burn. Things are still as spicy as ever, but the more I expose myself to chili, the more I am able to taste the other flavors in the dish. What was once a total meal-ruiner (hundreds of “I can’t eat this!”) is now a fun and welcome challenge. Feeling the burn is a fun way to control my body – I am in control, I know what I’m getting myself into, and I feel present. I like the glisten, I like to sit with it afterwards with the tingle on my tongue. My preferred level of spice is still around the second sauce (cayenne, 30,000 SHU), but I’m willing to test those limits because I can now confirm that my tongue will in fact, not fall off. I am now the proud owner of a fabulous hot sauce collection that I hope will continue to grow throughout my life.
2. I should not be my own boss in the foreseeable future. For a girl that once considered herself a master of time management, this month often felt like it was slipping away from me. Not having imposing deadlines set by authority figures or the threat of exams has really made it difficult to prioritize my independent study project. It was certainly good practice, and is a skill I will continue to work on!

In all seriousness, this project has been a blast. I’m leaving January feeling proud of myself, the work that I have accomplished, and my excitement towards the future. I have learned a lot about how our body experiences spice, I have thought deeply about why spice persists and the power it holds over humans and our emotions, and I have instilled a love of chili within myself. All in all, I’d consider that a resounding success.

Dear reader, thank you for sticking with me! I appreciate your emails, texts, and comments as I went through this adventure. Hope to share some spicy food with you soon!

Round Up: Week 3

The project has come to an end! I’m happy to report that it has been such a blast. Week 3 was certainly the spiciest out of anything I’ve experienced this month (and quite possibly ever), but I was still enjoying it for the most part – progress!

The Sauce: Tears of Joy August in Austin, a red habanero sauce at 350,000 SHU. Fun fact – the red habanero was the world record holder for hottest pepper from 1996-2007! If only this experiment was happening 10 years ago, I’d be a total bad ass. At this point, the pepper is old news, with the world record holder Carolina Reaper at 1.5 million SHU.

Why I like it: This sauce feels like what I imagined this whole month to feel like (and thankfully, it all didn’t) – simply ouch. I can’t really get any flavor, just burn. An immediate, upon-contact, not messing around kind of burn that stings and stays for a while.

How I feel: Sweaty. Very sweaty. It’s happening! Runny nose too, total sinus clearing. The pain seems very direct to my tongue and less of a whole mouth burning sensation. The burning is immediately intense and still feels tingly minutes after I’m done eating.

Ideal use: Don’t? Is that an option? This is a great sauce for people who don’t want taste, just want burn. It could probably be great on a burrito (but what isn’t?) with some dairy, grains, and so on to dampen the immediate spice a bit. 

Best food I’ve eaten it on: this was very tasty on pizza – like I’ve figured out with all the sauces I’ve been eating, spice does wonders to cut down the feeling of indulgent richness found in my favorite cheese-saturated foods. Tied with pizza is the sauce dabbed a piece of dark chocolate, yum-spicy-sweet-yum.

Least favorite food I’ve eaten it on: Because this sauce really is all burn, no taste to me, nothing super gross to report back.

Three weeks later, I’m certainly a changed eater/individual. I will go into much more detail in my upcoming wrap up post, but I’ve found myself itching for spice. I’m still not able to “tolerate” the hottest of the hot, but I do enjoy adding a kick into my otherwise bland and dairy-licious diet. I found myself walking all over the dining hall today in search of the hot sauce. I added Sriracha to my ketchup the other day, on purpose. I’m surprising myself, and that is certainly a good thing in my book. Thanks for sticking with me the whole way through!

Musings on Gender & Spice

Frank’s Red Hot Spicy Chicken Wing Eating Competition, 2013

In the mind of many, gender and spice seem to be intrinsically linked. When I think of chilies, I often imagine a table of dudes knocking back some extra-atomic-hot, slap ‘yo mama type chicken wings, at some place that serves beer by the yard and plays a continual loop of college football on the televisions. Essentially, I’ve uncovered the entirety of Buffalo Wild Wings’ business plan. While people of all gender identities certainly do enjoy spicy foods, it seems to me like the stereotype of spice has taken on a very masculine air in the United States. For lack of a better descriptor, eating spicy foods is often a pissing contest – chilies allow you to experiment with your pain thresholds in a highly socialized, sometimes competitive fashion.

There is a lot of research out in the world linking gender and spice – a study published in Physiology & Behavior found that higher testosterone levels can predict a stronger preference for spicy foods within men. Another study done at Penn State attempted to link personality factors and gender to spice preference. They found that males more commonly reported “loving” spicy foods, but when it came to the actual taste test, female participants reported enjoying the burn far more than their male counterparts. Interesting, no?

The Penn State researchers continued to find a connection between the men who reported loving spicy food and two particular personality factors – a craving for excitement and high social needs of respect and adoration from peers. “This finding seems to support Rozin’s hypothesis that the consumption of chilis is linked with an individual’s perception among peers, or “machismo” and the perception of strength. (Rozin, 1990)” – consuming spicy foods in a social setting can be thought of as a learned social reward for some men.

I had thought a decent amount about the stereotypical connection between men and chilies, but my mind really started racing as I talked to Denver Nicks about his personal connection with spice. We spoke about how chilies are unique in their ability to inflict pain with no associated risk, allowing for a true mind-body relationship, a moment of mindfulness, if you will. Pain, in its variety of forms, is a powerful and large part of the human experience. However, pain is a part of our lives that many of us choose run away from.

Experiencing pain can often times come as a shock (a sudden injury, an unexpected emotional trigger), and can be connected to feelings of vulnerability, loneliness, and a lack of self control. The pain that chilies bring is highly controlled – you know generally how much pain you will be in, for how long that pain will last, and experiencing the pain is usually entirely voluntary. Allowing one’s self to tap into pain emotions could potentially serve as a controlled way to process pain in a social setting – this pain does not have to be physical. The wings-bro archetype brought up throughout this post is a class of people thought to be less in tune with their emotions… perhaps engaging in voluntary, socialized, boundary-pushing can help work through emotional pain that was once buried deep. When you’re munching, no one can tell what you are thinking about.

I’m not meaning to suggest that all people think about while eating chilies is ex-lovers and family sagas, but rather suggesting that voluntarily engaging in physical pain can be a stress-releasing gateway for more emotional pain that may otherwise go ignored. Maybe you’ve experienced this yourself, or maybe not? Something to chew on next time you are chowing down.

 

Round Up: Week 2

Sriracha earrings

You can’t see it, but there was lots of hot sauce on this cuban

Week 2, and I’m still alive! Moving into my second week of the experiment, I was nervous. I was just learning to enjoy my first sauce, and then I had to ramp it up to a new level with around ten times as much capsaicin concentration. I’m happy to report that it was mostly not that bad!

The Sauce: Duck Butter Original Pepper Sauce, a cayenne based sauce coming in at 30,000-50,000 SHU.

Why I like it: This sauce still kind of tastes like something. It’s a little thicker than most, and has big, appealing/terrifying chunks of seeds and black pepper and all sorts of other assorted spices. Looking at it right now, it’s really quite pretty – a speckled death sauce, perhaps? In reality though, while it is certainly spicier than I would normally choose, it has a really nice, very vinegary taste.

How I feel: This is the first sauce that is triggering a more physical reaction – most notably, my nose starts to run pretty uncontrollably when I eat more than a little bit of this sauce. No sweating or other noticeably adverse reactions.

Ideal use: if they sounded at all appealing to me, I can imagine a sauce with this much garlic and vinegar could make a delicious Bloody Mary.

Best food I’ve eaten it on: a cuban sandwich the other day – the sauce did a lot to cut down the fat from the cheese and made things real delicious and less one-note.

Least favorite food I’ve eaten it on: just plain sauce, off of a plastic spoon. It wasn’t particularly unpleasant, but it was doing it really just for science rather than the pursuit of delicious.

As I explained a bit in my last post, my goal of the project has experienced a bit of a frameshift. It is less about increasing my tolerance (i.e. things that were once spicy are now not spicy) and more about changing it – learning to sit with and enjoy that discomfort more. I’m still looking forward to my daily dose, and have been enjoying this project far more than I thought I could. I often struggle with feeling fully present in moments, but consuming hot sauce allows me to “tune in” more than most things – because the pain is so concentrated and intense, it feels like I get woken up, and shaken back, and that’s something I’ve really appreciated.

Starting this afternoon I’m on to August in Austin – a red habanero based sauce that is around 350,000 SHU (again, note the ten-fold increase in SHU). Its color is a terrifying, pure red. Looking at the ingredients, there are no fancy spices, tomatoes, etc. – none of that. I’m not sure if I’m particularly ready and/or qualified to move on to the big leagues, but here goes nothing.

Hot Sauce Nation : An Interview with Denver Nicks

Hot sauce is so hot right now.

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to sit down for an interview with Denver Nicks, a freelance writer and chili enthusiast. I spoke to Denver about his latest project, Hot Sauce Nation, an adventure-turned-book (set to publish later in 2016) focusing on hot sauce in the United States.

Hot Sauce Nation stemmed from research Denver did for a TIME magazine piece, where he learned that hot sauce sales in the US have been skyrocketing in the past 10(ish) years. Researching for the book, Denver found himself bouncing around Cajun country, researching the datil pepper in St. Augustine, FL, attempting to understand all that is Mumbo sauce in DC, winging it in Buffalo, NY, and visiting the “three most hot-saucy places in the US” – Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and New Mexico.

Hot Sauce Nation attempts to find the answer to “well, why is that?” by following three main threads –

1. Immigration in the United States
   • The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 transformed the face of the United States, bringing in a lot of immigrants from the Global South. Those immigrants not only added more hot sauce buyers in terms of sheer numbers, but they brought their food with them, changing the American palette in favor of spice.
   • “From a market research standpoint, people ± 30 years old grew up in a country that is way more diverse than that our parents. Now, these people are moving into a house with a space to cook, and are able to choose to cook and eat spicier foods.”
2. Broader Cultural Implications of Chili Spice
   • “One thing that still blows my mind, is that when Christopher Columbus set sail for India in 1492, Indian food was not spicy.” Chilies are actually native to South America, where people have been cultivating them for an estimated 6,000 years. Columbus brought back chili spice to Europe, where it did not become as much of a cultural mainstay as it did in the lands Europeans proceeded to colonize.
   • Denver brought up a really interesting parallel when talking about the initial spread of chilies due to colonization – the cultures most recently acquainted with the brutal suffering of colonization were more interested in chilies and the associated pain that comes with eating them than their colonizers ever seemed to be.
3. Why do we inflict pain on ourselves for pleasure?
   • “At the end of the day, its just pain, its not anything you taste, and it has no effect on your ‘taste buds’ – its just a pain sensation that kicks in. So why do we do that?”
   • For people who really love hot sauce, it is not that they don’t feel the pain as much – it is that they like the pain
   • Eating chilies can be an exercise in mindfulness, the burn makes us be there in the moment, sitting with the pain, and letting it be. Eating chilies is a really unique opportunity to test our limits, “inflicting very serious pain on ourselves without any risk of damage… when people get sick after chugging a gallon of hot sauce, it’s not because of the chilies, it’s because they just chugged a gallon of vinegar.”
   • “Pain is a hugely important part of the human experience, and has many connections to spirituality – pain is more deeply embedded in us than pleasure.”

In his personal collection, Denver estimates that he owns around 60-70 hot sauces. When asked to choose his three favorite (take note readers, this was NOT an easy question for him), he chose:

1. Valentina – “it is spicy enough for me, and is a good multipurpose sauce for pizza and really anything”
2. FYM Original Hot Sauce – “I don’t use it that often, but it is absolutely marvelous”
3. Sriracha – “being totally honest”

I had a great time talking with Denver and hearing his musings on all things chili. Our conversation really had me re-think my goal of this project – instead of attempting to “improve my tolerance”, I’m now thinking about eating chilies as a method to change my tolerance. Instead of attempting to be less sensitive to chili spice, my goal is now to be able to sit with the discomfort, and relish in it. And with my second hot sauce this week, Duck Butter Pepper Sauce (cayenne based, 30,000-50,000 SHU), boy am I ever – that stuff burns so good.

The Science Behind the Burn

Ever wondered how such a small, colorful pepper can make you experience a total range of human experience (sweating, cursing, crying, laughing, vomiting) in just a few short minutes? The answer is short and sweet: a little irritant called capsaicin.

Capsaicin, the main pungent ingredient in chili peppers, yields a sensation of burning pain with tissue it comes into contact with. While we most commonly associate capsaicin with triggering an oral pain (the spicy “burn”), it is also used as an analgesic (pain reliever) in many topical ointments often associated with arthritis treatment. It is also an active ingredient in pepper spray – when the spray comes in contact with skin or mucous membranes (eyes, mouth, nostrils, etc.) it produces pain.

Where capsaicin is found: Capsaicin is found mostly in the placental tissue  and the white pith of the inner wall of the chili pepper. To a much lesser extent, capsaicin is found within the main flesh of the pepper (the pericarp). The seeds themselves do not produce any capsaicin – while the practice of “removing the seeds” does help decrease spice, that is because the placental tissue and pith are removed which contain the highest capsaicin concentration in the whole pepper. When people eat the whole pepper, you know they’re not playing around.

Capsaicin as a pain inducer: Pain, in all its forms, is initiated when sensory neurons are activated by noxious chemical, mechanical, or thermal stimuli. This group of affected neurons is called nociceptors, and they transmit information regarding tissue damage (store this in the back of your mind for now … we will come back to it) to the processing centers in the spinal cord and brain.

The process of “feeling the burn” goes like this:

1. Nociceptors are exposed to capsaicin, triggering the neurons to become excited
   1. The capsaicin binds to a receptor called the vanilloid receptor subtype 1 (TRPV1), which is an ion-channel type receptor embedded in the cell membrane of the peripheral terminal of the nociceptors (the pain sensing neurons)
2. This sends a signal to the pain processing centers, leading to the consequential perception of pain at the exposure site (in our case, the mouth)
   1. The pain sensation elicited by capsaicin is similar to the feeling of excessive heat or abrasion on skin, explaining why spicy food is described with a “burning” sensation. The receptor TRPV1 is a part of the heat sensitive TRP family of ion channels, which have been shown to mostly likely be responsible for our ability to feel a range of temperature sensations (Caterina et al., 1997).
3. This triggers the local release of inflammatory mediators
   1. Capsaicin from chili peppers actually does no damage to the tissue, although it does trigger an inflammatory response similar to how our body reacts to tissue damage in times of extreme exposure (chemical or temperature burns, etc.) Essentially, capsaicin creates the perception of pain by triggering body’s reactions to a tissue injury.

The relative pungencies of chili peppers span a wide spectrum, which is often quantified in terms of capsaicin content. The Scoville scale (SHU) is a measure of relative capsaicin concentration. In order to assign a pepper a specific SHU, an exact weight of dried pepper is dissolved in alcohol to extract the heat components, than mixed with sugar water in varying dilutions and given to a panel of five trained tasters. The process of dilution continues until at least three of the five tasters can no longer detect the heat in the sugar-water-capsaicin solution. As you are probably thinking, using humans to assign arbitrary units to anything seems incredibly subjective – and you’re right! Results for the same pepper vary widely in final SHU assigned depending on the laboratory performing the test, which explains why the sauces I’m using have a wide range of possible heat. The pungency of peppers within a species can also have a great amount of variation due to considerations such as climate, lineage, and soil conditions.

Circling back to our earlier mention that capsaicin does not actually cause any physical damage to the mouth – but it can feel like you are legitimately breathing your last breaths – this is where chili peppers get really fascinating to me. Paul Rozin, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, has given a lot of thought and research to the area of what he calls “benign masochism”, referring to the process of “enjoying initially negative experiences that the body (brain) falsely interprets as threatening” (Rozin et al., 2013). Being able to perform “mind over body”, essentially becoming a master over what cannot often be controlled, can lead to an extreme pleasure for many. And that is just so fascinating.

Check back in next week for some more on all things spicy – science, philosophical ponderings, and assorted Internet treasures. Love and chilies!

Round Up: Week 1

This week’s sauce on a butternut squash apple soup

Heavily cayenne – spiced roasted sweet potatoes (made by yours truly) for a salad at this week’s Log Lunch

A week into the project, I’m happy to report back that thus far, things are not as terrible as I expected them to be! Little victories. I’m sure I’ll be aching to get this time back come Monday when I ramp it up for my hotter sauce.

The sauce: Sgt. Pepper’s El Chipotle Hot Sauce in Roasted Tomatillo. The chili in this sauce is chipotle peppers, both used whole and in adobo sauce (2,500-5,000 Scoville Heat Units).

Why I like it: It actually tastes good to me! While it still burns, there is a distinctly smoky flavor coming from the roasted tomatillos, and a really good acidity from lime juice – chili & lime is a flavor match made in heaven for me.

How I feel: The pain from this sauce stays exclusively in the mouth for me. While it does feel quite hot, I’m having very little of the commonly associated physical symptoms of eating spicy foods (sweating) at this level. As I move up in heat, I’m expecting to get real sweaty, but am enjoying this experience for now. I’m finding myself looking forward to eating the sauce every day, it’s becoming more of an opportunity than a potential for terror.

Ideal use: this would be drop dead delicious on eggs with cheese – hello breakfast tacos?

Best food I’ve eaten it on: potato and leek soup from Log Lunch – took an otherwise earthy and creamy soup and kicked it up a notch

Least favorite food I’ve eaten it on: a banana (happening live while I write this) – most things outside of the realm of peanut butter and Nutella really go with bananas in my book, but I’m doing it for the science. I got myself into this mess.

Starting Monday, I’ll be moving up to Duck Butter Pepper Sauce (wow, this website plays music), a cayenne based, Louisiana-styled sauce coming in at about 30,000-50,000 SHU (note the tenfold increase in SHU, friends) . According to their website, Duck Butter Pepper Sauce is supposedly “made to eat, not burn” – we’ll see about that.

Some Like It Hot… But Why?

One of my biggest questions beginning this project was simple – why do we, as humans, continually consume something that makes us yelp, scream, pant, and cry? Paul Rozin, a psychologist, researcher, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has spent a good deal of his career wondering the same thing. He presents three explanations as to why humans enjoy the burn – an adaptive/evolutionary explanation, a immediate causation explanation, and a developmental explanation. All three explanations can coexist in harmony at different levels in any given chili-laden situation. Rozin’s explanations have served as a framework to my understanding throughout this project, so I thought it would be important to share his reasoning with you all.

1. Adaptive/Evolutionary Explanation

Upon first thought, the biologist in me was entirely confused as to why the chili pepper has not only survived, but proliferated, according to human preference. It burns, a lot. Why keep it around? There are some common theories that upon first glance seem plausible, but don’t stand up. I think some myth-busting is in order.

Myth: chili was used as an effective preservative in the pre-refrigeration, premodern times. Busted – there is no evidence for an antibacterial effect of capsaicin (Govindarajan et al., 1987)

Myth: pepper helps to cover the stench of food spoilage and was cultivated for that reason. Busted – there is no historical evidence of this. In the New World (the motherland of peppers) chili was most widely used on grain and vegetable dishes less likely to spoil. 

Myth: the sweating elicited by capsaicin provided sweet relief from the otherwise hot temperatures of the regions chili is commonly consumed. Busted – chili is regularly consumed in more moderate climates such as Korea and the Mexican Plateau. The connection between sweating and heat regulation is merely a speculation. 

A more plausible explanation for the continuation of chili peppers is their high nutritional value – chilis are thought to make up around 33% of the vitamin A consumed in the rural Mexican diet (Anderson, et al., 1946). Their high vitamin A and C content can fill a nutritional niche in a diet otherwise heavily built around grains. Furthermore, chili peppers “add a meat quality, a mouth fullness” to the otherwise bland and few-ingredient diets that they are often associated with.

2. Immediate Causation Explanation

If we have covered some adaptive explanations as to why the chili pepper may have continued to exist, why are we as humans currently interested in it now? Rozin presents a few thoughts…

• Chili peppers have attractive flavors, colors, and aromas, contributing to their appeal and providing richness and variability in a diet
• 5 natural capsaicins have been isolated (Todd et al., 1977), each having their own “pattern” of where the burn is felt in the mouth, leading to a considerable variety in the burn level and locus in dishes
• The burn produced by capsaicin is thought of as enhancing flavor by those that readily consume peppers

3. Developmental Explanation

The question here is – does liking chili result from past association of positive social events while eating chili? Is one culture more prone to enjoying the burn?

Rozin is quick to point out that the idea of ‘desensitization’ of taste receptors for chili is a rare example. Chili consumers report that they like the burn, not that they are totally insensitive to it.

As for how we begin to like chili, Rozin references a two-stage model often used when describing how preferences for tobacco and alcohol (bitter, seemingly unpleasant substances) can arise. The model goes as follows:

1. Initial exposure – this occurs in the absence of liking a substance. It is tried because of social pressure, possibly a lack of alternatives, or the incorporation of the substance into obligatory ritual practices.
2. Second stage exposure – the exposure to the substance becomes pleasant. How long it takes to reach the second stage enjoyment is entirely dependent, and in some cases this stage is never reached.

The most powerful force in liking chili seems to come from a social background. “The perception that a food is enjoyed or valued by respected others seems to be the critical social event.” In cultures where chili is part of a main flavor profile, young children observe the enjoyment of chili peppers in family members at every meal.

This post was based off of “Getting to Like the Burn of Chili Pepper” by Paul Rozin, 1990. 

Experiencing Spice: The Project

Hello – thank you for stopping by my shiny new blog!

I’m Abby, a junior Biology major at Williams College, and this is my Winter Study independent project entitled “The Experience of Spice”. My project falls within the bio department, and I have a fabulous faculty sponsor, Professor Carter (hi Matt!). Over the next four weeks, this is going to be my home base for digesting (!) all that I’m learning about spice (specifically chili spice) and how that influences us as humans. I’m talking influence from a variety of levels – biologically (how do we sense what is spicy? What does this spice do to our bodies, and how?), culturally (why has spice been incorporated heavily into some cuisines?), psychologically (why do we eat something that causes us pain?), and personally, as I attempt to increase my tolerance for spicy foods over the next few weeks.

My project has a few components to it –

• I am attempting to train myself to eat spicy foods through a repeated exposure method. This is where the independent study all began – at this point, I have little to no tolerance for spicy foods. Eating spicy foods just does not sound like my idea of fun – why would I purposely set fire to my mouth if at all possible to avoid it? My aversion to spice has been totally limiting in my travels (yes, India was rough), my social life (no hot wing eating competitions for this girl), and general desire to eat interesting and delicious foods. So, that’s why I am adding a generous helping of various hot sauces to one meal a day throughout Winter Study. There is a slight method to this madness, however – every new week means a new hot sauce. The firey intensity of each sauce moves up as the month progresses, according to the Scoville Scale (SHU). I chose my sauces through a consultation with Tears of Joy Hot Sauces in Austin, TX – and at the time, I didn’t really understand what I was getting myself into. Checking the Scoville Units of my sauces, I am now realizing that January is going to be a really painful month. For perspective, a jalapeño pepper is regarded as 3,500-8,000 SHU, and my hottest is 350,000 SHU. Here goes nothing!

My sauces for the month (moving from left to right) – Sgt. Pepper’s El Chipotle Roasted Tomatillo (chipotle, 5,000 SHU), Duck Butter Pepper Sauce (cayenne, 30,000 SHU), and Tears of Joy August in Austin (red habanero, 350,000 SHU)

• I am going to be reading primary research to understand more of the neuroscience and physiology behind how we experience spicy foods. At the end of this month, I hope to have a good understanding of the “process” of spice within our bodies – from initial taste to the final sweat drop. What happens, why and how is it triggered? To do this, I’m going to be reading a lot of primary research focusing neuroscience and physiology. One of the main points of this blog is to be an exercise in “translation” – taking the interesting information I am learning in my research, and formatting it for a wide audience. I want to make this information easily accessible, because I think few things are cooler than learning about your own bodies. So here’s to hoping we can all get something out of this!

Along with these two primary objectives, I’m also hoping to do a bit of research into cultures with traditionally spicy diets (Mexico, Thailand, India) to learn more about the role chilis play in their lives. I’m going to do a bit of cooking as well, so stay tuned for some recipe appearances as the month goes along.

I’m hoping to post a few times a week on all things related to chili spice – from what I’m eating, what I’m learning, and how I’m feeling. Stay tuned!

Tears of Joy Hot Sauce Shop (Austin, TX)