The Science Of Chillies. How The Flavour, Heat, and Health Benefits All Work.

How do chillies produce the heat you feel ? Why do some items remove the heat ? Do they do any physical damage ? Why is chilli actually used to relieve pain in some circumstances ?

This is a large and rapidly growing body of information. Fortunately for you it's my job to interpret the scientific mumbo-jumbo and present it to you in a lay-person format. It's lucky we don't get out that much !

Here we will look at the various substances that are found in chillies and explore their uses on other pages.

• The word capsicum originates from the Greek kapto which translates into ‘to bite’, as in the heat of the fruit. Similar to this is the chemical from the chilli that causes the heat in your mouth, known as capsaicin.
• There are a number of chemical compounds naturally occurring within chillies ranging from toxic alkaloids through to anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agents. While the subject is fascinating, exploring it in depth would consume at least several hours and these compounds are not the focus of this course.
• Capsaicin is a colourless, odourless and extremely stable alkaloid that is unaffected by heat, cold, or time and requires complex laboratory procedures to measure the precise amount in chillies.
• Capsaicin is only slightly soluble in water and extremely soluble in fats, oils and alcohol.
• Capsaicin is also one of the most pungent chemicals known, with humans able to detect it diluted out to 1 part in 17 million.
• Marlin Bensinger, a capsaicin expert in the U.S.A. says, ”One milligram of pure capsaicin placed on your hand would feel like a red hot poker, and would surely blister the skin.”.
• From a laboratory chemists point of view, capsaicin is actually a complex of related compounds called capsaicinoids. To make this more confusing one of these compounds is actually called capsaicin. Very Catch-22.
• The compounds that comprise capsaicin are;
  • capsaicin – 69%
  • dihydrocapsaicin – 22%
  • nordihydrocapsaicin – 7%
  • homocapsaicin – 1%
  • homodihydrocapsaicin – 1%

• Researchers at the University of Georgia separated these compounds out and administered them to sixteen trained tasters. The effects on the palate of these compounds was described as;
• capsaicin – “the most irritating” & “burns from mid palate to the throat”
• dihydrocapsaicin – “extremely irritating” & “mid palate to throat burn”
• nordihydrocapsaicin – “least irritating” & “sweet, fruity and spicy”
• homocapsaicin – “very irritating”, “numbing burn”. & “most prolonged burn”
• homodihydrocapsaicin – “moderately irritating”.
• These compounds work together to produce the pungency we associate with chillies.
• Different types of chillies have differing amounts of these compounds both in absolute terms and in ratios with respect to each other. As a result, different chillies have a number of variables;
  • flavour
  • length of burn wrt time
  • level of burn wrt heat/pain
  • the above effects on different parts of the palate

To be continued ....