By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine
I harvested the last pepper from my garden today. What a magnificent vegetable: first it burns your lips, then its heat moderates into a wonderful spiciness, and finally it gives you a pleasant buzz. Apart from the burning lips, that pepper-eating high is a lot like a runner’s high—that elevated sense of well-being you get after you jog three or four miles.
The connection is not accidental, since endorphins produced by your brain are responsible for both. (Endorphins are hormones that activate your body’s opiate receptors, reduce pain, and generally make you feel good. So when people mention hot-pepper addiction, they are not far wrong.)
Here’s how researchers proved the connection. First they fed their happy volunteers potent hot peppers, noting the burning lips and mouths that immediately followed. Then, after a little time passed and the pepper eaters’ lips didn’t burn any more, the guys in white coats administered endorphin blockers. Soon the volunteers were in an agony of unrelieved burning from capsaicin, which is the peppers’ active principle, and science was served.
So have some hot chile peppers—but stay away from those endorphin blockers.
