Tabasco and hot food?

Question

I have 1 bottle of tabasco for a meal! I take chilly peppers for breakfast, lunch and dinner - a lot of them!
I don't have any problems, but is that healthy?
I would like to hear the answer from Thai, Mexican or Indian people where hot food is usual thing...

Thanks

Answer 1

Chile peppers are not only harmless, they're actually good for you -- red peppers have twice as much vitamin C by weight as oranges.

The stuff that makes them hot is called capsaicin, and it's the biggest fake in the vegetable world. That is, it's completely harmless -- it's actually related to vanilla, chemically.

How it works: it chemically excites the nerve endings in your mouth that respond to heat, tricking you into thinking your mouth is on fire. But there's no damage -- it's not doing you any harm, it's just pumping ions into the nerves in your mouth to make them think you've just bitten into a live coal. (It can actually penetrate skin elsewhere on your body, if it's in high enough concentration. If you spend a long time chopping hot chiles for salsa, don't rub your eyes... and be VERY careful on your next restroom stop.)

Tabasco sauce is made by fermenting crushed red chiles in salt till they separate into a thick paste and a red juicy liquid. This red liquid is strained off and mixed with vinegar to make the familiar seasoning. To many, Tabasco is a sour, salty seasoning that's mildly spicy. If you want to try something hotter, move up the next step and find some Vietnamese chile paste. There are two varieties:

Tuong ot-toi Sriracha -- available in large squeeze bottles, this is a bright orange-red sauce a little thicker than ketchup and a good deal spicier than Tabasco. It's slightly sweet, with a strong garlic flavor. I use it on hot dogs in place of ketchup; I season lots of things with it, including a dollop or two in cheddar cheese sauce and the like.

Tuong ot-toi Viet Nam -- available in smaller jars with wide lids (Uncle Chen brand is one that's regularly available). This is a darker red than the Sriracha variety, and is chunkier, with chile seeds included. It's hotter, too, and equally garlicky. This is a GREAT thing to add to fried rice, tomato sauce, soups and stews...

An alternative to tuong ot-toi Viet Nam is sambal oelek from Indonesia, if you happen to see that at your local Asian market. And there are variations on these; one of my favorites is something very much like sambal oelek but made with toasted chiles so it's darker, has a nice toasty flavor, and is equally hot.

But for the true seeker after the capsaicin buzz, it's the bottled sauces of the Caribbean that send you over the top. Matouk's is the only brand I can recall; I used to frequent a Caribbean restaurant in Palo Alto, California that had bottled hot sauces on the table. The varieties from Trinidad and Tobago were especially fierce. Made with Scotch bonnet peppers (a relative of the habanero, but with different shape and texture), these have the intoxicating aroma of capsicum chinense (the species of pepper that includes Scotch bonnet and habanero chiles) -- an almost fruity scent that's a little like mango, a little like the freesia flower, and a little like melon -- and a burn that goes beyond anything else I've ever found.

Answer 2

If your system doesn't reject the spicy foods and you have no heartburn or other health side effects, there's no reason you can't eat them. Peppers are in fact vegetables, and your system will adapt to a daily intake of the pepper seeds and red pepper in Tabasco.

People who are more adversely affected by spicy foods either don't eat them very often or have reflux conditions already in place. Enjoy!

Answer 3

my mum is thai my dad is mexiacan and im indian :) i love hot hot food but last week i had chicken vindaloo which was extra hot and wen i got home my stomach was about to blow. u have to b careful. but still its lovely mmmmmmmm

Answer 4

cung cap tuong thach cao to mau gia re

Answer 5

If it doesn't upset your stomach I wouldn't worry about it.

Answer 6

If you like it go for it!