Lauren Collins ventures into the world of “superhots” and the surrounding community of committed “chiliheads.” So what’s the appeal of feeling the burn?
Chilis are believed to have health benefits. Four show jumpers were disqualified from the 2008 Olympics for having treated their horses with creams containing capsaicin
[the main active ingredient in most chilis that produces a burning sensation on the tongue], which can act as a stimulant. Traffic cops in China hand out chilis to keep drivers alert. In 2008, when Katie Couric asked Hillary Clinton how she kept her stamina up on the campaign trail, she replied, “I eat a lot of hot peppers.”
But, according to Paul Rozin, of the University of Pennsylvania, who studies the psychology of taste, the salutary effects of chilis aren’t substantial enough to account for their appeal to humans, the only mammals that eat them. With his theory of “benign masochism,” Rozin frames the allure of chilis as an emotional phenomenon. He writes, “We may come to enjoy our body’s negative responses to situations when we realize that there is no, or minimal, actual danger. In the case of the roller coaster, our body is scared, and sympathetically activated, but we know we are safe.
Previous Dish on a chili-eating competition here.
(Photo by Flickr user koadmunkee)
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