As mentioned earlier, a lot of people say that the heat comes from the chilli’s seeds, that isn’t quite right. The capsaicin is actually predominantly based in the white bit that houses the seeds, called the placenta. So if you cut that bit out you will chill out the beast no end. So leave it in you wuss.
Everyone knows that a spicy tongue can be abated using milk and that water is of no use. Do you know why? Well you will do in a couple of sentences time: capsaicin is hydrophobic, which literally means scared of water. So it won’t dissolve in water at all, it can’t save you from the inferno. Fatty things however, like milk, yoghurt, cheese and olive oil (if you’re desperate) will dissolve it and allow it to be moved away from your sensitive face.
The next obvious question is why. Why would a plant independently develop natural tear gas of its own accord? Well there’s two reasons it seems. Firstly the chilli plant found out the hard way that if a mammal eats your seeds they’ll be chewed up by its molars and digested so its genes won’t get spread about. So the spice puts mammals off having a chew (except for us stupid humans of course). Birds on the other hand, who are set up perfectly for distributing seeds for plants, are not effected by the capsaicin burn at all.
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