Addicted to chilli? Here’s how it might help us regain our sense of taste after COVID

The key ingredient in chilli is a compound called capsaicin, which causes a painful and even burning sensation.

The news of a hot chilli sauce shortages earlier this year – due to high temperatures and drought in agricultural regions – prompted warnings to stock up on supplies or forego adding this flavour to your food. But what prompts people to want to do this in the first place?

We are usually born with an aversion to the sensations like the taste of chilli on our tongue. This isn’t surprising because the key ingredient in chilli is a compound called capsaicin, which causes a painful and even burning sensation when it comes into contact with sensitive areas of our skin, eyes and mouth. Little wonder that it is also a key ingredient in pepper spray.

But in smaller, tolerable amounts, we can adapt to the sensations evoked by chilli and find them desirable.

Chilli can even act as a natural opiate, making our bodies release endorphins in a similar way to a “runner’s high”.

We react to capsaicin because we have a family of receptors in sensory nerves lining the epithelial (outer) layers of our skin, naso-oral and gastrointestinal tract. These bind to the capsaicin and relay signals to our brain.

These receptors are temperature sensitive and respond to heat in addition to being activated by capsaicin.

In the case of biting into a chilli pepper, the release of capsaicin onto our tongue generates a sensation that ranges from mild tingling to burning heat, depending on the degree to which we have adapted to it.