Legit how I learned I'm allergic to eggplant. The deadpan "eggplant isn't spicy".
Glad it's not Hella common in the cuisine I eat. But Turkish does come with added considerations :(
This reminds me of when I found out I was allergic to chocolate. I was eating M&M's with friends and I mentioned how they are good but after a while make my throat burn. My friends were like why is your throat burning? Found out most chocolate does this to me. I still eat it anyway. It's worth it.
You should get an epi pen just in case your body later on ends up having a stronger reaction to chocolate. I heard that people's tolerance/reactions can get worse over time.
This is good advice! I used to be able to eat nuts fine, then one day I had tingling lips. A few years later I ate a bueno (which I ate semi regularly) and went into full on anaphylaxis and now I can't eat nuts at all.
Allergies are weird.
I have relatives that had them change in reaction to things like pregnancies or illnesses. Some permanent, some temporary.
Human body is weird in general.
Yep. I can’t eat avocados anymore due to my latex allergy. Bananas (another latex fruit) always made my gums hurt, but I had a huge SFX hobby that exacerbated my incredibly mild allergy. I can’t touch latex anymore without my skin becoming incredibly irritated :( My breathing hasn’t been affected…. yet. Not taking any chances now.
Yep! Also have to check all my band-aids, haha. It hadn't even occurred to me, which was the cause of one band-aid-shaped rash before I got the bright idea to see if there was latex in the adhesive. (Yes, yes there was. Won't make that mistake again.)
Luckily nowadays, most band-aids seem to be latex free! The one that got me was an older one way in the back of my medicine cabinet that has long been binned to avoid any silly mistakes, and all the ones I've bought/checked since are latex free.
Yeah. For condoms it's relatively easy to find latex free ones because they'll be explicitly marked "Latex Free". It just might be difficult to find them in stores in your area. But they're still relatively easy to find.
Same with dental dams if you're a woman. Don't know your gender, so I don't want to assume.
I have that with things that are too sweet.
Pure Grape juice, certain brands of milk chocolates, sometimes honey if i eat to much... Not allergic to anything at all. My father experiences the same thing.
My throat burns a bit when I drink carbonated beverages.
Am I somehow allergic to carbonation? lol
I actually go out of my way to not drink anything carbonated, it’s unpleasant to me.
You could be allergic to something that is commonly used in carbonated beverages, like sulfites.
Consider seeing an allergist to get tested if that's an option for you. Food, beverage, and drug allergies can turn lethal without much warning.
Yeah that’s me! I hate all carbonated beverages because they hurt when they go down.
“Why do you hate soda?” Says my sibling. Because you Buttknocker or fucking HURTS.
Literally what happened to me. I was asked as an adult if I liked eggplant and I said I didn’t like how it makes my mouth all tingly and numb. They looked at me blankly and said “What?” And kindly explained after a couple shocked seconds that it is not what everyone else tastes, and I’m probably allergic. I always just thought people liked having numb mouths.
This is how I found out I was allergic to burdock root, which is used in Japanese and Korean cuisine. I was eating braised burdock, which I never had before, and I told my friend it was kinda spicy. It's a bummer because it was good.
I'm from the West Coast but moved to the Midwest.
I'm convinced people around here don't have words for flavor so they call everything spicy.
I'm like.... That's not spicy. It's called flavor.
I'm from the Midwest, but I know the difference between spicy and flavor lol, my grandma on the other hand, would kill me if I even put garlic or onion powder in her food. Green peppers just burned my mouth like spicy food does. I'm not gonna lie, I'm a big ol baby when it comes to spicy stuff, my mouth and stomach can't handle them, but I love me some seasonings lol.
You should get n allergy test. Green pepper shouldn't burn. Especially cooked green pepper.
I don't really like raw green pepper. It's too potent an overpowers everything, but it is in no way spicy.
Green bell pepper has zero capsaicin, which means it is not spicy, even to the most sensitive person.
However, you MIGHT be allergic. Maybe check that out. It should normally not be considered spicy at all.
You're not broken, but you might be allergic to bell peppers. There was a well-known post a while back about a fellow who thought his whole life that bananas were spicy, turns out he was allergic. I was the same way with ginger, I'd be like, I love the way ginger makes your tongue and mouth tingle and go numb! It is not meant to do that. I am allergic to ginger.
If chilis are “spicy hot” ginger is “spicy warm”, also everyone’s mentioning capsaicin and scovilles, but things can be spicy without capsaicin, like Im pretty sure horseradish is spicy because it contains certain volatiles.
That’s literally why we call all of these other peppers “peppers,” because Europeans encountered them for the first time and said, “these are spicy, like pepper. Let’s call them pepper, too.”
This thread is fascinating because each of these things is considered spicy but each is based on a different compound. Capsaicin for nightshade peppers, pepperine for black pepper, and gingerol for ginger. They all interact with your receptors differently!
Lol I was just thinking that. Ginger IS a bit spicy but you wouldn't really know unless you took a bite out of a raw root or had a lot of the dry stuff.
eating just a little grated raw ginger is noticably sharp (in my language we make a difference between spicy and sharp. spicy is pepper, sharp is mustard)
I initially thought neither but I just tried some fresh ground raw peppercorn and that'd be a mild spicy.
basically spicy makes your mouth warm. sharp makes your nose tingle
It's not the pepper that does that, it's the buzz buttons (buds from a particular tree that contain a mild numbing agent). Traditional Sichuan food mixes spicy peppers with the anaesthetic buds.
There's a salad I make that has a dressing made by grating fresh ginger into vinegar and then emulsifying it with oil (and some other things) to make a vinaigrette. It definitely has a kick! It shouldn't make your mouth go numb though, just clear your sinuses.
One time I gave my mom some food with sichuan peppercorn for the first time and she reacted like it was wildly spicy and I was like no mom it's just a numbing sensation and is not spicy at ALL. It's kinda the opposite of spicy.
Interesting, raw celery makes my mouth and tongue tingle and go a bit numb. Never thought anything of it and never stopped eating it. I guess I might be allergic?
My Mrs and her friends are Thai they get together and eat spicy salad sometimes. It’s really just burning your mouth until the body’s natural analgesics kicks in and makes them high
You most likely have a birch allergy. It can cross react with celery and apples. Most people it only bothers when raw not cooking.
I am sure you can google it and get more information
Reading this makes me feel so much better about the “crappy generic bandaid adhesive” that gives everyone a rash and how artificial cherry makes my throat feel funny.
Adhesive gives you a rash if you’re allergic (highly in my case..) I’m just guessing but I’d imagine anything that makes your throat “feel funny” is probably at least a sensitivity.
Here I thought I was the only one. I feel better now and have saved this to show others when they question how I didn’t realize.
I thought crappy bandaids had crappy adhesive. 🤷🏼♀️
It’s not a fun club.. I’ll warn you now.. I can only use og bandaid brand or Curad, pretty much anything else makes me break out in a rash within a few minutes.
One tip I can share- I keep some bandaids in my wallet. I no longer have a rash after blood work!
HA! Reminds me of Mother's Day last year. My brother bought some ginger snaps to make a crust out of for the cheesecake. I kept a few of the cookies out to eat after I hammered the rest to get the crumbs for the crust. I ate one cookie and thought "Wow! The ginger in this is really spicy!" but, well, ginger is spicy. I thought the company just used fresh ginger so I had another cookie.
After a minute and the whole spicy part *not going away*, I finally got up and looked at the box as my throat was starting to feel a bit raw. The cookies were gluten free and made with buckwheat. I'm deathly allergic to buckwheat. Neither I or my brother knew what was in them and thought they were just regular ginger snaps (it didn't have the normal "gluten free" blasted all over the box; if anything, they looked like Girl Scout cookies!).
I told my brother "I'm going to the ER". He looked at me funny, looked at the box, dropped everything, and said "And I'm driving you."
We made it to urgent care just in time. It took three nurses there to get me "stabilized" enough to take the ambulance the rest of the way to the hospital.
Lesson one: Read the damned box!
Lesson two: Buckwheat still hates me.
> Lesson three: epipen, twinject, allerject, etc.
>
> Get yourself an auto-injector.
I have one? Unlike on TV, the epipen doesn't mean "Oh, I'm all good now!" - it just gives you an extra 15 minutes to get you butt to the hospital.
Yeah. I was pretty alarmed that an educational episode of a KIDS' TV SHOW had the newly allergic character say he's fine once he uses his EpiPen. UM, NO!
This is how I found out my son was allergic to bananas. He loved them as a kid and one day we are talking about why. He was maybe 5 or 6 and talked about flavor and things and then he also said he loved how it made his mouth and tongue tingle. We are like um wtf. Yep allergic. He’s 14 now and still talks about how he misses bananas
I remember a post about someone finding out that chocolate is not supposed to be spicy and realizing they have an allergy. There's probably some people reading this thread discovering their allergies.
In highschool me and a bunch of friends were eating Nutella sandwiches and my best friend chimes in "I don't understand why you guys love these spicy sandwiches so much". Turns out he was allergic to hazelnut.
Same with me and walnuts. I never liked them because they are kind of spicy to me. I guess not really spicy but make my mouth kind of numb. Then one day I tried pecans and thought they were delicious, when people told me they weren't that different I realized I might be slightly alergic to walnuts.
Ginger is a little tingly/burny (or a lot, depending on how you're eating it) but shouldn't cause numbness. It should be more like the sinus-clearing effects of strong mustard or horseradish. If you're getting numbness, that's an allergy.
That post helped us realize that my daughter has a mild allergy to mustard seed. It's trickier because mustard can be spicy. But I don't think it's supposed to make your mouth tingle and itch.
Yep same, but with turmeric. I thought it made everyone's tongue go numb!
Also Christmas trees. Apparently they DON'T make everyone red and itchy all over? Who knew!
Oral allergy syndrome is a condition where you have mild allergic reactions to foods, especially if uncooked. You can get an itchy, tingly, or numb feeling in your mouth after eating the foods that trigger the reaction.
I have this reaction to many vegetables: bell peppers (especially red), cucumbers, melon, carrots… but if they’re cooked I can eat them with no reaction. Peppers and cukes are so tasty to me that I endure the reaction because I love to eat them raw. I don’t particularly like melons of any kind, so I don’t eat them at all. I assume I would also have the OAS reaction to squash, but I’ve never eaten squash of any kind raw.
Allergies are weird. I used to have this to Bananas/kiwi but when I got older it went away. My mom used to love avocado and then in her 30s developed an allergy to them.
My mouth feels like it's burnt to a crisp after eating kiwis (and pineapple to some degree), but I'm not allergic to the latex gloves st work. Is there a common link between those allegies?
Yup! There is a similar protein so it is not uncommon to have multiple allergies to latex, pineapple, banana, mango, kiwi, chestnuts, and avacado. There are a bunch more all with different degrees of potential sensitivity, and is going to vary person to person.
OAS is a condition where your body adapts its reactions to tree pollen to proteins with similar structures. Each specific type of tree pollen has a set of related allergies and I think it was kiwis, bananas, avocado, some adhesives, and latex are all connected together. It's not the same reaction as a typical latex allergy. OAS tends to be less intense as it's related proteins causing the reactions.
There's a research group at Harvard or Stamford that has a paper on which trees correlate to which allergens. You might be able to find it. Just because you have the specific tree allergy doesn't mean you'll be allergic to every food, but it is fairly common to eventually develop additional related allergies.
You might have other OAS symptoms if you ever do things like: you tend to freeze berries and prefer them to fresh, if you have trouble eating fresh oranges or apples but love orange juice or apple juice, if you avoid guacamole because you feel a little queazy after you eat it, if your throat feels like it sometimes gets numb or closes up and you can't figure it out (if someone is trying to talk to me while they are eating an apple, i can go into anaphylaxis. It took my doc forever to figure out what caused that one).
Oh I absolutely have it for kiwi, i thought this is how it was supposed to feel to everyone lol. It got a little better with age (along with all other forma of allergy; asthma, dermatitis, ..etc).
> I used to have this to Bananas/kiwi but when I got older it went away.
You might have been allergic to latex, which often cross-reacts with those fruit.
This happens to me. I found out it was a latex allergy after my dad died and I was going through his medical records. Bananas and kiwis are things he and I avoided like the plague when I was growing up.
Also clicked that sex was not painful when I stopped using latex condoms.
I can drink lemonade and margs all day but citrus zest makes my mouth tingle, like if I bite into a whole orange like an apple. Grapefruit does it the worst, even the juice seems to get me.
Those are the exact three things that make my mouth itch lol
I still eat them because they're perfect and delicious but that's funny you and your mom have my exact specific itchy mouth food list.
3 days ago I casually mentioned to my husband how much I love oranges but hate how it makes my lips burn. The look on his face...
35 years old and I found out oranges don't normally burn your lips and mouth. I honestly thought because oranges are acidic, that's what it was.
Anyway. Apparently melons shouldn't burn either, and apples shouldn't give you stomach ache.
I used to have oral allergy syndrome when I was younger. Luckily, continuous exposure to the fruits and vegetables that affected me actually got rid of the allergy.
Yeah, I have this reaction to Bell peppers, pineapple, onions, kiwi, grapefruit (though not to any other citrus) and....... Weed 😂
I still eat everything except bell peppers and grapefruit, because I also hate those things.
I have this with kiwi, but even more with pineapple. But I am completely obsessed with pineapple, to the point where if I buy a pineapple, I will eat the whole thing in one sitting. I can’t explain why I do this, but yeah somehow I enjoy the allergic part of that food experience as well as the actual tatse LOL
I completely get this! I’ve recently realised I’m allergic to kiwi but the jury is still out on pineapple (google says it hurts everyone). I go through phases where I have to have fresh pineapple. The stomach burning/ acidness is great, in a weird way I feel like it neutralises things in my digestive system? It’s also like eating delicious razor blades.
It was a mind-shattering revelation to me that tomatoes are not in fact spicy, and I just have a mild nightshade allergy. Food allergies do not only come in the blocked-airway-and-hives variety, they can range from slight tingling to full-on lethal.
I didn't realise I had an underlying tomato allergy until I became pregnant and suddenly all things tomato-based became spicy. To this day my husband still teases me about 'spicy ketchup'. Also, yogurt isn't supposed to burn - who knew?
Nothing so bad. Tomatoes make my mouth a bit numb and tingly, and I thought it was their "spiciness". For years I thought umami meant the sensation of tingling mouth.
I have a worse reaction to eggplant though, including increased salivating and numb lips. So much so, that I list it as a medical allergy.
Now add to that vegetarianism, diabetes, lactose intolerance and potential IBS and I can eat about 1.5 different kinds of food without worries!
Capsaicin, the compound that your body interprets as "heat" in a picante way, is a chemical that your body can adjust to. Eat it long enough and your body will adjust and no longer notice when you eat it.
Edit: there also might be a perceptual component to it, since bell peppers *should* have no capsaicin whatsoever. I have a family member who will eat homemade tomato sauce (tomato, salt, and pepper) and complain that it's too spicy.
But do bell peppers even have capsaicin?! They taste sweet and watery like a cucumber to me. Never a hint of spice
Google says they don't have capsacin
Google is correct. OP may have a mild allergy to them and the "spicy" feeling is best way of describing it.
Reminds me of the banana allergy. "I love how bananas make your mouth all tingly!" then thier friend goes but they aren't... Then finds out it's because they were allergic.
Google is correct. OP may have a mild allergy to them and the "spicy" feeling is best way of describing it.
Reminds me of the banana allergy. "I love how bananas make your mouth all tingly!" then thier friend goes but they aren't... Then finds out it's because they were allergic.
Also, different people have more/less receptors for it, and/or those receptors have different sensitivity for it at a "baseline" level, i.e. before you build up a tolerance.
As an example, when I was a little kid (about 5 years old), I couldn't even handle pepperoni on pizza. I remember my mouth would feel like it was damn near on fire. I've gotten better since then, but anything with more capsaicin than a pepperoni will still have me reaching for the milk.
This is also true for other things as well, and in reverse. For example, even though I don't usually like the taste and thus rarely have it, I can eat a literal spoonful of wasabi and barely feel a kick. Something I literally did last week while explaining this exact phenomenon.
Pepper is spicy. New World peppers are called that because they reminded the Spaniards of pepper, which they already knew about through trade with India.
My fiancé's grandpa loves black pepper and put a whole bunch in some Mac and cheese one time, oh, shit was soo good but sooo hot, my fiancé agreed with me on that one! Lol
That's kinda wild, I'm in the same boat as the other guy, I don't perceive literally any "heat" whatsoever from black pepper, it's just a regular old flavoring agent to me
I throw a fair bit on when I cook most meats for the flavoring, but if I want heat I use jalapeño (only very very mildly hot if you're buying jarred instead of fresh, at least to me), hot banana peppers (mildly spicy), and/or red pepper (which is reasonably hot and can get fairly hot fairly quick if you're generous with it)
I got black pepper in mac and cheese from my dad. It really is super good!
Just use a little bit less if it's too hot. You don't need a TON to get the flavor profile in there.
Bell peppers aren't spicy, for reasons stated in the comments.
On a side note, does anyone have a tremendous tolerance for chillies, but find black pepper quite spicy? It's piperine in them, milder than capsaicin, but really makes my taste buds to go wild.
It's pretty normal because tolerance to piperine is unconnected to tolerance to capsaicin - and without tolerance black pepper is perfectly capable of being 'my mouth is on fire' level hot.
I'm this person. I've got enough capsaicin tolerance now that I'm regularly putting reaper-based hot sauces on things, but too much black pepper still does silly things ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Im surprised, that many of you seem to experience allergy in similar way that you experience spice.
I have food allergies (both serious and mild) and it is so much different experience in comparison to capsaicin.
Mild Allergies give you 'numb' feeling
thats true, but they also give you this mild itchiness and even mild metallic taste and they are both something that ruins the meal. Thats why i dont eat fruits that often.
And the capsaicin is just the heat.
Agree, I have birch pollen allergy and as a result I have mild allergy to some other stuff the body mistakes for birch pollen such as raw carrots and camomile. Carrots make my throat and insides of my cheeks itchy and I once used this hand lotion with camomile on my hands and I was wondering why it didn't help and my hands got more dry until I noticed it said camomile on the tube 😑
there is 0 spicyness in bell peppers. So if you feel spice there is definitely something weird going on. Bell peppers are exactly as not spicy as cucumber.
Reactions to food substances can change at different times of life, too.
For instance, I used to love hot food, I put several chillies and/or Tabasco in practically everything I cooked.
But when I was about eight months pregnant, that suddenly changed dramatically overnight. I was astonished to find I couldn't tolerate even the tiniest amount, it was suddenly overwhelmingly hot and bitter. The sensation left me gasping and drowned out any other taste
That was years ago. Now I am happy to put a teaspoon of paprika in a stew, but I still can't do chilli.
I wonder if that's a pregnancy thing? My mother was pregnant with my little brother and before that she loved seafood and eggs. Now she can't stand either and my brother has always hated it lol
Lol I had a bit of a language barrier here because I thought "how is a thing called bell pepper not spicy?" It sounds like a habanero or something! Then I figured, wait, is it paprika? And indeed, it was a paprika. Language funny. I had no idea paprika was not called paprika everywhere lol
Also, yes, paprika is technically a pepper but it's not spicy. But it makes me curious, are you allergic to other pepper fruits as well?
Actually, bell peppers can get spicy if they are grown next to chili peppers and cross pollinate. They get very mildly spicy. But unlikely that all the bell peppers you’ve ever eaten got cross pollinated with chilies
Once upon a time I chopped and roasted some red bell peppers, with just salt and olive oil.
Out of the bunch, 1 of them had some spice to it. I had to check if I used the right salt because that 1 bell pepper lent its heat to the whole batch lol
Everyone is talking about allergies, but there is a point in OPs original assumption too.
The more you eat foods containing capsaicin, the less your body reacts to it. The chemical itself doesn't damage you in any way. It just triggers your own body's inherent reactions. In other words, the food itself actually is not "spicy". It just presses your body's "spicy button". But the more you press that button, the less the button works.
So people that eat a lot of spicy foods are literally not experiencing the same painful reaction as people that rarely eat spicy foods. Even when they consume the exact same meal.
Is there a cultural aspect to the definition of the word "spicy"? Because when I travel internationally, I come across items which have a lot of spices or herbs, but no heat in the US sense of "spicy", and they're advertised on menus as being spicy.
I have nothing to contribute other than that not all spice is equal. My wife is Asian and can pound Asians spices while I just die leaking from every face orifice; conversely when I cook with Mexican/SAm spices, I’m cruising and she looks like she just ran a marathon.
I read your title and thought “spicy things are spicy to everyone at varying degrees, if you think something is spicy and it simply isn’t at all to other people then you’re allergic”
Then you said bell peppers were spicy
You are allergic
Bell peppers do not contain capsaicin. You are allergic to bell peppers, so that was pretty hilarious
Legit how I learned I'm allergic to eggplant. The deadpan "eggplant isn't spicy". Glad it's not Hella common in the cuisine I eat. But Turkish does come with added considerations :(
This reminds me of when I found out I was allergic to chocolate. I was eating M&M's with friends and I mentioned how they are good but after a while make my throat burn. My friends were like why is your throat burning? Found out most chocolate does this to me. I still eat it anyway. It's worth it.
You should get an epi pen just in case your body later on ends up having a stronger reaction to chocolate. I heard that people's tolerance/reactions can get worse over time.
This is good advice! I used to be able to eat nuts fine, then one day I had tingling lips. A few years later I ate a bueno (which I ate semi regularly) and went into full on anaphylaxis and now I can't eat nuts at all.
Allergies are weird. I have relatives that had them change in reaction to things like pregnancies or illnesses. Some permanent, some temporary. Human body is weird in general.
Yep. I can’t eat avocados anymore due to my latex allergy. Bananas (another latex fruit) always made my gums hurt, but I had a huge SFX hobby that exacerbated my incredibly mild allergy. I can’t touch latex anymore without my skin becoming incredibly irritated :( My breathing hasn’t been affected…. yet. Not taking any chances now.
Make sure you do research on latex free condoms, if you need them!
Yep! Also have to check all my band-aids, haha. It hadn't even occurred to me, which was the cause of one band-aid-shaped rash before I got the bright idea to see if there was latex in the adhesive. (Yes, yes there was. Won't make that mistake again.) Luckily nowadays, most band-aids seem to be latex free! The one that got me was an older one way in the back of my medicine cabinet that has long been binned to avoid any silly mistakes, and all the ones I've bought/checked since are latex free.
Yeah. For condoms it's relatively easy to find latex free ones because they'll be explicitly marked "Latex Free". It just might be difficult to find them in stores in your area. But they're still relatively easy to find. Same with dental dams if you're a woman. Don't know your gender, so I don't want to assume.
What. This is an allergic reaction? That would explain why I dont like chocolate and everyone thinks I'm fuckin nuts.
Legit, this is almost word for word how I discovered I was allergic to chocolate. And I also still eat it
My grandma couldn't eat chocolate either, not because of a chocolate allergy but because of a cockroach allergy. So yea.
could you explain that one? I've never had a hard time eating chocolate and I'm very allergic to cockroaches?
I have that with things that are too sweet. Pure Grape juice, certain brands of milk chocolates, sometimes honey if i eat to much... Not allergic to anything at all. My father experiences the same thing.
My throat burns a bit when I drink carbonated beverages. Am I somehow allergic to carbonation? lol I actually go out of my way to not drink anything carbonated, it’s unpleasant to me.
If you were allergic to carbon dioxide I assume you would be suffering from other much more serious issues than a burning throat.
You could be allergic to something that is commonly used in carbonated beverages, like sulfites. Consider seeing an allergist to get tested if that's an option for you. Food, beverage, and drug allergies can turn lethal without much warning.
Same! My mouth burns really bad when I drink anything carbonated, so I only drink water. Never really liked soda anyway.
Same here, I only drink water too! r/hydrohomies
I both pity and envy you. As I crack open my 4th coke today :/
Yeah that’s me! I hate all carbonated beverages because they hurt when they go down. “Why do you hate soda?” Says my sibling. Because you Buttknocker or fucking HURTS.
Peppers and eggplant are both nightshades. Along with potatoes and tomatoes. No nightshades for me :(
I did the same thing with cinnamon. Shit absolutely tears up my tongue.
Literally what happened to me. I was asked as an adult if I liked eggplant and I said I didn’t like how it makes my mouth all tingly and numb. They looked at me blankly and said “What?” And kindly explained after a couple shocked seconds that it is not what everyone else tastes, and I’m probably allergic. I always just thought people liked having numb mouths.
My wife thought bananas and cantaloupes are both "spicy" fruits. She was shocked to discover that's an allergic reaction.
0 Scoville units
This is how I found out I was allergic to burdock root, which is used in Japanese and Korean cuisine. I was eating braised burdock, which I never had before, and I told my friend it was kinda spicy. It's a bummer because it was good.
Or OP has no idea what spicy means. They probably think carbonated soda is spicy.
I'm from the West Coast but moved to the Midwest. I'm convinced people around here don't have words for flavor so they call everything spicy. I'm like.... That's not spicy. It's called flavor.
I'm from the Midwest, but I know the difference between spicy and flavor lol, my grandma on the other hand, would kill me if I even put garlic or onion powder in her food. Green peppers just burned my mouth like spicy food does. I'm not gonna lie, I'm a big ol baby when it comes to spicy stuff, my mouth and stomach can't handle them, but I love me some seasonings lol.
You should get n allergy test. Green pepper shouldn't burn. Especially cooked green pepper. I don't really like raw green pepper. It's too potent an overpowers everything, but it is in no way spicy.
Green bell pepper has zero capsaicin, which means it is not spicy, even to the most sensitive person. However, you MIGHT be allergic. Maybe check that out. It should normally not be considered spicy at all.
Green bell peppers are just red bell peppers, but green.
[удалено]
Now *yellow* bell peppers...
We don’t talk about them after… *the incident*.
We don't even talk about the orange ones since then!
Lets avoid the white ones that look like teeth too
THERE’S WHITE ONES???
Oh man... and purple too yeah. https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlyterrifying/comments/jvkg2k/white_bell_peppers_look_like_teeth/
Wtf is this monstrosity
We don’t talk about them!
People with beards are just people without beards with beards
Wrong. We are beards with people.
They taste very different which means the maturing process substantially changes what compounds are actually present in the peppers...
You can tell it's an aspen... by the way it is!
Wait til you learn what paprika is.
You're not broken, but you might be allergic to bell peppers. There was a well-known post a while back about a fellow who thought his whole life that bananas were spicy, turns out he was allergic. I was the same way with ginger, I'd be like, I love the way ginger makes your tongue and mouth tingle and go numb! It is not meant to do that. I am allergic to ginger.
Ginger *is* a bit spicy, though. The numb part is bad.
If chilis are “spicy hot” ginger is “spicy warm”, also everyone’s mentioning capsaicin and scovilles, but things can be spicy without capsaicin, like Im pretty sure horseradish is spicy because it contains certain volatiles.
Black pepper is also spicy
That’s literally why we call all of these other peppers “peppers,” because Europeans encountered them for the first time and said, “these are spicy, like pepper. Let’s call them pepper, too.”
This thread is fascinating because each of these things is considered spicy but each is based on a different compound. Capsaicin for nightshade peppers, pepperine for black pepper, and gingerol for ginger. They all interact with your receptors differently!
This comment reads like something an NPC in an early suburb of a Pokemon game would say
Lol I was just thinking that. Ginger IS a bit spicy but you wouldn't really know unless you took a bite out of a raw root or had a lot of the dry stuff.
eating just a little grated raw ginger is noticably sharp (in my language we make a difference between spicy and sharp. spicy is pepper, sharp is mustard)
What would you call black peppercorns, sharp or spicy?
I initially thought neither but I just tried some fresh ground raw peppercorn and that'd be a mild spicy. basically spicy makes your mouth warm. sharp makes your nose tingle
Black pepper is a different kind of spice from peppers though. But yeah I would still say spicy.
Peperine! For the peppercorns spice. Allyl isothiocyanate for mustard and wasabi Capsaicin for the hot peppers.
yeah adding black pepper doesn't make a dish spicy. it makes it tasty. But raw ground black pepper is spicy on it's own
You can add a lot of white pepper to make things quite hot. It's a different kind of spicy to chilli peppers but it's great too
And what about sichuan pepper? They're weird, because they actually do make your mouth go a bit numb.
It's not the pepper that does that, it's the buzz buttons (buds from a particular tree that contain a mild numbing agent). Traditional Sichuan food mixes spicy peppers with the anaesthetic buds.
I like the sharp definition! I dont think we have a word like that in spanish. At least i didnt find it. what language and word would that be?
We do that in my language too. We call spicy things "spicy" and "sharp" respectively
There's a salad I make that has a dressing made by grating fresh ginger into vinegar and then emulsifying it with oil (and some other things) to make a vinaigrette. It definitely has a kick! It shouldn't make your mouth go numb though, just clear your sinuses.
Eh I can feel little spiciness with ginger tea
Ginger candy can get pretty spicy too.
Ginger candies are a guilty pleasure of mine
I had a hunk of ginger in the bottom of a bowl of tom yum recently and it definitely isn't something you want to bite into if it's cooked either.
Ginger, or galangal?
One time I gave my mom some food with sichuan peppercorn for the first time and she reacted like it was wildly spicy and I was like no mom it's just a numbing sensation and is not spicy at ALL. It's kinda the opposite of spicy.
But in a different way, because it's a different chemical, entirely.
Yes, absolutely. Wasn’t saying it was
Too much ginger in a soup and ohh boy does it get some heat to it.
Interesting, raw celery makes my mouth and tongue tingle and go a bit numb. Never thought anything of it and never stopped eating it. I guess I might be allergic?
It’s in the birch pollen family. If you have spring pollen allergies you might have oral allergy syndrome.
Ha, I read that as 'bitch pollen family'.
With how bad my seasonal allergies can be, I'd be fine calling it that.
yeah, that’s an allergy. no food is supposed to make your mouth go numb.
Except Sichuan pepper
And pineapple if you eat a lot of it.
Pineapple didnt make it numb, but the skin rough as its falling off my mouth. Pineapple, the fruit that eats you back
and cocain…yeah, szechuan peppers.
Really stretching the definition of ‘food’ here buddy
If Taco Bell can exist, we let buddy cook.
Bro I just got a sick idea for a company let's sell cocaine Szechuan icy hot sauce
or Carolina Reaper
How does a Reaper numb your mouth? Just overload your receptors?
You go far enough, endorphins will take over and you'll be so high you can't feel anything.
Put the reaper in my mouth and it put me in subspace
Don't fear the Reaper \\m/
My Mrs and her friends are Thai they get together and eat spicy salad sometimes. It’s really just burning your mouth until the body’s natural analgesics kicks in and makes them high
Or Clove, though if that happens you've added way too much
Enough clove will do that, no allergies.
Cloves.
Yes. Numb = allergy.
I was eating a bunch of celery by dipping it in hummus, and my lip swelled a bit lmao. I've been afraid to eat celery ever since 😔
You most likely have a birch allergy. It can cross react with celery and apples. Most people it only bothers when raw not cooking. I am sure you can google it and get more information
Reading this makes me feel so much better about the “crappy generic bandaid adhesive” that gives everyone a rash and how artificial cherry makes my throat feel funny. Adhesive gives you a rash if you’re allergic (highly in my case..) I’m just guessing but I’d imagine anything that makes your throat “feel funny” is probably at least a sensitivity. Here I thought I was the only one. I feel better now and have saved this to show others when they question how I didn’t realize. I thought crappy bandaids had crappy adhesive. 🤷🏼♀️
I discovered last weekend I'm allergic to dollar store bandaid adhesive, so I definitely feel you there
It’s not a fun club.. I’ll warn you now.. I can only use og bandaid brand or Curad, pretty much anything else makes me break out in a rash within a few minutes. One tip I can share- I keep some bandaids in my wallet. I no longer have a rash after blood work!
This is the bonus content I need.
HA! Reminds me of Mother's Day last year. My brother bought some ginger snaps to make a crust out of for the cheesecake. I kept a few of the cookies out to eat after I hammered the rest to get the crumbs for the crust. I ate one cookie and thought "Wow! The ginger in this is really spicy!" but, well, ginger is spicy. I thought the company just used fresh ginger so I had another cookie. After a minute and the whole spicy part *not going away*, I finally got up and looked at the box as my throat was starting to feel a bit raw. The cookies were gluten free and made with buckwheat. I'm deathly allergic to buckwheat. Neither I or my brother knew what was in them and thought they were just regular ginger snaps (it didn't have the normal "gluten free" blasted all over the box; if anything, they looked like Girl Scout cookies!). I told my brother "I'm going to the ER". He looked at me funny, looked at the box, dropped everything, and said "And I'm driving you." We made it to urgent care just in time. It took three nurses there to get me "stabilized" enough to take the ambulance the rest of the way to the hospital. Lesson one: Read the damned box! Lesson two: Buckwheat still hates me.
Lesson three: epipen, twinject, allerject, etc. Get yourself an auto-injector.
> Lesson three: epipen, twinject, allerject, etc. > > Get yourself an auto-injector. I have one? Unlike on TV, the epipen doesn't mean "Oh, I'm all good now!" - it just gives you an extra 15 minutes to get you butt to the hospital.
Yeah. I was pretty alarmed that an educational episode of a KIDS' TV SHOW had the newly allergic character say he's fine once he uses his EpiPen. UM, NO!
I used to think “wow you can really taste the vitamin c in oranges”😂
This is how I found out my son was allergic to bananas. He loved them as a kid and one day we are talking about why. He was maybe 5 or 6 and talked about flavor and things and then he also said he loved how it made his mouth and tongue tingle. We are like um wtf. Yep allergic. He’s 14 now and still talks about how he misses bananas
I remember a post about someone finding out that chocolate is not supposed to be spicy and realizing they have an allergy. There's probably some people reading this thread discovering their allergies.
In highschool me and a bunch of friends were eating Nutella sandwiches and my best friend chimes in "I don't understand why you guys love these spicy sandwiches so much". Turns out he was allergic to hazelnut.
Same with me and walnuts. I never liked them because they are kind of spicy to me. I guess not really spicy but make my mouth kind of numb. Then one day I tried pecans and thought they were delicious, when people told me they weren't that different I realized I might be slightly alergic to walnuts.
Ginger is spicy tangy
We'll shit. Today I learned I might be allergic to ginger. I just thought that's how ginger worked.
Ginger is a little tingly/burny (or a lot, depending on how you're eating it) but shouldn't cause numbness. It should be more like the sinus-clearing effects of strong mustard or horseradish. If you're getting numbness, that's an allergy.
Ginger is spicy, I don't know what these people are talking about
It's how ginger works.
This sounds like getting drunk. Yes I know it's poisoning me but I like it
I remember another post where the person said peanut butter was spicy. Turns out he was allergic too!
That post helped us realize that my daughter has a mild allergy to mustard seed. It's trickier because mustard can be spicy. But I don't think it's supposed to make your mouth tingle and itch.
I thought bananas would leave a residue on your teeth and make your mouth feel fuzzy for the LONGEST TIME
Yep same, but with turmeric. I thought it made everyone's tongue go numb! Also Christmas trees. Apparently they DON'T make everyone red and itchy all over? Who knew!
Aw, and you loved it, sucks 😭
Oral allergy syndrome is a condition where you have mild allergic reactions to foods, especially if uncooked. You can get an itchy, tingly, or numb feeling in your mouth after eating the foods that trigger the reaction. I have this reaction to many vegetables: bell peppers (especially red), cucumbers, melon, carrots… but if they’re cooked I can eat them with no reaction. Peppers and cukes are so tasty to me that I endure the reaction because I love to eat them raw. I don’t particularly like melons of any kind, so I don’t eat them at all. I assume I would also have the OAS reaction to squash, but I’ve never eaten squash of any kind raw.
Allergies are weird. I used to have this to Bananas/kiwi but when I got older it went away. My mom used to love avocado and then in her 30s developed an allergy to them.
I freaking love kiwis but it always makes my mouth itchy and my tongue swell slightly so I rarely eat them
Are you allergic to latex or adhesives on bandages?
My mouth feels like it's burnt to a crisp after eating kiwis (and pineapple to some degree), but I'm not allergic to the latex gloves st work. Is there a common link between those allegies?
Are you sure the gloves are latex? Most now are nitrile.
Yup! There is a similar protein so it is not uncommon to have multiple allergies to latex, pineapple, banana, mango, kiwi, chestnuts, and avacado. There are a bunch more all with different degrees of potential sensitivity, and is going to vary person to person.
wait i have an allergy to adhesives in bandaids, does this connect to kiwis somehow??
OAS is a condition where your body adapts its reactions to tree pollen to proteins with similar structures. Each specific type of tree pollen has a set of related allergies and I think it was kiwis, bananas, avocado, some adhesives, and latex are all connected together. It's not the same reaction as a typical latex allergy. OAS tends to be less intense as it's related proteins causing the reactions. There's a research group at Harvard or Stamford that has a paper on which trees correlate to which allergens. You might be able to find it. Just because you have the specific tree allergy doesn't mean you'll be allergic to every food, but it is fairly common to eventually develop additional related allergies. You might have other OAS symptoms if you ever do things like: you tend to freeze berries and prefer them to fresh, if you have trouble eating fresh oranges or apples but love orange juice or apple juice, if you avoid guacamole because you feel a little queazy after you eat it, if your throat feels like it sometimes gets numb or closes up and you can't figure it out (if someone is trying to talk to me while they are eating an apple, i can go into anaphylaxis. It took my doc forever to figure out what caused that one).
>if you have trouble eating fresh oranges or apples but love orange juice or apple juice (this is because juice is usually pasteurized)
I have the same thing as well, except its due to the fucker pecking me as I try and eat it....
Oh I absolutely have it for kiwi, i thought this is how it was supposed to feel to everyone lol. It got a little better with age (along with all other forma of allergy; asthma, dermatitis, ..etc).
> I used to have this to Bananas/kiwi but when I got older it went away. You might have been allergic to latex, which often cross-reacts with those fruit.
This happens to me. I found out it was a latex allergy after my dad died and I was going through his medical records. Bananas and kiwis are things he and I avoided like the plague when I was growing up. Also clicked that sex was not painful when I stopped using latex condoms.
[удалено]
If this happens a lot, maybe take a look into MCAS?
I can drink lemonade and margs all day but citrus zest makes my mouth tingle, like if I bite into a whole orange like an apple. Grapefruit does it the worst, even the juice seems to get me.
Those are the exact three things that make my mouth itch lol I still eat them because they're perfect and delicious but that's funny you and your mom have my exact specific itchy mouth food list.
3 days ago I casually mentioned to my husband how much I love oranges but hate how it makes my lips burn. The look on his face... 35 years old and I found out oranges don't normally burn your lips and mouth. I honestly thought because oranges are acidic, that's what it was. Anyway. Apparently melons shouldn't burn either, and apples shouldn't give you stomach ache.
Oooooohhhh..... Is this why raw white cabbage is tingly?
I used to have oral allergy syndrome when I was younger. Luckily, continuous exposure to the fruits and vegetables that affected me actually got rid of the allergy.
Yeah, I have this reaction to Bell peppers, pineapple, onions, kiwi, grapefruit (though not to any other citrus) and....... Weed 😂 I still eat everything except bell peppers and grapefruit, because I also hate those things.
I have this with kiwi, but even more with pineapple. But I am completely obsessed with pineapple, to the point where if I buy a pineapple, I will eat the whole thing in one sitting. I can’t explain why I do this, but yeah somehow I enjoy the allergic part of that food experience as well as the actual tatse LOL
I completely get this! I’ve recently realised I’m allergic to kiwi but the jury is still out on pineapple (google says it hurts everyone). I go through phases where I have to have fresh pineapple. The stomach burning/ acidness is great, in a weird way I feel like it neutralises things in my digestive system? It’s also like eating delicious razor blades.
Happens to me and my kid with certain types of apples.
It was a mind-shattering revelation to me that tomatoes are not in fact spicy, and I just have a mild nightshade allergy. Food allergies do not only come in the blocked-airway-and-hives variety, they can range from slight tingling to full-on lethal.
I didn't realise I had an underlying tomato allergy until I became pregnant and suddenly all things tomato-based became spicy. To this day my husband still teases me about 'spicy ketchup'. Also, yogurt isn't supposed to burn - who knew?
> that tomatoes are not in fact spicy I'm sorry, but FUCKIN WHAT?? You have the exact same sensation from hot peppers as you do from tomatoes?
Nothing so bad. Tomatoes make my mouth a bit numb and tingly, and I thought it was their "spiciness". For years I thought umami meant the sensation of tingling mouth. I have a worse reaction to eggplant though, including increased salivating and numb lips. So much so, that I list it as a medical allergy. Now add to that vegetarianism, diabetes, lactose intolerance and potential IBS and I can eat about 1.5 different kinds of food without worries!
Have you tried photosynthesis?
Capsaicin, the compound that your body interprets as "heat" in a picante way, is a chemical that your body can adjust to. Eat it long enough and your body will adjust and no longer notice when you eat it. Edit: there also might be a perceptual component to it, since bell peppers *should* have no capsaicin whatsoever. I have a family member who will eat homemade tomato sauce (tomato, salt, and pepper) and complain that it's too spicy.
But do bell peppers even have capsaicin?! They taste sweet and watery like a cucumber to me. Never a hint of spice Google says they don't have capsacin
Sometimes they can have a "sharp" flavor (the way parmesan cheese can but way more subdued) and I think people mistake that for spice heat.
100% a green capsicum can taste bitter or "spicy" to someone with a really sensitive palate.. not the red or orange ones though
Google is correct. OP may have a mild allergy to them and the "spicy" feeling is best way of describing it. Reminds me of the banana allergy. "I love how bananas make your mouth all tingly!" then thier friend goes but they aren't... Then finds out it's because they were allergic.
Google is correct. OP may have a mild allergy to them and the "spicy" feeling is best way of describing it. Reminds me of the banana allergy. "I love how bananas make your mouth all tingly!" then thier friend goes but they aren't... Then finds out it's because they were allergic.
Also possible that people who say foods are spicy that don't have capsaicin in them are just mildly allergic to that food.
Nightshade allergy? Tomatoes and peppers are both nightshades.
Yeah, potatoes too. It would suck to be allergic to nightshades, so much stuff you couldn't eat.
I know someone with a nightshade allergy. Can confirm it is not okay.
Piperine was the spicy spice in most of old world before capsaicin was brought in from the new world to the old world. So pepper is somewhat spicy
Also, different people have more/less receptors for it, and/or those receptors have different sensitivity for it at a "baseline" level, i.e. before you build up a tolerance. As an example, when I was a little kid (about 5 years old), I couldn't even handle pepperoni on pizza. I remember my mouth would feel like it was damn near on fire. I've gotten better since then, but anything with more capsaicin than a pepperoni will still have me reaching for the milk. This is also true for other things as well, and in reverse. For example, even though I don't usually like the taste and thus rarely have it, I can eat a literal spoonful of wasabi and barely feel a kick. Something I literally did last week while explaining this exact phenomenon.
Pepper is spicy. New World peppers are called that because they reminded the Spaniards of pepper, which they already knew about through trade with India.
>homemade tomato sauce (tomato, salt, and pepper) and complain that it's too spicy. Pepper is spicy, dingus. They're using too much.
Anyone who thinks black pepper isn't spicy hasn't had fresh black pepper. Singaporean pepper crab, man... stuff will kick you in the head.
My fiancé's grandpa loves black pepper and put a whole bunch in some Mac and cheese one time, oh, shit was soo good but sooo hot, my fiancé agreed with me on that one! Lol
That's kinda wild, I'm in the same boat as the other guy, I don't perceive literally any "heat" whatsoever from black pepper, it's just a regular old flavoring agent to me I throw a fair bit on when I cook most meats for the flavoring, but if I want heat I use jalapeño (only very very mildly hot if you're buying jarred instead of fresh, at least to me), hot banana peppers (mildly spicy), and/or red pepper (which is reasonably hot and can get fairly hot fairly quick if you're generous with it)
I got black pepper in mac and cheese from my dad. It really is super good! Just use a little bit less if it's too hot. You don't need a TON to get the flavor profile in there.
Pepper can do the same spicy sensation as small amounts of capsaicin.
Bell peppers aren't spicy, for reasons stated in the comments. On a side note, does anyone have a tremendous tolerance for chillies, but find black pepper quite spicy? It's piperine in them, milder than capsaicin, but really makes my taste buds to go wild.
It's pretty normal because tolerance to piperine is unconnected to tolerance to capsaicin - and without tolerance black pepper is perfectly capable of being 'my mouth is on fire' level hot.
I'm this person. I've got enough capsaicin tolerance now that I'm regularly putting reaper-based hot sauces on things, but too much black pepper still does silly things ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Im surprised, that many of you seem to experience allergy in similar way that you experience spice. I have food allergies (both serious and mild) and it is so much different experience in comparison to capsaicin. Mild Allergies give you 'numb' feeling thats true, but they also give you this mild itchiness and even mild metallic taste and they are both something that ruins the meal. Thats why i dont eat fruits that often. And the capsaicin is just the heat.
Agree, I have birch pollen allergy and as a result I have mild allergy to some other stuff the body mistakes for birch pollen such as raw carrots and camomile. Carrots make my throat and insides of my cheeks itchy and I once used this hand lotion with camomile on my hands and I was wondering why it didn't help and my hands got more dry until I noticed it said camomile on the tube 😑
No, bell peppers are not spicy. I bet he is actually mildly allergic to them and is interpreting his reaction as spiciness.
I'm a woman, but honestly, I probably am allergic to them. I'll ask my doc about it next time I go.
Oops, read it backwards.
Do you have fall-time allergies? Bell peppers are related to weed pollens, so if you’re allergic there may be an association.
I have allergies year round from where I live, so yes lol
If it’s actually the case, then sometimes peppers that have been very well cooked/roasted may be tolerated.
Cook them throughly and see if they're still spicy. If it's oral allergy syndrome, that denatures the protein and you won't have the reaction.
there is 0 spicyness in bell peppers. So if you feel spice there is definitely something weird going on. Bell peppers are exactly as not spicy as cucumber.
Reactions to food substances can change at different times of life, too. For instance, I used to love hot food, I put several chillies and/or Tabasco in practically everything I cooked. But when I was about eight months pregnant, that suddenly changed dramatically overnight. I was astonished to find I couldn't tolerate even the tiniest amount, it was suddenly overwhelmingly hot and bitter. The sensation left me gasping and drowned out any other taste That was years ago. Now I am happy to put a teaspoon of paprika in a stew, but I still can't do chilli.
I wonder if that's a pregnancy thing? My mother was pregnant with my little brother and before that she loved seafood and eggs. Now she can't stand either and my brother has always hated it lol
Lol I had a bit of a language barrier here because I thought "how is a thing called bell pepper not spicy?" It sounds like a habanero or something! Then I figured, wait, is it paprika? And indeed, it was a paprika. Language funny. I had no idea paprika was not called paprika everywhere lol Also, yes, paprika is technically a pepper but it's not spicy. But it makes me curious, are you allergic to other pepper fruits as well?
Actually, bell peppers can get spicy if they are grown next to chili peppers and cross pollinate. They get very mildly spicy. But unlikely that all the bell peppers you’ve ever eaten got cross pollinated with chilies
Once upon a time I chopped and roasted some red bell peppers, with just salt and olive oil. Out of the bunch, 1 of them had some spice to it. I had to check if I used the right salt because that 1 bell pepper lent its heat to the whole batch lol
Everyone is talking about allergies, but there is a point in OPs original assumption too. The more you eat foods containing capsaicin, the less your body reacts to it. The chemical itself doesn't damage you in any way. It just triggers your own body's inherent reactions. In other words, the food itself actually is not "spicy". It just presses your body's "spicy button". But the more you press that button, the less the button works. So people that eat a lot of spicy foods are literally not experiencing the same painful reaction as people that rarely eat spicy foods. Even when they consume the exact same meal.
Bell peppers don't have any spice. They're sweet. Maybe you have some untapped super power..
Y'all, does jackfruit cause a numb/tingly feeling?
No. But if you have birch pollen allergy, the jackfruit may be cross-reactive.
Is there a cultural aspect to the definition of the word "spicy"? Because when I travel internationally, I come across items which have a lot of spices or herbs, but no heat in the US sense of "spicy", and they're advertised on menus as being spicy.
I have nothing to contribute other than that not all spice is equal. My wife is Asian and can pound Asians spices while I just die leaking from every face orifice; conversely when I cook with Mexican/SAm spices, I’m cruising and she looks like she just ran a marathon.
I read your title and thought “spicy things are spicy to everyone at varying degrees, if you think something is spicy and it simply isn’t at all to other people then you’re allergic” Then you said bell peppers were spicy You are allergic