Mrs. Li’s family likes spicy food, so they often cook some spicy dishes.
However, every time she cooks chili fried meat, she will encounter a disturbing thing: after cutting the chili, Mrs. Li can feel the spicy fire on her fingers.
This kind of spicy food is generally unbearable. Mrs. Li didn’t realize that her forehead was sweating and there was nothing she could do with her red fingers.
Sometimes it may be better to flush with water, but the effect is extremely short-lived and sometimes it doesn’t work at all.
Helpless, heart suspicious, open clove doctor asked:
There are no taste buds on your hands, why can you feel spicy?
- The spicy substance in chili fruit is capsaicin, which is an extremely spicy vanilla amide alkaloid. The spicy taste is sensed by people and does not need to pass through taste buds, but is absorbed by skin or oral mucosa, which directly stimulates the sensory nerves under skin and mucosa to produce a hot burning sensation.
The fact that capsaicin can be absorbed through the skin has also been applied to medicine. People have developed capsaicin plasters with reasonable concentration, mild and slow release effect, which are applied externally for analgesia: because capsaicin can seize the receptors of neurotransmitters that sense pain, the local feeling of pain becomes slow.
If you want not to be spicy, wear a glove to cut it.
The best way is to nip in the bud.
Before cutting chili, you can wear a film glove or put a plastic bag on your hand to form a physical isolation between your hand and chili. As long as your hand does not directly touch chili, it will naturally not be spicy.
It’s too spicy. Can what relieve it?
The next step is to flush the water.
Turn on the faucet and rinse the part with a large amount of clear water, which can cool the skin. This way is very convenient: whose kitchen does not have a faucet?
The disadvantage is that the effect is not very good.
Because capsaicin is insoluble in water, it is difficult to wash away the capsaicin stained on the skin surface with water alone. This method cannot shorten the time of suffering, and still has to wait for all the capsaicin on the skin to slowly complete its action. It is just to use the cool feeling brought by cold water to resist the local burning feeling and make people feel better in the process.
The effect of rinsing with clear water is poor. How about washing with soap?
Capsaicin is also dissolved in alkaline solution. Although the solubility is not very high, it is always better than nothing. Therefore, clean water cannot be washed clean, and soapy water will be used to rinse again, and the effect will be slightly better.
China Policy: Oil Agent
Many people have had the experience that when eating chili is spicy and uncomfortable, eating a mouthful of cream ice cream will relieve it faster than drinking cold water.
This is because capsaicin is insoluble in water, but it is easily soluble in fat, while cream ice cream has a high fat content, which can dissolve capsaicin that has not been absorbed on the surface of oral mucosa.
When using skin externally, peanut oil and olive oil commonly found in the kitchen are good choices, and then wipe them off with a cleaning towel.
Best Policy: 75% Alcohol
Although the oil can dissolve capsaicin, it does not feel cool at all! Capsaicin, which has been absorbed through the skin, still causes burning sensation. What should I do about this uncomfortable feeling?
At this time, the 75% alcohol kept by the family is the best policy!
75% alcohol can not only be used to disinfect the surroundings of daily small wounds (such as acupuncture, insect bites, newly punctured ear holes, a pimple in the hand, and a piece of paper cutting the hand), but also dissolve capsaicin! Yes! Capsaicin is not only soluble in oil, but also soluble in alcohol!
Moreover, alcohol, as a volatile liquid, will volatilize quickly after being applied to the skin surface, taking away heat and making people feel the local skin cool, thus resisting the burning sensation caused by absorbed capsaicin. This is better than oil.
What if chili accidentally rubbed his eyes after touching his hands?
Don’t rub your eyes after chili touches your hands!
Don’t rub your eyes after chili touches your hands!
Don’t rub your eyes after chili touches your hands!
Eyes cannot be washed with alcohol, oil drops or towels. The only way is to wash with plenty of clean water. However, as mentioned earlier, the effect of clean water washing is not very good, and the whole process can only be slowly survived.
Of course, when chili touches our eyes, our eyes will secrete tears and wash them out, which will make us feel better. However, if you cut a dish until you have to stand on the table with a snot and a tear, people who don’t know will think you don’t like to work.
Therefore, after touching chili at the beginning, one should be alert immediately and never rub one’s eyes again to avoid suffering more.
Editor: Jing Liu
Author: Chen Yulan