this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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There are two sides to american eating habits.. the ones who think the Wendy's Ghost Pepper fries were too spicy, and the ones who are actively out there inventing a whole new level of spice to torture their taste buds with.
Sadly, the first side is WAAAAAYYYY larger than the second and any level of spice stronger than black pepper will instantaneously send them both to the bathroom and the emergency room for even daring to try something with some flavor on it. And it doesn't help that as far as most people (around here anyways) consider indian food chicken tika marsala and samosas.. and that's the entirety of the menu.
The only other thing I can think of that might cause it is the intention for each bite of bland food (like rice) to have a surplus of flavorings on it, which works for most non spiced foods but may wreak some havoc on people who don't balance out their spice intake with the rest of the meal. There's probably something to be said for overall quality causing some problems as well.
I can't be sure, but from the people I've interacted with, these are reasons I can think of which may explain how things got to where they are.
Side one thinks Ketchup is spicy enough. The other side laughs at them, but they don't understand how much spices hurt side one. This is genetic as far as I can tell - it isn't just you get used to spices if fed them as a kid which side two seems to think.
It's nothing genetic...
At least not for people
Capsaicin is what makes peppers hot, and all mammals are sensitive to it. But birds aren't.
And birds are better are distributing seeds than mammals, so some peppers that evolved to have a lot of capsaicin spread much further. There was an advantage to large mammals not woofing a whole pepper down in one bite.
The difference in people is some like the endorphin rush from their bodies thinking they're in actual pain, and some people don't think it's worth it.
But the vast amount of people that don't like spicy food never work up to it, they just go straight to something crazy spicy and then refuse anything remotely spicy.
Like, if your first time drinking alcohol you just chug a fifth of everclear, it's probably gonna be a while before your second night drinking.
There is a third side who understands that there are more food flavorings then "spicy," and that often excessive spicing is used to hide shitty quality food.