Spicy food challenges are all the rage these days, but can munching red hot peppers and sizzling hot sauces harm you? One nutrition expert from University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center in Ohio suggests that while it may burn your tongue at the dinner table and trigger some gastrointestinal distress as it travels through your body,...
With spicy foods, pain is pleasure. No, really. The concept even comes with a term: benign masochism. “‘Benign masochism’ is when people come to enjoy pain,” explains Paul Rozin, a professor of psychology in the School of Arts and Sciences, whose research focuses on cultural psychology and humans’ relationship with food. “And that pain is...
