I’m going to be very honest with you: I love, love, love hot sauce.

To give you an idea of how much I love hot sauce, my kitchen contains about 2 to 3 bottles of it at any given time, and every two weeks or so, I’m out and about buying new ones, or having them delivered to me through a delivery service. Whether it’s the traditional chili pepper, a more fun blend with garlic and peppercorns, or specific flavors like jalapeno, cayenne, or habanero – there’s room for it in my kitchen, always, every day.

Which is to say that I am very much familiar with the nuances of hot sauce flavors. There are sweet varieties, sour varieties, and plain “burn in hell” varieties that will test your patience and taste buds.

But are they healthy?

Well, of course they are!

A BIT OF BACKGROUND ON HOT SAUCE

Hot sauce, which also goes by the name chili sauce or pepper sauce, is a popular seasoning all over the world, with the earliest known records of hot sauce dating as far back as 6,000 years ago in the Central and South Americas.

The sauce has a very simple recipe – for a sauce to qualify as “hot”, it needs to have at least one variety of chili pepper in the mix. For this reason, tomato sauce liberally seasoned with chili peppers is, technically speaking, a hot sauce. And indeed, this is a popular recipe used all over the world; most affordable brands of hot sauce use this combination as its recipe base.

Popular ingredients to mix with chili peppers are salt, vinegar, mustard oil, ginger, garlic, and peppercorns.

The condiment is also regulated in many countries in terms of quality. For example, in the United States, there are 3 grades for hot sauce: US Fancy, US Standard, and Substandard. These grades indicate the quality of the sauce’s color, consistency, distinct flavor, and clarity or character of flavor.

The Scoville scale, which measures the heat of a chili pepper, is often used to reference how spicy or hot a particular sauce is. To wit, the Carolina reaper chili pepper sits at the top of the Scoville meter with 1,569,300 Scoville Heat Units (SHUs), and is a popular variety in competitive chili eating contests.

BENEFITS OF CONSUMING HOT SAUCE

This article wouldn’t have a place in this blog if it didn’t have any beneficial properties for our health. Specific varieties can be healthier compared to others, but let’s go with the broad strokes for the moment with our list.

Hot sauce is good for the digestive tract. While it’s true that the main component in chili peppers, capsaicin, is used as an irritant, it can also be used to provide antioxidants that aid with digestive issues like intestinal gas, diarrhea, stomach cramps, and upset stomachs.

Capsaicin causes a reaction with the acids in the gastrointestinal tract that helps reduce the risk of ulcers, provided that the capsaicin levels aren’t too high. A bit of hot sauce, in this case, can keep you from feeling bloated or cramped up.

Hot sauce helps improve metabolism. Capsaicin is a natural thermogenic trigger within the body, which is a process that stimulates and fires up our metabolism. Granted, it’s only for short periods, and it’s not recommended as a long-term means of driving our metabolism rates up, but if you need a boost of energy from your meals that also doesn’t add calories to your diet, a dollop or two of hot sauce is just what you need as a gastronomic pep talk.

Hot sauce helps battle against infections and nasal congestion.  Capsaicin has long been associated with reducing nasal congestion, but did you know that it also aids in fighting against over 10 fungal strains? The acidic properties in chili peppers, combined with capsaicin, helps neutralize fungal pathogens that find their way into the body. The natural antioxidants found in chili peppers also provide support to our immune system in fighting against colds and flu.

WRAPPING IT UP

If you need some excitement and variety with your meals while under COVID-19 quarantine, there’s no way to go wrong with a bit of hot sauce here and there. Try a new variant or stick with old favorites – tasty meals don’t have to be bad for you, and with hot sauce, they can in fact be healthy instead.

Stay safe, everyone!

The post Kitchen Diaries: Spicing It Up With Hot Sauce appeared first on The Fast Metabolism Diet Community.