Spice Up Your Life-- No, Really.

I tend to get worrisome looks from others when I’m eating and at this point I’m used to it. 

This is not due to sloppiness or odd food choices, but my ongoing committed relationship with hot sauce. More specifically: Sriracha chili sauce or chipotle smoked Tabasco. (Yes, I am dating them both). People constantly judge my frenzy and frankly I don’t blame them. 

I quite often speculate how my taste buds evolved to withstand the amount of spice I voluntarily bestow upon myself, especially being the only person in my family who smothers their food in such painstaking spice. My fridge has a rack dedicated to a variety of hot sauces that satisfy every craving, and I even have a ‘Sriracha2go’ key chain gracing my keys-- yes, this way I can bring my boyfriend with me everywhere I go. So, you get the picture. I consume an abundance of hot sauce.

However, don’t be quick to judge. There are hidden benefits to consuming spicy foods. So listen here, people:

Capsaicin, the active ingredient in chili peppers, contributes to numerous health benefits such as increased metabolism, increased heart health, the ability to kill cancer cells, & a decrease in blood pressure. Even if you don’t like or can’t tolerate spicy, I highly encourage you to add more tolerable spices such as curry to your food to increase the hidden health benefits

This past May I spent two nights in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia while traveling in Southeast Asia. Between street food and local eateries, there was no lack of extra spicy food, the kind of spice that can even make me sweat a little. In short, I was in absolute heaven. While getting dinner at an eatery, there was a language barrier between my waiter and I, and the menu was entirely in Malay. Therefore, I chose to eat buffet style, although I still could not accurately decipher what I was eating. Despite being clueless, I plated an assortment of meats, chili sauces and rice. Luckily the woman sitting next to me was from Switzerland and spoke pretty fluent English. We bonded over the fact that we had little idea what we were eating and both thoroughly enjoyed suffering through the Malaysian spice. 

To add a little Southeast Asian spice to my life once back in America, I decided to grow Thai peppers. Tonight I was able to enjoy them for the first time--it took me right back across the world.

-Kyra