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posted by chromas on Thursday June 27 2019, @06:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the how-much-cheese-is-too-much-cheese? dept.

Penn State News:

People who order their Buffalo wings especially spicy and sometimes find them to be too "hot," should choose milk to reduce the burn, according to Penn State researchers, who also suggest it does not matter if it is whole or skim.

[...]The researchers looked at five beverages and involved 72 people -- 42 women and 30 men. Participants drank spicy Bloody Mary mix, containing capsaicin. Immediately after swallowing, they rated the initial burn.

Then, in subsequent separate trials, they drank purified water, cola, cherry-flavored Kool-Aid, seltzer water, non-alcoholic beer, skim milk and whole milk. Participants continued to rate perceived burn every 10 seconds for two minutes. There were eight trials. Seven included one of the test beverages and one trial did not include a test beverage.

The initial burn of the spicy Bloody Mary mix was, on average, rated below "strong" but above "moderate" by participants and continued to decay over the two?minutes of the tests to a mean just above "weak," according to lead researcher Alissa Nolden. All beverages significantly reduced the burn of the mix, but the largest reductions in burn were observed for whole milk, skim milk and Kool-Aid.

If the wings are too spicy, isn't the solution to dip them in the blue cheese or ranch dressing?


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @06:29AM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @06:29AM (#860432)
    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
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    Total Score:   1  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @07:58AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @07:58AM (#860449)

    You have to admit, nothing beats a freshly squeezed glass of milk!

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by FatPhil on Thursday June 27 2019, @08:04AM (8 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday June 27 2019, @08:04AM (#860451) Homepage
    As someone who's been eating botty-burner curries for 3 decades, this does indeed seem like old news.
    The absense of salti lassi in the list of drinks tested shows that these so-called academics really haven't got a clue what they're doing.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday June 27 2019, @01:44PM (4 children)

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday June 27 2019, @01:44PM (#860499) Journal

      Predictable. Already a half-dozen comments on here saying, "Duh... everyone knows this." No, everyone doesn't, because experimental science is different from culinary lore (a lot of which is BS). I don't have time to track down the actual research article and read it, but most of what is said here is addressed in TFA:

      While folklore exists on the ability of specific beverages to mitigate capsaicin burn, quantitative data to support these claims are lacking

      Yeah, so apparently there is limited scientific study of this stuff. Everyone here complains when someone makes a claim without data to support it, and here someone was actually trying to collect data, and we criticize it. Typical. Continuing on from TFA:

      "We weren't surprised that our data suggest milk is the best choice to mitigate burn, but we didn't expect skim milk to be as effective at reducing the burn as whole milk," she said. "That appears to mean that the fat context of the beverage is not the critical factor and suggests the presence of protein may be more relevant than lipid content."

      Yep, they KNEW milk already worked. That wasn't an interesting finding. BUT the skim milk is, which you'd learn even TFS. If you actually know the folklore about this stuff, the common claim is that milk is effective because of its fat content and some vague stuff about fat solubility (as capsaicin is more soluble in fat). Because of that, I've sometimes seen claims online that even higher fat dairy products or non-dairy fat products should work as well or better. This study suggests the fat content may not be the significant factor in reducing the burn, which IS a potentially significant finding that differs from the folklore.

      As for your point about, "The absense of salti lassi in the list of drinks tested shows that these so-called academics really haven't got a clue what they're doing" Well, RTFA:

      The study was novel, Nolden believes, because it incorporated products found on food-market shelves, making it more user friendly. "Traditionally, in our work, we use capsaicin and water for research like this, but we wanted to use something more realistic and applicable to consumers, so we chose spicy Bloody Mary mix," she said. "That is what I think was really cool about this project — all the test beverages are commercially available, too."

      Salty lassi is not a commonly available commercial beverage in the U.S. Point answered if you RTFA. And aside from being "consumer friendly," I assume part of the rationale for using actual products rather than pure lab chemicals is because a lot of studies have been criticized in recent years for being too abstract and not necessarily applicable to real-world situations. Most people don't consume pure capsaicin or just mix it with water. The flavor perception of the "burn" may differ in actual food.

      And that's actual my main criticism with this study (though I will qualify my remark that I haven't read the original research article, so my criticism may also be addressed by them too -- I'm going to refrain from calling the researchers morons without actually looking at what they wrote in detail) -- using only ONE source for "spicy" (bloody mary mix) seems problematic. Since capsaicin has different solubility in different foods, perhaps the burn produced by consuming it in different types of foods may call for different mitigating solutions. Or maybe the subjects would have rated the solutions differently for something that had a "minor burn" sensation vs. an "extreme burn" situation. Maybe Kool-Aid is good for moderate stuff, but milk outperforms significantly for stronger burns or something, for example.

      Speaking of Kool-Aid, note that's ALSO a surprising finding that it performs similar to milk in their study. They theorize it's the strong flavor distraction in that case, which perhaps also supports the salty lassi theory, as salted dairy products are probably a more rare flavor and a strong distracting contrast from the burn compared to, say, a mild-flavored mango lassi or something.

      But, you know, instead of learning something and getting something out of this, it's much easier to just assume everyone else in the world is an idiot.

      (Note this post is not directed specifically at the parent here -- it's directed at all of the similar posts here. You want to ask questions -- "Why didn't the researchers check X? Isn't Y commonly known already?" Sure, that's fine. I encourage people to post stuff like that -- even without RTFA, and for people to answer such posts. You want to claim the researchers are morons? How 'bout RTFA first?! Otherwise, you're just acting like an ignorant jerk yourself while accusing others of ignorance.)

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:27PM

        by RamiK (1813) on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:27PM (#860558)

        purified water, cola, cherry-flavored Kool-Aid, seltzer water, non-alcoholic beer, skim milk and whole milk

        Yep, they KNEW milk already worked...

        The issue is the lacking research proposal:

        1. If they suspected the fat content they should have added vegetable and fish oils as well as lard and beef fats to the test samples.

        2. If they suspected the proteins they should have tested a whey protein powder milkshake, sans-milk shake as well as a few soy products ("milk" and shakes).

        3. If they suspected the acids are breaking apart the capsaicin they should have added citric acid and a few relevant aminos.

        4. If they suspected the carbs they could have added sucrose, dextrose and so on...

        Now, if they're working on a class project funding then it's not all that bad. And I suppose now they might get some funding from the diary or kool-aid people... But as a published paper this is rather diluted regardless of how you look at it.

        To be fair, I have most of the ingredients in my kitchen but I'm too lazy to test it out. But then again, I'm not publishing a paper about so maybe it's not such a good excuse after all...

        --
        compiling...
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Thursday June 27 2019, @04:59PM

        by Freeman (732) on Thursday June 27 2019, @04:59PM (#860602) Journal

        Yes, it's a "Well Duh!" moment from those that have found themselves with a burning mouth from too hot peppers. It's also a "Well Duh!" from a scientific research purpose.

        Article
        Temporal effectiveness of mouth-rinsing on capsaicin mouth-burn
        Author links open overlay panelChristina WuNasrawiRose MariePangborn

                Department of Food Science and Technology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616 USA

        Received 19 December 1988, Available online 5 March 2003.

        Cold solutions (5°C) were more effective in reduction of mouth-burn than solutions at 20°C. Sucrose solutions (10%) at 20°C and whole milk at 5°C were equally effective while 5% ethanol was no more effective in mouth-burn reduction than water at 20°C. Reduction of mouth-burn by sucrose was not dose dependent. Noneaters of chili peppers experienced a slightly greater reduction of mouth-burn from sucrose solutions than eaters. Oral rinsing with sweetened milk containing 0 and 10% fat, of varying globule size, resulted in similar degree of mouth-burn reduction.

        https://doi.org/10.1016/0031-9384(90)90067-E [doi.org]

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday June 27 2019, @07:37PM

        by captain normal (2205) on Thursday June 27 2019, @07:37PM (#860659)

        "Salty lassi is not a commonly available commercial beverage in the U.S."
        Yes, but yogurt and kefir are, and those are also made from milk.

        --
        When life isn't going right, go left.
      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday June 28 2019, @10:45AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday June 28 2019, @10:45AM (#860893) Homepage
        > Salty lassi is not a commonly available commercial beverage in the U.S

        Yeah, but the USA is a tiny fraction of the world. I'll give you one guess to name a larger country, by a factor of about 4, where salty lassis are really common. "All the world's america" is a great way of ensuring you produce worse science than what has gone before. And the work has gone on before. It's well known from the scientific literature going back decades that it's the casein in milk that affects whether capsaicin binds to the TRPV1 receptor, not the fats. Oh, no, I'm mistaken, it was old mother hubbard in an ergot-induced babble who came up with all that folk story about TRPV1 and shit. Obviously.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:09PM (2 children)

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:09PM (#860513) Journal

      Actually, you know what -- maybe they are idiots. Literally 10 seconds of searching brought me to this article [sciencedirect.com]. From the abstract:

      Oral rinsing with different solutions significantly reduced mouth-burn of capsaicin solutions [...] Sucrose solutions (10%) at 20°C and whole milk at 5°C were equally effective [...]

      So, uh, Kool-Aid and milk work. Also from that abstract:

      Oral rinsing with sweetened milk containing 0 and 10% fat, of varying globule size, resulted in similar degree of mouth-burn reduction.

      So, uh, fat content in milk is apparently not very relevant. All of this in a study from nearly 30 years ago. Okay, upon further review, the researchers are either idiots or (more likely) just trying to get attention from the press. I would note that it still common culinary lore that it's the fat in milk that helps reduce burn, so publicizing the finding that that's not necessarily the most significant factor is probably still a good thing.

      And for those who are interested, here's the study referenced in TFA [sciencedirect.com]. Unfortunately, seems paywalled.

      • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday June 27 2019, @10:40PM

        by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Thursday June 27 2019, @10:40PM (#860729)

        As someone who has grown hot peppers of various sorts I quickly learned that milk was the best thing for reducing the burn when I overdid it with the peppers. Cheese works to some extent, but not as well as milk, possibly because the liquid form of milk better washes the capsaicin away. I definitely do not recommend using beer or wine, the tendency is to guzzle them too fast to try to quench the heat, although sparkling wines seem to help with the heat fairly well.

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday June 28 2019, @10:49AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday June 28 2019, @10:49AM (#860895) Homepage
        OK, so we're on the same page now.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves