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 Thomas-Jefferson rated 9 months ago -
Chili Peppers
Chili peppers (genus Capsicum) can be eaten fresh or dried, raw or cooked, alone or mixed with other foods. They add zest to any food--meat, poultry, seafood, starch, vegetable, fruit--whether eaten by themselves or as an ingredient in a prepared dish. Peppers are the most popul...
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1 Reviews
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- Thomas-Jefferson rated 9 months ago
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Chili Peppers
Chili peppers (genus Capsicum) can be eaten fresh or dried, raw or cooked, alone or mixed with other foods. They add zest to any food--meat, poultry, seafood, starch, vegetable, fruit--whether eaten by themselves or as an ingredient in a prepared dish. Peppers are the most popular spice and condiment in the world. They are consumed daily by one-quarter of the world's population, and the rate of consumption is growing. Nonpungent or sweet peppers are also consumed as a vegetable, but are the less popular spice. All capsicums were pungent before being domesticated by prehistoric New World peoples and before the breeding of non-pungent (sweet) types. Peppers, both pungent and non-pungent, are the fruit of perennial shrubs that were unknown outside the tropical and subtropical regions of the Western Hemisphere before 1493, when Christopher Columbus returned from the first of his voyages in search of a western route to the East Indies. Although he did not reach those exotic spice lands as he had proposed, his return to Spain with examples of a new pungent spice discovered during his first voyage to the eastern coast of the Caribbean island of Espaņola (Dominican Republic and Republic of Haiti) is well documented in his journal. Today capsicums are not only consumed as a spice, condiment, and vegetable; they also have many other uses--as coloring agents, in landscape design, as ornamental objects, in decorative design--and have great potential in the field of medicine.
Nutrition
Nutritionally, capsicums are a superior food. They are an excellent source of the B vitamins, are superior to citrus as a source of vitamin C when eaten raw, and they contain more vitamin A than any other food plant by weight. Vitamin A increases as the fruit matures and dries but is not affected by exposure to oxygen, while the production of vitamin C in peppers diminishes with maturity and drying and is, as in all plant foods, destroyed by exposure to oxygen. Capsicums also contain significant amounts of magnesium, iron, thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin. Even though chili peppers are not usually eaten in large quantities, small amounts are important where traditional diets provide only marginal amounts of vitamins. However, ripe nonpungent varieties, such as bell peppers, can be eaten as painlessly as an apple while providing more food value.
Capsaicin: the Pungent Principle
A unique group of mouth-warming, amide-type alkaloids containing a small vanilloid structural component known as capsaicin act directly on the pain receptors of the mouth and throat to produce the burning sensation associated with peppers. This vanilloid element is also present in pungent spices such as ginger and black pepper. Birds and a few other creatures such as snails or frogs do not have neuroreceptors for pungent vanilloid compounds and thus capsaicin does not cause them pain.
V. S. Govindarajan (1985) has suggested "pungency" as the proper term for the perception of the hot or burning sensation humans have in response to such foods rather than to others. Consequently, the response to chili peppers should be defined as pungent rather than hot, stinging, irritating, sharp, caustic, acrid, biting, burning, and spicy. He also suggests that pungency be given the status of a gustatory characteristic of food, as are sweet, sour, bitter, saline, astringent, or alkaline.
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