I absolutely love spicy food, and it’s never affected my gut. I was actually confused when I read about people getting the shits after a curry and wondered if it was a joke. I’ve had curries so hot it caused people to recoil into a coughing and sweating fit after they dipped their finger in and had a taste and I have one every other day. I feel the burning in my mouth, my face turns red, my forehead sweats, my esophagus feels weird, but (tmi I know lol) when I go to the toilet I’m completely fine. no gut pains either.
I’m the same as you. No issues at all. Wasn’t till maybe 5 years ago I even got a minor tingle on my butthole.
I’ve found that as I get older, my guy is more affected by got stuff with seeds. The more seeds, the more irritated my belly gets.
I love spicy foods and they don’t upset my stomach. Though I did eat one of those “one chip challenge” things back in the day and I did fine at the time but the next two days or so I felt like I had been poisoned. Only time that ever happened to me. You probably have a threshold too but it’s just very high. Genetics and practice helps, your gut biome critters are probably used to it too.
Most of the gastrointestinal distress from capsaicin is the result of poison countermeasures triggered by contact pain signals.
But capsaicin is telling your cells a lie which fewer believe each re-telling, so it requires increasingly ridiculous doses to trigger those internal signals.
If you eat spicy food regularly, you likely won’t get any internal signals again until you graduate to a different category of spiciness, such as extracts.
Hot sauce nerds consider extracts cheating, since you can achieve heat that’s many orders of magnitude above what the hottest pepper hybrids can produce, but do what you must to feel alive.
Oh, and in case you’re looking for recommendations, my current daily driver is Blair’s “Ultra Death.”
To set expectations, Tobasco (a common North American vinegar-based chili sauce) has a heat rating of 7,000 scovilles, whereas Ultra Death generally measures over 1 million.
If you like heat, extracts are a cost-effective step up, since each bottle lasts longer. At first anyway.
Acidic foods effect my belly more. Tons of tomato sauce, for example, and I get some acid reflux.
But spicy? Bring it on.
All about acid and volume. Too much of anything and there’s no where else to go.
Spicy is just for the taste buds, and reallllllly spicy comes with a bonus reminder the next day.
Was very happy to eat spicy foods until mid-late 40s, when I had to moderate because something just spontaneously switched as I got older and now my GI tract is unhappy if I eat a vindaloo, godfuckingdamnit.
I’m worried this is happening to me right now. I’m in my mid-40s and lately the day after all the spicy foods I usually consume have not been pleasant. Is there no fix for this??
Sucks bro. I mean, I can still tolerate what most people consider to be spicy food. At least “white guy” spicy. But no, I can’t eat the same kind of spicy food that I used to enjoy. It’s just a natural thing as you get older. This is a well known phenomenon. No fix.
I only ever hear that in movies. I assumed it happens if you eat low grade meat or smth like in the wild west in the US back in the day and it just became an old wives’ tale turned pop culture myth.
I do actually not like spicy food though, especially Chinese and Indian, but I’ve had enough of it to know I never had any gut issues.
It supposed to affect your gut?
I was unbothered by it as well, at least intestinally, the physical pain of something hot enough was certainly something I could experience and dislike at the extreme end but my stomach and bowels would have been fine. That it until about the past 5 years or so when my stomach suddenly decided it couldn’t handle all kind of things that were never a problem before and now I totally get what people were talking about. It’s pretty sad, I miss being able to reliably tolerate highly spicy food.
Boring ass comment, but same. I’m 36 and can’t stop eating spicy foods.
As somebody who’s stomach is SEVERELY affected by spicy food, I suspect that you’re just a statistical outlier, like myself. Don’t sweat it. Instead, lean in. Be the “I can eat anything spicy and be fine” guy amongst your friends.
I have this talent as well; I use sriracha instead of ketchup on my burger and fries, with hot peppers.
But let me warn you, do not think this holds true when you have hemorrhoids. It will put you in a different universe of pain.
Same! A few days ago I consumed a very spicy hot pot meal. It was spicy enough that my eyes were watering uncontrollably and I might not have eaten it except that I do not have much money and I’d already paid for the thing (and there’s also my occasionally problematic waste aversion but I digress). In the days since I’ve been hoping to experience some toilet spice but it just hasn’t happened! I wonder if I’ll get to experience it if I get older?
I felt the same until I had one of those challenge peanut things that add straight up capsaicin crystals. It made my tummy feel not so good when I had it on an empty stomach, but I never had the “spice burns twice” effect until I had malatang and I asked them to do a spice level above their written max level.
Maybe you just have a healthy gut. It’ll get me usually but I’ve gotten in the habit of having some yogurt or kefir afterwards and that neutralizes things in my gut so it doesn’t burn on its way out
