A staple condiment for world cuisine such as Mexican and Thai meals, hot sauce adds flavor and heat to your food. However, not only does hot sauce spice up your meals, it can speed up your metabolism as well, reports Penn State University. Examining how hot sauce affects your metabolism may tempt you to spice up your meals more frequently, whether you're a spice aficionado or someone looking for a metabolic boost.
Metabolism and Body Temperature
When you eat foods spiced with hot sauce, not only does your tongue tingle and burn, but sweat beads on your brow, and you may even feel physically hot and begin to pant for breath and reach for the water. These sensations have to do with hot sauce's effects on a key component of metabolism--body temperature. By raising body temperature, hot sauce can speed up metabolism by small increments, reports the University of New Mexico.
Hot Sauce and Metabolic Rate
The impact of hot sauce on body temperature--and hence, overall metabolic rate--has a specific intensity and duration. According to Penn State, eating foods spiced with hot sauce can increase your body's metabolic rate by up to 20 percent. This increase in your body's metabolism can last for as many as 30 minutes, making spicy meals a viable option for temporarily speeding up your metabolism.
Capsaicin in Hot Peppers
A chemical called capsaicin is the key player responsible for the metabolic-speeding effects of certain hot sauces. Interestingly, capsaicin is often also used as the active ingredient in certain ointments for aching muscles due to the "heat" it produces. Although hot sauces often contain many other, non-spicy ingredients such as vinegar, salt and seasonings, it is the capsaicin content of the "active ingredients" in hot sauce--spicy peppers--that causes a temporary increase in body temperature and metabolism.
Peppers and Hot Sauce
If you enjoy hot sauce and want to elevate your metabolism when you eat, you need to examine the ingredient label on the bottle to see what sort of peppers the sauce contains. Peppers with high concentrations of capsaicin to look for tend to originate from plants grown in warm climates, reports Purdue University. These capsaicin-rich peppers include cayenne, jalapenos, habaneros and chili peppers. Finding a hot sauce that warms your palate as well as heats up your metabolism is a tasty way to heat up your meals as well as fire up your metabolic rate.
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