When I was younger I couldn't eat really hot spicy foods. I find as I am getting older I can eat spicy hot foods with no side effects. A local chili parlor has boards where if you eat the hottest chili you get your name up on it. Just got my name up again today. Kinda burned on my lips, but I feel great. This place was on Man vs Food and the host could only eat 2 bowls before he called it quits.

I'm going the other direction as I age. I don't even eat jalapenos much past dinner time or else I don't sleep well.

Pretty high

I am the same as you. I can eat things at 50 that would have destroyed me at 25. I think tolerance builds over time as you eat spicier and spicier foods. I also will note that I don’t mind heat with flavor, but steer away from heat with no benefit other than to be hot.

It’s a tolerance that comes and goes how much you eat. If you eat a lot of hot food regularly, no problem. Skip it for a month or two, and a mild pepper will seem like a Naga jolokia ghost pepper.

I've not noticed any change in my preferences. I like some spicy foods and not others. For heat I prefer cayenne to jalapeno.

flashguy

Fairly high.

If you can tolerate the discomfort, your body will reward you (assuming you don't burn a hole in the lining of your stomach). Very spicy food will initiate a pain response by your body and your system will be flooded with endorphins and you may experience what is commonly referred to as a runner's high.

I think that's why a lot of chile heads do this stuff. The others, they're just trying to act tough or exceptional in some way. Yeah, be careful with that kind of thing, Rambo. You could end up in the hospital. I've seen it happen.

I love spicy/hot food. I'm noticing that my tolerance is starting subside a little as I get older though. I still put hot pepper sauce on a lot of things I eat and don't see me getting away from that any time soon.

Jim

Absolutely zero. I had six weeks of radiation therapy due to oral cancer. Did a lot of damage. Even after 25 years, anything spicy including too much black pepper, too acidic or alcohol over 20 proof is excruciating.

I’ve learned to tolerate more over the years. I do not like painful “get me the milk” spice, but I do enjoy enough heat to know it is there. My only physical reaction is regardless of the heat, my head sweats something fierce…which makes it look like my hair is dripping wet.

I love hot spicy food. But for me there is a limit. I am not going to be that guy eating the Carolina Reaper on YouTube and going into a coma.

Hot and intense with flavor is fantastic. Simply hot, such that lip pain and a burning throat are the primary sensations don't do it for me.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Fairly high.

If you can tolerate the discomfort, your body will reward you (assuming you don't burn a hole in the lining of your stomach). Very spicy food will initiate a pain response by your body and your system ill be flooded with endorphins and you may experience what is commonly referred to a a runner's high.

I think that's why a lot of chile heads do this stuff. The others, they're just trying to act tough or exceptional in some way. Yeah, be careful with that kind of thing, Rambo. You could end up in the hospital. I've seen it happen.

Indeed… My idiot son when he was 16, ate 2 raw ghost peppers, sequentially one right after another.

After an hour of milk, yogurt, sour cream, etc. etc. … he lays down and perspires on the sofa.

Where in my other son proceeds to switch places with him and then starts to feel the capsaicin burn from the leftover perspiration on the couch on his own skin.

Next morning at 4 AM I get a call as he’s laying on the bathroom floor. Of course now it’s a point of false pride and a badge of honor.


The ER doesn’t really have a good answer for treating this, I’ll tell you in advance.


While you are not physically burned, your body believes it’s been burned and acts as if it’s been burned.

Moderately low. If I get Thai at the local place, 5/10 is as high as I should go and that gives me a pretty good fix. I did 9/10 the first time I got takeout there and drank all our milk.
I would say my tolerance has gone down as I age.
But I do love it and I know my limitations, as long as I'm familiar w/ the restaurant.

Pretty high. Quite high, in fact. You do build up a tolerance.

And it is all about the endorphins at those levels of heat. Not that I don't like hot for the taste, but at hot enough to trigger endorphins, it isn't so much about taste.

quote:

Originally posted by dking271:


I think tolerance builds over time as you eat spicier and spicier foods.

It's not tolerance. As you age, your tastebuds and tongue age as well and you aren't tasting things as well or strongly as you did when you were younger. Your sense of heat (temperature) also diminishes with age which is why you have the classic trope of the old man complaining that his soup isn't hot enough. Because to him, it isn't.

Oh I can tolerate the hot stuff pretty damn good. It's the next morning's physiological event that gets dicey...

Well, I've upgraded to a scorpion sauce on tacos from habanero, I usually order a heat level of 4 or 5 out of 6 at a Thai restaurant, and I'm usually adding extra chopped or minced chilies to other Asian foods.

Medium, of sorts, but it has to have flavor

my favorite chip (when they were available here) is Gibbles Red Hots,

I could eat a bag, mouth would be burning, and love it,
great taste, and a fair amount of heat,

whereas to me , the other brands of hot chips and cheetos just taste hot,, as in nasty,



I'm not a pepper eater,, but don't mind them in dishes,



like me some kimchi too,

Used to be a "5". Now it's a "2".

Above average, I enjoy up to habanero levels of heat. Ghost peppers and Reapers are a bit much.