If you love spicy food, eat up!
It turns out there are plenty of “healthy” reasons to love the fiery flavor of turning up the heat on mealtime. Not only does spicy food taste great, but it turns out it also comes with a number of health benefits.
That’s good news for your health and your taste buds.
While some people prefer bland, tasteless food, other people seem to thrive on the extra spice. If you’re one of them, you’re in luck! Spicy food can do everything from burn extra calories to help keep your heart healthy. It turns out capsaicin, the compound responsible for all the heat in chili peppers, can help lower your risk of cardiovascular disease. Capsaicin also helps your body burn energy and break down fat. Because spicy food seems to help your body burn extra calories, eating a healthy dose of spicy food may also help you control your weight. If you want even more proof, it seems eating spicy food may also help lower inflammation in your GI tract.
It’s easy to find ways to add some extra spice to your diet, from dabbing on a little hot sauce to using some extracts. A little often goes a long way, so you’ll probably want to start off kind of on the conservative end of things before working your way up the spice scale. We should probably mention that spicy food can’t do all the work for a healthy body. Sure, it’s a good choice, but for a healthy lifestyle you’ll also need to think about all the other “healthy” stuff you can do like staying active, controlling stress and keeping a positive outlook. As long as you’re committing to a healthy lifestyle, though, don’t pass up the opportunity to mix it up with new flavors as you enjoy your journey up the hot Scoville scale.