Exception among breastfeeding animals! Why do people love using chili or black pepper as spices?

Charge In some plants, the production of this type of chemical substance seems to have the function of filtering specific seed spreaders, and pepper is an example. There is a specific thermoreceptor in the oral cavity of birds, but it is different from the same receptors in breastfeeding. The difference between the two is so large that capsaicin cannot even touch the bird-like thermoreceptor. Therefore, birds actually cannot feel the spicy taste when eating chili peppers.

Why do people use chili or black pepper as spices?

It seems that chili peppers will evolve into the phenomenon of making capsaicin in fruits, and some of them also have the function of attracting birds to come and eat fruits. Chili without capsaicin is usually gnawed by slurry animals, but slurry animals are unlikely to bring the seeds of the pepper far away. But chili with capsaicin won't touch the animals, and they are not as wise as they know that the burning sensation in their mouths is not really dangerous. But at the same time, the birds didn't feel burning at all: they whispered the fruit, swallowed it in one bite, then flew to other empty fields and “sprinkled” the seeds in those places. One thing to get is that capsaicin-containing peppers are more capable of resisting fungal infections. Capsaicin not only makes it easier to get where they want to go, but also more likely to survive after arriving in a new place.

However, none of these The way to explain why humans use chili or black pepper as spices instead tells us the opposite: chili, black pepper and other spice plants that make ingredients with this effect not only emit warning signals, but also specifically emit signals to us: "You breastfeeding animal, let me go!" As for why we use these spices, one of the explanations is that they provide food with a special new aspect: adventure on diet.

The adventure of some people is to play high-altitude jumps from the bridge to test the firmness of the skeleton. With more chemical taste, we can put in many seemingly dangerous but actually safe foods in our mouths, and thus experience similar stimulation in our daily lives. This is psychologist Paul. After studying pigs, dogs, rats, humans and two chimpanzees, Paul Rozin collected and compiled the hypotheses proposed by many testimonials. Luo Jin focused on the research on chili peppers, although he could have chosen to study black peppercorns or peppercorns at the beginning.

In a human study, Luo Jin decided to explore the spicyness of peppers and the deliciousness of peppers in people's minds. He chose a group of people, including those who like spicy food and those who don't like spicy food. He gave those people a piece of Su's puff, which contained capsaicin from peppers, and the content of capsaicin was increased a little bit in each baking dry until people said, "Don't give it again."

After enduring that the most spicy baking dryer in the range is the best, he asked these people which piece of baking dryer is the best. In theory, they may not like any spicy drying, or everyone may think that the same spicy drying is the best (the capsaicin concentration with the greatest food preservation effect); or everyone may prefer different spicyness, which is completely random. However, none of the above predictions meet the actual results. People usually think that the most spicy piece of dried glutinous rice in their endurance is the best one. Their most preferred is that they will start to feel painfully spicy when they are only a little bit away. If people eat chili to enjoy the biochemical enjoyment brought by dangerous stimuli, this result will be valid.

Pain told us to stop what we were doing now, and we might be told to run away quickly. But these emotions also prompt the release of endorphin and other chemical substances in the brain. Perhaps eating chili can bring us the pleasure of escape from danger, without really consuming energy or putting ourselves in the corner of life and death. The number of samples from this experiment in Luojin is not large, but the research results are very interesting.

It is based on the results of this and other similar studies that Luojin advocates favor chili because it seems dangerous but is actually not dangerous: chili provides people with the opportunity he calls "harmless abuse." He claimed that this kind of harmless abuse was a unique characteristic of human beings. To put it simply, Luo Jin believes that we are pure and can enjoy the consequences of hurting ourselves slightly, but we are also smart and can understand that the pain is not real and will pass soon.

Luo Jin believes that to like chili, breastfeeding animals must learn to ignore the crisis signal and know that the signal is a fake alarm. Luojin conjecture that this ability may be unique to humans, or at least to humans and species that learn to trust humans. It is easy to see that many animals other than humans have the ability to learn, but ordinary learning alone is probably not enough to make animals love chili. To learn to love spices that can develop chemical tastes, you may need to have extra development of self-perception or have extra deep trust.

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Rojin decided to test these conjectures further on pet dogs and pigs. He will test whether pet dogs and pigs can learn to like spicy foods through self-awareness, trust, or two strategies. Dogs are known for their ability to learn to like many flavors, and so are pigs. But to be fair, the self-observation ability of these two animals is still not as good as that of humans. If animals need to understand that the burning sensation they feel is not real fire burning, they can only like these spices, then even if pigs and dogs eat spicy food every day, they may not be able to learn to like spicy spices..

Rojin moved to a small village in Oaxaca, Mexico, where almost all the food was spicy, so the dishes served for pigs or dogs were almost spicy. Luo Jin asked twenty-two locals, whether their pet dogs or pigs prefer spicy food. Even though this question sounds ridiculous, people still respond to Luo Jin. Of the twenty-two owners, only two responded to their dog or pig's preference for food containing peppers. Both mentioned dogs.

The breastfeeding animals who love chili are smart

He then had a practical experience and provided foods containing or without chili to the two dogs who love spicy foods. As a result, the two dogs liked two kinds of foods in a different way: they did not like peppers, but they just didn't care about peppers at all. Twenty dogs don’t like foods containing chili, and the two dogs don’t comment on chili. This result is in line with our previous assumption that we need to learn to like peppers. Part of the pre-decision is that we can not only feel the connection between spicy taste and the delicious food, but also clearly understand that the seemingly dangerous pain feeling is just a phantom in the mouth.

Luo Jin had another chili experiment. This time, he used two sets of rats as the test subject: one of them used chili foods to feed them from birth, and the other started to feed them without chili foods, and then slowly began to add chili peppers to the food. Both groups of rats have plenty of opportunities to learn to like peppers, either starting to learn at birth or slowly after birth. But when two groups of rats can choose foods containing or without chili, they still prefer foods containing without chili.

The results of the study appear to show that rats are not able to learn to enjoy the deliciousness of chili peppers. To confirm this, Luo Jin further made a coded experiment. He provided foods containing or without chili peppers to rats, but added a ingredient that would make rats vomit and then observed the rats' preferences. As a result, rats still like foods that are not spicy, even if they vomit every time they eat them. It seems that rats, like dogs and pigs, have no way to learn to like peppers. As soon as I mentioned it, Paul will be next time. It is best to be careful when Luo Jin gives you something to eat.

Generally speaking, breastfeeding animals seem to be unable to learn to like peppers, with two exceptions. One exception is humans, and the very few lactation animals seem to be another: they are smart and able to understand that the pain brought by peppers is not real, or trusting people who provide spicy food, and know that food is not really dangerous. This very small number of breastfeeding animals include two chimpanzees cared for by humans, two pet monkeys, and a American dog "Moose" who trusts people very much. Luo Jin did not repeat his experience with spices such as black pepper, peppercorn or mint, but the results probably won't be much different.

Finally let us return to a macro perspective and think about the relationship between spices and humans: we believe that if we do more research, the more we will find that spices play a variety of roles in the prehistoric times and history of humans, just as the ingredients of spices play a variety of roles in nature. When humans start to store food for a long time and settle in the same place for a long time, they may start adding spices to their food to ensure that they are safe and edible.

Through the learning of the nose and brain, humans can easily learn to love the taste that helps people avoid. Some spices also enhance the pleasure brought by the food, and as human settlements grow in size and the most delicious animal species become an advantage. Sometimes, pleasure comes from attractive taste, flavor or complexity, and sometimes it comes from stimulation. As people's cultivation crops and settlements gradually expand (food-infected diseases are becoming more and more common), people's daily diet is becoming more and more entitled to single staple foods such as rice, potatoes, corn or wheat, and the health benefits, flavor and stimulation that spices can bring also increase.

Once spices become popular, they will begin to be influenced by historical accidents. Some spices are expensive, while others are stained with magic, sexual or complex colors of intercourse. But these spices are all derived from chemical substances produced during the plant's survival. Regardless of how we use them, the properties of these chemical substances reflect prevention, war and reproduction. People have only just begun to recognize these substances, but they have long been apparent in almost every dish we eat.

"‘We have been authorized by Princeton University Press to use this content’ or the equivalent in Chinese complex script The content is authorized by Princeton University Press"

※ This article is excerpted from "Evolution on the Tip of the Tongue: How to Pursuit of Food to Promote Human Evolution and Start Human Civilization".

"Evolution on the Bite of the Tongue: How to Pursuit of Food to Promote Human Evolution and Start Human Civilization"

Author: Luo Bo. Don, Monica Sanchez

Translator: Fang Huishu, Yuyipin

Publisher: Shangzhou Publishing

Publication Date: 2022/12/10