Recently, an article titled "Why is the phenomenon of stomach discomfort after eating spicy now becoming more and more common?" The message brushed the screen.
The article said: Have you found that in the past few years, as long as you eat spicy, you will have abdominal pain and diarrhea, originally thought that what you eat was not fresh or the problem of gutter oil, it turned out that this is the problem of chili essence. In order to make hot pot and other dishes reach a certain degree of spiciness, restaurant merchants need a lot of peppers, in order to reduce costs, they use chili essence, while maintaining the same spiciness.
What exactly is chili essence?
Capsicum extract, also known as "chili oleoresin", is a product extracted and concentrated from chili peppers, which has a strong spicy taste and is used to make food seasonings. The reason why chili pepper essence was invented was first to solve the problem that fresh peppers are prone to mold.
In addition to the spicy ingredients of chili pepper, capsaicin also contains a variety of complex chemicals such as chili alcohol, protein, pectin, polysaccharides, and capsicum red pigment. But capsaicin is not an illegal additive, but an extract of natural food ingredients.
If you don't know what chili essence is, or think that chili essence is illegal black technology or urban legend, please buy a pack of cheap packaged duck neck or small fish, and see if there is "chili oleoresin" in the ingredient list, which is also called chili oleoresin.
Capsicum is also called chili oleoresin
If you want to know if there is any difference between chili oleoresin and chili peppers, you can buy a small fish or duck neck with chili oil instead of chili oil in the ingredient list, and eat it with the previous one.
Why do you put chili pepper essence now?
So, why do merchants not use good peppers, but use chili essence instead of chili peppers?
1. More spicy than chili peppers
Chili essence, even without chili, chefs can make something hotter than chili peppers.
The "spicy taste" in peppers is capsaicin, and the content of capsaicin in peppers depends on the variety, generally 0.2% to 0.5%. However, if you change to chili essence, only one hundred thousandth of the concentration can make the taste feel obviously spicy.
2. Cheaper
Spicy hot pot, perverted spicy grilled wings... Sichuan cuisine mainly relies on "Chaotian pepper" and "Erjing pepper", Chaotian pepper ten yuan a pound, grinding into powder price doubled; erjing pepper one kilogram price is about a dozen pieces. If the chili pepper essence is wholesale, one kilogram is about fifty pieces, but one kilogram of chili essence can be used as 120 kilograms of chili pepper after dilution. If the store is relatively large, the cost of chili peppers saved in a month can at least hire one more guy.
According to the owner of a hot pot shop, a bottle of special spicy pepper essence of about 50 yuan, if it is the amount of hot pot, can supply at least hundreds of tables. And 50 yuan of chili peppers, at best, can only fry five or six tables of hot pot base. It is no wonder that many merchants choose chili essence instead of chili pepper.
Is chili pepper essence harmful to the body?
Chili essence is widely used in all kinds of foods that need to be spicy, spicy condiments, instant noodle seasonings, pickle squeezed vegetables, etc., in fact, it is a food additive that we often contact in our daily lives. China's Food Safety Law stipulates that catering units can only add a small amount of food additives, but it is not in accordance with the regulations to use excessive "chemical additives" in hot pot.
Some people in order to seek "spicy" stimulation, try "perverted spicy wings", special spicy hot pot and the like, in fact, should not be eaten, because the human body intake of chili pepper essence should not exceed the standard. Moreover, undiluted chili essence, or diluted pepper essence that does not meet the standard, are inedible.
According to experts, if the pepper essence is used in strict accordance with the requirements of national regulations and diluted in proportion, it will generally not cause harm to the human body. And many people don't eat spicy hot pot, perverted spicy chicken wings and so on every day. So under normal circumstances, the impact is not large.
But at present, many merchants in order to pursue the "particularly spicy" gimmick, to meet the consumer's spicy pleasure, and many merchants do not know how many times should be diluted, and do not know how to standardize dilution. Therefore, many merchants are overused. In this case, long-term consumption may cause certain harm to the body.
In addition, the spiciness of capsaicin is much higher than that of chili peppers, so if you have inflammation in the digestive tract or ulcers, hemorrhoids, etc., you should avoid eating foods that add too much chili essence, which is easy to cause gastrointestinal discomfort.
Finally, experts suggest that when using chili essence, merchants should be self-disciplined, use food additives in hot pots or other foods, and should inform consumers and respect consumers' right to know.
Source: Health Times
Editor: Liu Ye