Do you have some questions that stick to your mind? Or things that you think, how am I going to do that? In this post, here are some things you are going to find all the answers. Because we’re going to make lots of experiments for you. Anyway, what do we feel when we eat peppermint? It’s like we feel a cooling in our mouths.
So, what about we eat hot pepper?
It’s like, we feel a fire in our mouths. Or in other words, our mouths feels like it’s burning. The question is that. When we eat peppermint do our mouths really get cold? Or when we eat hot pepper do our mouths really get hot?
What do we need?
1- Peppermint
2- Hot sauce
3- Oral thermometer
First we’ll take the normal temperature of our mouth. We have to wait a bit. Okay, alright. That’s 36.7 °C.
Now the fun part. We’ll see what happens when we put a peppermint into our mouth. Okay, we’re taking the temperature again. Alright. Interesting. 37.1 °C.
And the most horrible part. What will happen if we taste a drop of hot sauce? We’re taking the hot sauce. Alright. That’s 36.8 °C.
That’s very interesting, isn’t that so? Because something happened which we haven’t anticipated. It means when we ate peppermint, our mouth’s temperature have risen. But when we ate hot sauce, temperature didn’t rise as much. What do you think how can this happen? As we ate peppermint or hot pepper we felt a change of temperature in our mouths but that was not real.
The experiment gave contrary results to what we’ve felt. Because in peppermint there is a substance called menthol. The touch of menthol to our tongues creates a cold feeling. But in reality our mouths don’t get cold. Likewise, in hot pepper there is a substance called capsaicin. And the touch of capsaicin to our tongues creates a burning hot feeling.
In reality, hot pepper doesn’t heat up our mouths as we feel. So even our mouths don’t cool. Or heat up we feel as if they get colder or hotter. Because our brains think that our mouths get colder or hotter. If you really feel yourself as an adventurer, you can drop a bit of hot pepper sauce on a peppermint and see yourself, if they neutralize each others effects.