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Chili and Taste Buds

Diablo

Diablo

Anyone know if eating chili affects your taste buds?

I know smoking cigars does, or has had an effect on my taste buds. Kind of dulls things. I only smoke those on occasion now, was almost daily till I started noticing the effect.

We made a home made BBQ sauce, my touch was a little pepper flakes and some cayenne powder.

I tasted nothing spicy, and I do mean nothing, not a tickle, nada, zero, zilch.

Wife says, yes, there was a bit of a spice. I'm left thinking,,,,,,has the chili affected only the taste buds that receive the chili info, or all the taste buds? I can't really afford to compromise my taste buds, I do have vested interest in keeping them functioning proper for my coffee roasting business...
 
You are just getting used to the capsaicin, needing a larger fix every day. Time to move on to the habaneros and nagas and donate the cayenne to the children! ;)

On a more serious note - I've never heard of chiles affecting the tastebuds negatively.
 
I know that you do build a tolerance. But, I still can taste the milder peppers and still use them to add flavor. Now, with that said, I have noticed that the milder peppers have just that, a much milder heat to them than before. I think it just has something to do with your tolerance and how your pain receptors reacts to the peppers. Kind of like my wife can take to what I call extra hot baths, but to her they aren't too hot. She is use to the temp where I'm not. Sorry for rambling.
 
I've heard of the heat overpowering the taste buds so you can't taste the flavor of something - but I think that's a temporary situation that can be fixed by time or milk or whatever. Like a palette cleansing. As for long term effects, I don't really know the answer to that. I don't think it's the taste buds that react to the hot, or it wouldn't burn ...other sensitive areas... that don't have taste buds.
 
I'll agree with the above. The heat thing is a tolerance issue, and if there is a capsacin overload then one might loose their sense of taste for a very short time. I do remember reading in some of the notes on Neil's Naga eating videos that he'd lost his sense of taste until the next day. But that's eating a whole naga.
 
Well, if Neil still has even one taste bud left I'd say that peppers don't harm them. But then he can taste flavor while eating a whole naga so I think he's atypical to start with.
 
Peppers actually open up my taste buds so that I can get the full gamit of taste again (temperary)....thus alieving some of the horrible symptoms of my Anosmia....so yes, it does effect the taste buds.
 
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