This is a slightly ridiculous article about the increase in appetite for higher spice-level food in the US. Sure, as someone who really enjoyed well-spiced (and highly-spiced) food, it sounds like an absurd trend for the sake of burning your body’s receptors. But like anything, there’s a culinary art to well-spiced foods and spirits.

Most of these sky-high Scoville hot sauces don’t taste good, and signing a waiver to eat fried chicken drenched in Naga Viper peppers is different from the majority of folks' increasing interest in a variety of spices and “spicier” augmentation of food, or honestly, just more engagement with foods from across geographies that use “spicier” ingredients due to proximity and tradition. This all goes within reason — people are going to act like fools when foolish things are available to consume. But the fact that Fritos has 26 different Flamin' Hot products? Maybe that’s a sign that the spices they’re lacing into their chemist food actually does taste good, and perhaps there’s a national swing in taste because everyone isn’t pouring ketchup on everything anymore? Variety of choice is an interesting thing.

But maybe the science of all this makes the most sense, which the article does extrapolate:

Capsaicin, the compound that makes many spicy foods spicy, transmits pain signals to the brain, which the brain then counteracts by releasing endorphins—it’s like a runner’s high