Eat hot, spicy food thrice weekly to live longer, says the latest medical study, but it does not explain why eating chillies will add years to your life.
It is an observational study, say the scientists. We definitely need more data from other nationalities, said one expert as the study focused on a group of 500,000 Chinese.
The scientists followed this group for seven years and in that period 200,000 passed on.
The researchers found that the people who survived for longer added fresh and dried chilli peppers in their food at least once a week.
Maybe the scientists are wrong and the people who eat hot, spicy foods are not living longer, but it just seems to them that they are living longer.
I am not Chinese, but from the south of India where summers are so hot that birds drop from trees due to heat exhaustion.
You would expect that food of the residents in this hot spot would be cooling and soothing to the stomach with spoonfuls of churned, creamy yoghurt, cucumbers and sweet onions.
But no, nothing of that sissy stuff. To give you an idea what my hometown cuisine is all about let me tell you an anecdote. A friend of mine from back home came visiting to Dubai and we decided to dine on Lebanese cuisine.
“Isn’t this great food?” I asked my friend as the grilled meats, heavenly smelling breads and a hummus dip were brought to our table. There was also a plate full of raw carrots, turnips and tomatoes but both of us ignored that.
The chilli factor
My friend made some polite noises after the first bite and then called the waiter over and asked him to bring a couple of green chillies in a saucer. After what seemed like a long time the manager, dressed in a black suit and a bow tie, came to our table and asked how he could be of assistance.
“Can you please tell the chef to send a few chillies on a plate for me,” said my friend. Just to be helpful and to show off my Arabic, I said, “barid” to the manager and smiled, and only later realised that it meant “chilly”, not “chilli”, as in, “I am feeling chilly.”
The manager looked at us and I felt he was completely out of his depth. He knew that this was Dubai and he would have to deal with a cosmopolitan clientele, but nobody taught him at the Beirut school of catering about what these chaps were talking about.
After a few minutes the waiter came back carrying a saucer full of onion rings.
While I was growing up, my parents never told me at the dinner table, “Eat your chillies, they are good for you”.
I however, remember a family doctor say, “The secret of good health is in your kitchen,” or something along those lines, and I went searching and saw our toothless, old cook there. He was one of the unhealthiest guy I ever saw as he could not eat properly because of his missing teeth, but I was in awe of him as he had this great secret.
The scientists say the only explanation why spicy food may be good for you is because these foods are known to lower inflammation, improve breakdown of fat in the body and change the composition of bacteria in your gut.
But may I remind you how experts once said that eggs were bad for you or that coffee could kill you.
You don’t want to be the only one in your workplace always rushing about somewhere fast after eating your spices.
Mahmood Saberi is a freelance journalist based in Dubai.
