Eat SPICY to burn more calories!

Eat SPICY to burn more calories!

Eat SPICY to burn more calories!

In the most emailed article of the week, The New York Times says that we need to turn up the heat in our foods if we want an extra calorie burn. Check out this study by scientists at Purdue:

A set of 25 diners, some who like spicy and some who did not, were given tomato soups either laced with cayenne pepper or plain.

“The effect was greater among diners who didn’t regularly consume spicy meals. Among that group, adding red pepper to the soup was associated with eating an average of 60 fewer calories at the next meal compared with when they ate plain soup. For both groups who ate red pepper in food, the spice also appeared to increase the metabolism and cause the body to burn an extra 10 calories on its own.”

Pretty cool. But maybe the extra cal burn came from the fact that it’s just hard to eat hot foods. I mean, we sweat when we eat spicy, causing us to make extra movements during our meal (wipe off face, cry, fan selves, whistle hard through our mouths), making us use more energy while we eat, therefore we eat slower, get full faster, so potentially we’re eating less while burning more during our meal.

The effects are modest, plus the study noted that as the dieters get accustomed to eating spicy, the metabolic effect wears off. We’ll just then have to eat even MORE spicy I guess. Yea, I don’t think eating spicy does anything extra for me anymore.

Ghost chili anyone?

Source: Adding Food and Subtracting Calories, The New York Times