You relish eating hot, spicy food. But this time, your mouth is literally on fire from too much spice especially as the spicy dish that you are savoring is full of chili peppers & also flavored with garam masala. Your immediate reaction would be to gulp half a dozen of glasses of water to relieve that fire in your mouth. Apparently, water doesn’t soothe a mouth on fire. This burning is actually caused by the component capsaicin present in chilis which adheres to your taste buds and other receptors in your mouth. Plainly, this substance is not soluble in water. So if you try to satiate your burning mouth with water, it doesn’t help. Cold milk (boiled and cooled), instead is great. So drink a glass of milk and relieve yourself from the burning sensation. Casein the principle protein in milk, helps remove the capsaicin from your mouth. Alternatively you can consider buttermilk or yogurt (curds, dahi) also. Eating a tsp of sugar also helps or you can add 1-2 tsp to a small glass of water, stir well and drink the solution.(Guest Post by Smitha)
