What do you do when you get into a hotel and find hot sauce on the table? Do you ever think of adding hot sauce to your meals? Probably not. But do you know that there are numerous health benefits of hot sauce?
Hot sauce’s health benefits include stopping the growth of cancerous cells, helping burn body fat, and pain relief. The best sauces can be good for your stomach and entire body as they lower hypertension. However, when taken in large quantities, hot sauces might be bad for your stomach.
When you read this article, you will know all the benefits you miss because of not adding healthy hot sauce to your meals. So, continue reading.
Health Benefits Of Hot Sauce
As aforementioned, there are numerous health benefits of hot sauce that you probably did not know and thus never made some at home or used the one provided by your restaurants. Sad! Thankfully, you will not do that moving forward after reading this article. Some of the health benefits of hot sauce include:
- Regulation of high blood pressure
- Potentially killing cancerous cells
- Lowering the risk of developing diabetes (type 2)
- Has vitamins and antioxidants
- Relieving pain
- Healing colds
- Burning body fat
- Adding flavors to food
Let us discuss each of these further.
Regulation Of High Blood Pressure
Did you know that high blood pressure is caused by excessive insulin in the blood? Thanks to a hot sauce that contains capsaicin. Capsaicin reduces insulin resistance in the body and also hyperinsulinemia.
Potentially Kills Cancerous Cells
Cancer has been a killer disease for many years, and many families have buried their loved ones due to it. Sadly, no one wants to die young. Thank God, there are measures you can take to keep it off.
One of the best and simplest ways is adding a healthy hot sauce to your diet.
Aside from helping regulate hypertension, Capsaicin also fights cancerous cells in the body so that they do not grow or their growth slows down. This gives you a higher chance of living longer.
By spicing up our meals using hot sauce containing Capsaicin, you are likely to lower the chances of dying due to cancer by up to 14 percent.
Other beneficial hot sauce ingredients include carotenoids, Vitamin C, potassium, and beta-carotene. All these work together to fight cancer cell growth in your body.
So, yes, you need to enjoy these many health benefits of hot sauce by adding it to your meals at least three times a week.
Lowers Risk Of Developing Diabetes (Type 2)
Whenever your body produces more insulin, you suffer from hyperinsulinemia. However, capsaicin prevents hyperinsulinemia. Therefore, since there will not be excessive insulin production in the blood, you will never have type two diabetes; your insulin levels will be normal.
Better said, a hot sauce containing capsaicin keeps a doctor away by keeping you healthy. So, take it at least twice a week, if not thrice.
Contains Vitamins and Antioxidants
Do you want to have additional nutritional health benefits from hot sauce? It is easy. Add it to your meal; it will add more nutrients to your food while adding more flavor.
Forget the hot feeling in your mouth for a moment; hot sauce contains folate, potassium, Vitamins A and C, and magnesium. You do not want to miss out on the benefits of each of these nutrients. Do you?
Relieves Pain
In case you didn’t know, Capsaicin is among the main ingredients added to creams to relieve topical pain.
A hot sauce will help relieve the pain if you have sore or painful muscles. Just ensure you use enough, not too much of it.
Heals Colds
Call it an “old-school cold healer method!” But know one thing, hot sauce is a natural cold healer! Therefore, aside from the fantastic health benefits of hot sauce listed above, the numerous nutrients found in this product will also relieve colds.
If you have taken a hot sauce, you will notice that your nose membranes get freed up so that you can breathe well. After eating hot sauce, you will notice a change if your chest is congested. The lungs and mucous membranes also get freed up so that you breathe effortlessly.
Burns Body Fat
Are you worried about your new body weight? Forget about the GYM or the anaerobic exercises you do at home; think about a hot sauce. Once you eat a meal containing capsaicin, it boosts both fat cells quantity and their activities in the body.
Resultantly, instead of storing energy, these cells burn the energy in your body. Besides, the hot sauce contains nearly zero calories.
Other major health benefits of hot sauce are suppressing hunger hence minimizing chances of being overweight or adding weight. You feel hungry because of ghrelin, the hormone responsible for triggering it. Your appetite goes up due to GLP-1, a hormone responsible for triggering it.
Hot sauce reduces ghrelin levels and increases GLP-1 levels. Hence, you eat less, and your appetite is dealt with, so you do not go snacking while taking a walk or when going to the office. While this is a weight-related benefit, it comes with other health benefits.
For example, if you are not obese because you used hot sauces, you will likely never suffer from heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Little things matter; the same applies to hot sauce in your meal!
Adds Flavor!
You probably are adding hot sauce to your food because of its flavor! The most obvious thing that gets into the mind of many if a meal they so yearned for suddenly becomes boring is hot sauce.
Hot sauce adds flavor to any meal, from a sandwich, eggs, salads, and more, adds flavor to any meal. So, do not throw away your food if something suddenly goes wrong when cooking a delicious meal. Add in a little hot sauce.
You will love the new flavor.
How Is Commercial Hot Sauce Made?
Commercial hot sauce is the one you find in hotels and restaurants or other public places that sell food for sale. Unlike your homemade hot sauce, commercial ones take a while to prepare.
Here is how commercial hot sauce is made:
- Soon after harvesting, select the best chili peppers to make the hot sauce
- Mix the peppers with enough salt and mash
- Leave the mash for about three years to ferment (put it in a covered wooden container)
- Once fully fermented, add vinegar to the solution and mix it regularly for about 2 weeks
- Remove the chili seeds and pulp to make the pepper refined and fill in your bottles for sale
What Are The Different Types Of Hot Sauce?
I have told you in this article that all sauces are not made the same. Hence, you can only enjoy the full benefits of hot sauce if you take healthy ones.
Hot sauces come in varieties based on their origin. For example, some find their origin in Ethiopia, Awaze. Others originate from Syria, Muhammara, and Egypt, Shatta. Other origins of hot sauces include but are not limited to: Chile, Jamaica, Mexico, Korea, Ghana, Indonesia, and Trinidad.
So, based on the origin of your hot sauce, here are some of the varieties you could find in the market.
- Green hot sauce
- Cholula hot sauce
- Sriracha hot sauce
- Black bean hot sauce
- Extra hot sauce
- Bhut jolokia hot sauce
- Peri-peri hot sauce
- Tabasco pepper sauce
- Buffalo-style
- Black bean hot sauce
- Schezwan sauce
Whatever the variety you go for, you should rip many health benefits of hot sauce as long as it contains the major ingredient; Capsaicin.
However, most commercial hot sauces could have additional ingredients, such as turmeric, olive oil, onions, sriracha, cumin, and cilantro. While each body responds differently to different species and other products, most of these ingredients are safe and have additional benefits. But if your body responds negatively to them, avoid using that variety of hot sauce.
Be warned, though, besides the many health benefits of hot sauce, there may be some precautions to take. Why? Hot sauce contains high levels of sodium!
So…
Is It Healthy To Eat Hot Sauce Every Day?
It is safe to eat hot sauce every day as long as you do not surpass the amount of sodium intake recommended in a day. Some hot sauce varieties may contain high sodium levels, making them unsafe for daily consumption.
While (generally) hot sauce has low amounts of sodium than most other flavor-adding foods, it still has high amounts. So, going slow on it is a sure way to stay safe, especially if you have a chronic disease.
Normally, when you add about 5 ml of hot sauce, you would take at least 124 mg of sodium. This is safe because, according to the American Heart Association, you should never take not more than 1500 mg of sodium in a day.
The Canadian, United Kingdom, and United States regulatory bodies also recommend keeping sodium intake as low as possible daily.
Therefore, if you can limit your intake of sodium per day, you will be safe.
Nevertheless, you must contact your doctor before eating hot sauce if you have high blood pressure. This is because sodium intake is unsuitable for persons with high blood pressure; hence, you should limit or avoid it altogether.
This would also be a great measure in keeping stroke and heart attack away.
Is Hot Sauce Good For Illness?
It is necessary to know that different bodies react differently to high amounts of salt. So, if you are that one person whose body does not respond well to salt, please avoid hot sauce intake to prevent health problems.
If you have no problems with salt and want to take hot sauce daily, always check the ingredients label to know what ingredients are added. Also, if you are concerned about the health of your heart or have high blood pressure, ensure that the hot sauce you pick from the stores contains a low amount of sodium.
Also, avoid any unhealthy preservatives or additives in hot sauces, as they may be the beginning of major health problems such as high blood pressure.
Is Hot Sauce Good For Your Stomach?
Seeing all the benefits of hot sauce, would you think there could be any adverse effects of taking it? You have often heard, “Too much of anything is poisonous.” The same applies to your favorite hot sauce.
Let me explain more.
One of the most significant health benefits of hot sauce is the lack of fat which is why most people prefer it over other flavor-adding spices. Besides, Capsaicin, the main ingredient in hot sauces, has many health benefits and is incredibly cheap.
That explains why most flavor lovers add sauce to their salads, eggs, and nearly all foods they eat daily. That is unhealthy, buddy, and here is why.
Not just hot sauce, most spices contain acid. Hence, while your tongue is on fire due to hot sauce, your stomach linings will equally feel the ‘heat!’ Consequently, you will end up experiencing excruciating pain soon after having your meal based on how your body responds to the hot sauce.
Once the acid in the stomach begins to travel back to the esophagus, you will have acid reflux. Resultantly, you will start having heartburn problems. If you already have a heat burn problem, adding hot sauce to your diet causes more problems. So, avoid hot sauces as much as possible to avoid stomach lining inflammation and acidity.
If you never have heartburn issues like me, you might not have any major stomach problems after eating hot sauce. Nevertheless, you might have diarrhea problems soon after the meal.
This happens after eating a hot sauce, and your mouth and stomach become inflamed; you decide to take cold water. Since food is moving through the system faster than usual, you will likely have diarrhea once you take cold water.
The best advice I would give you today, and I hope you do not forget, is not to take cold water after a meal (spiced or not). It is not a healthy practice!
Better said, hot sauce has two sides: It contains numerous health benefits but also has several health problems that could affect a few of those who take too much of it.
It Is Up To You!
Hot sauce has various benefits, as we have seen in this article. For example, it adds flavor, regulates high blood pressure, heals colds, potentially kills cancerous cells, relieves pain, lowers the risk of developing diabetes (type 2), burns body fat, and has vitamins and antioxidants.
Do you want to miss out on these health benefits of hot sauce? I believe you do not want to. So, occasionally eat some healthy hot sauce to enjoy its numerous benefits while adding flavor to your meals.
Like every other good thing, temptations to eat more every day could be there. Remember that the good hot sauce you love could also adversely affect your health if taken in high quantities. Have some self-control, therefore!
Therefore, avoid taking more than the recommended (1500 ml) in a day. To ensure you are not exceeding this amount, only add hot sauce to one meal daily. Probably, even avoid taking it every day and only take it at least two to three times a week.
