[HN Gopher] The Burning Desire for Hot Chicken (2016)
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       The Burning Desire for Hot Chicken (2016)
        
       Author : Tomte
       Score  : 45 points
       Date   : 2021-12-31 18:54 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theringer.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theringer.com)
        
       | sigmaprimus wrote:
       | "The body thinks it's on fire, so it unleashes a wave of
       | endorphins to help quell the burning. You start to feel something
       | akin to a runner's high. The sharp stinging pain will subside,
       | but the rush -- and subsequent sense of tranquility -- lasts a
       | bit longer."
       | 
       | This is called going into Shock!!
       | 
       | I've always liked spicy food but not to the point they cause
       | physical discomfort this just seems like a waste of good spices
       | to me, a far more economical solution would be to just eat a
       | piece of conservatively spiced chicken then have your buddy kick
       | You in the balls.
        
         | Mikeb85 wrote:
         | Dunno, I (and most people around the world) quite enjoy the
         | feeling.
         | 
         | Keep in mind, chilies are native only to Mexico/Central
         | America. Yet almost every culture on earth has adopted them
         | into its cuisine (India, China, Thailand, basically every Asian
         | cuisine except maybe Japan, African cuisines, a bunch of
         | European cuisines, etc...).
        
           | xkgt wrote:
           | I may be wrong but I am curious to know whether there is any
           | correlation between spicy cuisine and a hot climate? There
           | are some counter-examples ( e.g., certain northern Chinese
           | cuisines are spicier than Cantonese) but typically spicier
           | cuisines are associated with tropical countries.
        
             | Mikeb85 wrote:
             | There's _a_ correlation for sure, chilies also only grow in
             | relatively warm weather, but the fact they spread so far in
             | the first place is testamount to their appeal.
             | 
             | They're _so_ popular in so many countries that people
             | forget they originated _only_ in the new world...
        
             | whoisburbansky wrote:
             | One explanation I've heard proposed is that the sweating
             | induced by spicy foods helps you cool down faster in hot
             | climates than just your body trying to maintain
             | homeostasis.
        
           | sigmaprimus wrote:
           | I think there is a definite enhancement to foods that spices
           | provide but there is a big difference between enough spice to
           | break a sweat and having a numbness on your pallet for
           | example and feeling like you are going to die.
           | 
           | Like I said I like spicy food but not to extreme that my
           | stomach is upset for hours after eating it and finding myself
           | suffering on the back end for 3 days after eating it.
           | 
           | At some point it is just self abuse and should not be seen as
           | a sign of strength or masculinity but rather stupidity along
           | the lines of eating Tide pods or doing the cinnamon challenge
           | solely for the entertainment of others watching you suffer.
        
             | Mikeb85 wrote:
             | I mean, most of the people who say they think they're going
             | to die are just using it as hyperbole...
        
               | sigmaprimus wrote:
               | Probably the best example of a good balance is the
               | legendary Sushi chefs who use the blowfish as an
               | ingredient to allow enough poison to achieve the desired
               | effect but not so much as to make the customer gravely
               | ill.
               | 
               | Another example might be what seems to be occurring with
               | the opioid endemic.
        
           | dustintrex wrote:
           | The single most popular dish prepared at home in Japan is
           | curry rice. Most Japanese curries are not particularly spicy,
           | but they definitely do have a chilli kick and chains like
           | Coco Ichiban do a brisk business selling up amped-up
           | versions.
        
             | zentropia wrote:
             | I remember eating spicy level three and my body was
             | sweeting and shaking.
        
             | Mikeb85 wrote:
             | Fair enough, I wasn't sure about how much Japanese enjoyed
             | chilies, in my limited experience (we have tons of sushi,
             | ramen and Izakaya style joints here but relatively few
             | Japanese people) Japanese food seems much milder than most
             | other Asian cuisines.
        
               | tasogare wrote:
               | They like to advertise spicyness but most of the time
               | it's not really as spicy as it's marketed. Once however,
               | I tried that Tabasco Scorpion sauce I found at a 100-yen
               | Lawson, thinking it would be the usual bullshit and I've
               | been taken for a ride.
        
         | addaon wrote:
         | This has nothing to do with shock, which is about blood flow
         | and oxygen delivery, not hormone release.
        
           | sigmaprimus wrote:
           | Please research shock and endorphin release and reconsider
           | your argument.
           | 
           | I understand that many people enjoy the sensations related to
           | eating highly spiced foods but as the article mention this
           | can result in hours of digestive discomfort and sometimes
           | there is a 3 day price to pay for indulging in such activity
           | when expelling what was consumed.
           | 
           | I feel there is a reasonable argument that pleasure through
           | pain is a self destructive activity along the lines of
           | "cutting" or auto erotic self asphyxiation.
           | 
           | Glorifying such things is in my opinion has a negative
           | outcome.
        
             | BenjiWiebe wrote:
             | And for some (including me), they can enjoy high heat
             | levels, a rush of endorphins, and no side effects.
             | 
             | What's wrong with that?
        
               | sigmaprimus wrote:
               | Absolutely nothing, the article I read was about the pain
               | and suffering a tourist experiences when they order extra
               | spicy hot chicken. I think that if you enjoy the spice
               | and feel no discomfort then the spices are at the correct
               | level for you.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | kranner wrote:
       | Great article!
       | 
       | Interesting aside about the 'Ghost Pepper' (Bhut Jolokia)
       | referred to in the article, a former world record holder for
       | hottest chilli pepper, native to Northeast India: the 'ghost'
       | (bhut) label arises from a fun linguistic misunderstanding.
       | 
       | Using IAST notation/Devanagari, the 'bhut' is actually
       | 'bhot/bhott' (which means 'Bhutanese' in this context, from the
       | Sanskrit for 'Tibet'), not 'bhut/bhut' or 'bhut/bhuut' (which
       | means ghost/spirit, from the Sanskrit for 'past'). So Bhut
       | Jolokia actually means 'Bhutanese Pepper', which is decidedly
       | less interesting than 'Ghost Pepper'; hence (probably) the
       | popularity of the latter meaning.
       | 
       | https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bhut%20jolokia
        
       | contidrift wrote:
       | If you like this stuff you may also enjoy Portuguese peri peri
       | chicken https://wetravelportugal.com/piri-piri-chicken/
        
         | doodlebugging wrote:
         | I think chicken is a perfect vehicle for spices. I like to
         | experiment with spices so I look for things that will give me a
         | taste of how the rest of the world enjoys their food. A couple
         | of years ago I found a Peri-peri spice mix in the import
         | section of our local grocery store so I bought some to try it
         | out.
         | 
         | It is spicy and the heat level can be too much for someone who
         | doesn't enjoy a good burn after the burst of chili flavor. My
         | family is a mix of high heat lovers and mild heat lovers so I
         | found that a couple of us wanted less heat while the others
         | enjoyed it. I grilled the chicken over coals and the
         | combination of spice and char makes a delicious flavor profile.
         | I had totally forgotten about this spice blend. Thanks for the
         | reminder.
        
       | sweetheart wrote:
        
         | Mikeb85 wrote:
         | This is a different topic altogether...
        
         | shepherdjerred wrote:
         | Would it be more appropriate to eat not-spicy chicken, or are
         | you advocating for not eating meat at all?
        
           | paulcole wrote:
           | I eat a plant-based diet and believe that almost everyone
           | reading this comment can and should give up eating meat.
           | 
           | That said, in theory some reduction in meat eating is better
           | than none (although in terms of effect on climate
           | change/future of humanity everything is just rearranging the
           | deck chairs on the Titanic at this point).
           | 
           | I think it's best if most people reading this comment think
           | of meat as a rare treat rather than an everyday indulgence.
           | So enjoy the spicy chicken sandwich once in awhile even if
           | I'd rather you ate no meat at all.
        
           | sweetheart wrote:
           | I don't think anyone should eat meat, outside of those who
           | cannot survive otherwise. That's almost nobody though.
           | 
           | Any suffering that animals experience by being farmed which
           | is not strictly necessary for survival, is totally
           | unnecessary, and I think unnecessary suffering is wrong,
           | regardless of the species of the victim.
        
         | darksaints wrote:
        
         | doodlebugging wrote:
         | I wonder how the plant feels about us ripping those pungent
         | leaves from its branches to flavor our soups or stealing its
         | seeds to grind them into powder for our BBQ rubs. Does the
         | sound of the combine harvester cause the wheat to envy the
         | cow's mobility when you harvest and it has to accept the fact
         | that it cannot escape? If you could convert the chemical signal
         | that a plant sends to its neighbors that an insect is chewing
         | its leaves into a sound, would that sound be a scream steadily
         | increasing in volume as the insect crunches its way through the
         | leaf? Would it be a mournful cry or a war whoop?
        
           | sweetheart wrote:
           | You don't actually think plants and animals have the same
           | capacity to suffer, so you're not making that argument in
           | good faith.
           | 
           | Watch me kick a dog and a house plant and see which one you
           | stop me from doing again.
        
         | uoaei wrote:
         | How much does pain weigh if the one experiencing it is a
         | subject which cannot recognize its own suffering?
        
           | throwanem wrote:
           | Why assume a chicken can't tell that it's suffering? I mean,
           | I'll go on eating it either way, but don't you think you
           | might be kidding yourself a little here?
        
             | uoaei wrote:
             | The concept of "self" as distinct from "other/environment"
             | is quite a complex cognitive construction and requires a
             | lot of moving parts. It doesn't seem straightforward to me
             | to assume that all beings share a means to achieve this
             | understanding, when unthinking automata can relatively
             | easily simulate the same behaviors in all scenarios that a
             | chicken expresses vs, say, an elephant, dolphin, or human.
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | There seems to be an implicit assumption here that
               | understanding "suffering" as a concept is necessary in
               | order to suffer. That may be justifiable, but it
               | certainly requires justification.
        
               | uoaei wrote:
               | I think you are misconstruing. There is another
               | possibility, which is that a negative experience is less
               | metaphysically meaningful when the experience is _pure_
               | "pain", without the added self-reflective component which
               | can be distinguished as "suffering".
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | I've been in pain bad enough that, had someone asked me
               | my name, I'd have needed a while to come up with an
               | answer that would itself have taken real effort just to
               | say. I don't know whether that experience was more or
               | less "metaphysically meaningful", a term I note you seem
               | in no hurry to define, for the fact that it drove my
               | consciousness so far into abeyance that I could no longer
               | perceive even the passage of time. I don't think it
               | matters either way, because while it's happening that
               | kind of pain becomes the only real thing in the world.
               | Why should this be any less true for a chicken than for
               | me?
        
               | uoaei wrote:
               | The difference is the self-reflection on the other side
               | of that pain. While you were in it, it was pure
               | experience. It is only by reflecting on those moments
               | that one transforms pain into suffering. If you are able
               | to experience only pain, excluding selfhood, then perhaps
               | ignorance really is bliss? Can you really say there is
               | anything "bad" if there is no lasting trauma borne upon a
               | sentient (self-knowing) being?
               | 
               | "Metaphysically meaningful" is a bit of a copout, agreed.
               | It can be tautologically defined as "that sentiment which
               | describes the satisfaction derived from the quasi-
               | optimality of outcomes with respect to the consensus
               | moral framework". Concisely, "meaningful vs consensus
               | morality". Of course there will be interplay between what
               | morality the consensus achieves and what can be
               | considered meaningful. But I think few would disagree
               | that more closely analyzing the various kinds of negative
               | experiences will inform our collective morals "for the
               | better" (again tautological here, but to deny evolution
               | of morality is simply reactionary philosophy and shall
               | not be tolerated).
        
           | doodlebugging wrote:
           | I would make the case that a chicken fully understands the
           | concept of pain, feels pain itself, and inflicts pain on
           | other beings as a tool for maintaining a social compliance.
           | 
           | Just the existence of something like a "pecking order" should
           | demonstrate all you need to know to understand that the
           | chicken doing the pecking knows in advance that the peck will
           | inflict pain on the one being pecked and that the inflicted
           | pain will cause that animal to alter their behavior by either
           | recognizing the authority of the one doing the pecking, or by
           | challenging that authority.
           | 
           | The sweetest cat that I ever had, now enjoying her (9 - n)
           | life somewhere else, was the one true queen and ruler of
           | everything mobile or potentially mobile on our property.
           | Scraps of paper thrown from redneck's trucks as they passed
           | along the highway became objects of great amusement as she
           | slapped them into compliance with what she considered to be
           | their place in her personal space.
           | 
           | Mice, rats, birds, lizards, raccoons, opossums, squirrels,
           | and all manner of insects were both entertainment and
           | sustenance. She had no fear of anything and a great love for
           | all the humans she had chosen to adopt. She was the top of
           | the food chain at our place until I decided to raise
           | chickens.
           | 
           | I purchased a dozen young hens, none of them taller than the
           | cat, and kept them confined in a mobile cage that I moved
           | around the property. I was hoping that I could one day use
           | the grown chickens to help control the fire ant and
           | grasshopper populations since chickens always seemed to me to
           | be not only simple-minded, but single-mindedly focused on
           | eating anything that moved.
           | 
           | The cat watched these birds with obvious anticipation of
           | their eventual freedom. She would sit outside the screened
           | cage and observe them scratching and pecking and could
           | occasionally be seen with a paw extended into the cage in an
           | attempt to touch them. Within the cage the birds adapted to
           | each other and a sort of social pecking order developed where
           | one bird grew to be the dominant bird and ended up
           | controlling the others like her own personal flock.
           | 
           | In time, I released the birds from the cage and they adapted
           | to life outside the wire. Several were killed by my two
           | clumsy black Labs who chased them down and murdered them
           | before I could jump the fence and stop the carnage.
           | 
           | They were all still relatively small and the cat finally had
           | an opportunity to touch them and exert some level of control
           | over them. She would place herself in a position where the
           | birds had to pass and as they passed she would reach out and
           | pat or slap them on the head. This was all fun and games for
           | her. Passing her and being slapped was a sort of toll
           | inflicted on the birds and once she had patted them down she
           | would wander off to find something more interesting.
           | 
           | Finally Ruby, the dominant bird, decided that she had had
           | enough of that cat's shit and as soon as she had been patted,
           | she jumped onto the trailer beside the cat and pecked the cat
           | hard on the head between the eyes sending the cat scooting
           | across the yard like furred lightning putting as much
           | distance between herself and the birds as she could manage.
           | From that day on, the cat gave the chickens a wide berth and
           | a healthy dose of respect. In fact, during one attack where
           | we lost a couple of chickens to a hawk she rushed in to
           | defend Ruby from the hawk.
           | 
           | Sadly enough, Ruby eventually was killed by a couple of loose
           | dogs belonging to a neighbor and my poor cat, queen of
           | everything in our local universe, had to be euthanized. After
           | 14 years as an outside cat she was ready for a new start
           | somewhere else. I hope she found a nice warm spot with lots
           | of distractions.
           | 
           | This story got too long but the general summary is that a
           | chicken knows pain, feels pain, knows how to use pain as a
           | tool to force compliance and that anyone who doesn't know
           | this needs to spend a little time watching them and how they
           | interact in their social world.
        
             | sweetheart wrote:
             | How is a chickens ability to inflict pain relevant at all?
        
         | LongTimeAnon wrote:
        
         | mrhimguydude wrote:
        
         | sigmaprimus wrote:
         | I don't want to turn this into an argument about consuming
         | chicken but I feel I must share my point of view regarding this
         | matter. I am fortunate enough to have enough space to raise a
         | personal flock of chickens and on occasion I am required to end
         | their lives. This is absolutely not something that I take
         | pleasure in but feel that I have provided a good life without
         | pain and anxiety to my animals and although they do suffer a
         | brief moment of anxiety and possibly pain, I have taken the
         | responsibility of raising my own meat including the dispatching
         | of their short lives in a humane way. I am personally against
         | factory farms for their affect on the environment and in my
         | opinion production of a lower quality meat but feel that my
         | animals have one bad moment on my farm and a far better than
         | average life otherwise, unlike what occurs in large factory
         | chicken houses and processing plants. I respect life in all
         | it's forms and believe there is a place where the consumption
         | of animals and their welfare can coexist.
         | 
         | Consider the humanity of euthanizing a pet, to argue killing is
         | diametrically opposed to an animals welfare is a false
         | statement.
        
           | sweetheart wrote:
        
         | NikolaeVarius wrote:
         | Yeah, it tastes good. Get in my belly.
        
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