Sciencemadness Discussion Board

does fresh milk enzyme able to break down capsaicinoids from chili peppers?

rockyit98 - 22-3-2020 at 07:07

i know that milk is better than water in case of burning mouth.when i look how it does that i got multiple explanations like wikipedia says "When capsaicin is ingested, cold milk is an effective way to relieve the burning sensation (due to caseins having a detergent effect on capsaicin[30]); and room-temperature sugar solution (10%) at 20 °C (68 °F) is almost as effective" some says "compounds in milk replaces Capsaicin from the receptors " most interesting one so far is that fresh milk have hundreds of enzymes, in which one or multiple of them are able to break down capsaicinoids. but milk has to be fresh like from a farm otherwise heat treatment will render them inactive.what is your thoughts and is there natural enzymes that i can use from different source that actually works. it will be very useful in culinary science to remove spiciness from chilies.

njl - 22-3-2020 at 12:04

I'm not sure that theres a good way to literally remove the spice from chili peppers. As to the physical mechanism, I think the first explanation is more correct. If I am not mistaken, capsaicinoids are very insoluble in water (so drinking water is ineffective) but are at least somewhat soluble in fats and polar organic solvents. Fresh milk has both fats, water, and enzymes which create a detergent effect. It's important to note though that the detergent effect isn't inactivating so much as it is removing the capsaicinoids the same way that dish detergent doesn't destroy grease, it just makes it easier to wash off with water. I'd guess that the pasteurization process destroys the enzymes, so there is a different effect in the end. Personally, I haven't noticed a difference between farm fresh and pasteurized milk but maybe that's just me.

rockyit98 - 23-3-2020 at 05:05

i did a experiment with fresh milk and dried chili powder and controlled one with just water l it for 6 hours. the one with water turned red and separated to two layers. with fresh milk it also made two layers one with fats and proteins and lower one with water that looks like milk tea the redness was gone in the both layers like it been bleached. i smelled them both and milk one is much low in spiciness and pleasant. maybe fresh milk's much high in fat (about 5%) content. so today i'm going to redo the experiment with low fat pasteurized milk.

clearly_not_atara - 23-3-2020 at 05:31

The phrase "detergent effect" should give you all the information you need. Would be interesting to test other emulsifiers -- honey, mustard, egg yolk. But a painful experiment.