Two Red Peppers For Health - Bell and Cayenne, Sweet and Hot

Red peppers are nutritious, tasty and healthy vegetables which make a great addition to almost everyone’s diet. There are many different varieties of red peppers available, some sweet and some hot. Peppers are versatile foods and can be eaten raw, roasted, or ground into a spice, as part of salads, soups and other meals, or in baked goods like pizza and breads.

Capsaicin is the chemical that produces the hot taste and sensation when certain peppers are eaten. Red bell peppers contain no capsaicin and have a sweet taste. Cayenne peppers contain a high level of capsaicin and have a hot, spicy taste. Both peppers are rich in nutrients, and each has health benefits.

Black pepper is produced from the fruit of Piper nigrum, which is native to India and is a member of the family Piperaceae. The fruit is dried in the hot sun until it becomes black. The black "peppercorns" are then ground to form a spice.

When Christopher Columbus arrived in the new world he encountered a fruit whose hot and spicy taste reminded him of old world pepper, so he gave it the same name. Biologically new world peppers are fruits, since they contain seeds, but they are considered to be a vegetable when they are used as foods.

The new world peppers are related to each other biologically. They belong to the family Solanaceae, often called the nightshade family, and are classified in the genus Capsicum. The scientific name of both bell peppers and cayenne peppers is Capsicum annuum.

Raw red bell peppers are a wonderful addition to salads. They add a vibrant red color which complements the color of salad greens very nicely, and provide a crunchy, crisp texture. They are also packed with nutrients. A small red pepper contains about 46% of our daily vitamin A requirement and 158% of our daily vitamin C requirement! It's also a very good source of vitamin B6, vitamin E, vitamin K and folate, and contains other vitamins and minerals too.

The vitamin A in red bell peppers is in the form of beta carotene, which our bodies convert into vitamin A. Red bell peppers also contain other carotenoids, including lycopene. In experiments carried out in laboratory containers lycopene is an antioxidant. In addition, people who eat foods that contain lycopene have a reduced incidence of cancer, macular degeneration in the eye and cardiovascular problems. However, it's not known if the lycopene itself is responsible for the beneficial effects, or if they are due to the combination of nutrients in the food that contains the lycopene. This is a good example of why it's important to eat whole foods instead of taking supplements of one nutrient.

Green bell peppers are unripe red bell peppers and aren’t as rich in nutrients. They also lack the sweetness of red peppers and may even have a slightly bitter taste.

A cayenne pepper is red and hot. It's important to eat small amounts of hot peppers until you know your own individual tolerance; peppers containing capsaicin can produce an interesting taste and add a lively zest to a meal, but can also irritate and burn the mouth and digestive tract. Capsaicin is the active ingredient in pepper spray.

The Scoville Scale is a numerical system used to indicate how hot a pepper tastes and its irritation potential. It depends on the amount of capsaicin in the pepper. Bell peppers have a rating of 0 Scoville heat units. Pure capsaicin has a Scoville rating of 15,000,000 to 16,000,000 Scoville heat units.

Cayenne peppers are assigned a value of 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville heat units. They are hotter than Jalapeno peppers and are usually eaten in the form of small amounts of ground spice, although some people do eat pieces of whole cayenne pepper. Even a small amount of ground cayenne pepper used as a seasoning is a good source of vitamin A. One teaspoon provides about 15% of our daily vitamin A requirement.

Researchers at Purdue University have found that eating reasonable amounts of cayenne pepper reduces appetite, increases body temperature and burns calories in people who are not used to eating it. However, these effects are lost once a person's body becomes used to the pepper. More research needs to be done to determine how long the cayenne pepper is effective in most people and to see if there is a way to maintain its effectiveness once people become used to the spice.

In clinical tests skin creams containing capsaicin have been found to significantly reduce arthritis pain. Capsaicin reduces the amount of substance P in the body, which is a substance that causes pain. Patients need to to apply the capsaicin cream several times a day for at least two weeks to see a beneficial effect. The cream may cause a burning sensation on the skin in the early stages of use, and the patient must be careful not to get it into sensitive areas like the eyes. They should wash their hands after using a capsaicin cream, unless it's being applied to the hands.

Peppers - especially when they aren't completely ripe - contain a chemical called solanine, just like other foods in the nightshade family, which includes tomatoes, potatoes and eggplants. Solanine is known to be dangerous at high levels. Some people discover that nightshades make their arthritis or joint pain worse, although there is no scientific evidence that nightshades can affect arthritis.

People who suffer from acid reflux disease (also known as GERD, or Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease) find that spicy foods such as hot peppers are irritating and make their disorder worse; other people with the illness don't notice any ill effects from eating hot peppers.

Someone with arthritis, joint pain or acid reflux needs to make a decision about whether to eat foods like sweet and hot peppers based on their own experiences. For most people, though, both sweet and red peppers are a delicious and healthy food.