What in capsaicin makes it spicy/hot? What element the chemical make up makes it act like it does?
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So plants over the millennia have evolved capsaicin. This chemical was developed to prevent chewing mammals from eating their seeds (offspring’s).
Capsaicin is like a hacker, when it touches your nervous system when you eat it (tongue receptors) it basically hacks your nerves and triggers all the alarm bells your nerves have and they send these alarms to the brain.
Because of if these “alarms going on” the brain gets confused so it gets interpreted as pain or as heat or similar unpleasant sensations.
But if you measure temperature or inspect for bruises you’ll find nothing out of the ordinary, because basically capsaicin all it did was trigger all these alarms without really burning or bruising you.
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