what is the difference between hot, temperature wise, and hot as in, hot peppers?
In: Biology
It’s not hot for bell peppers. It’s spicy. You measure that in scoville units/levels. Temperature hot you measure in degrees
Hot should only be used for temperature. In English there’s no difference between spicy (chile) and spicy (mustard, wasabi etc), but in reality these are two concepts totally different, In México (where chile is from) there’s a specific word for spicy (as in chile): picante or picoso and a word for spicy (mustard, wasabi), condimentado. So, spicy and picante are two concepts and should be a different word for each, but english has no word for that, so they use spicy for both concepts.
Hot (spicy) foods activate some of the same receptors in your mouth as hot (warm) temperatures. These receptors send electric signals to your brain. Your brain (i.e. you) can’t tell whether these signals mean ‘warm’ or ‘spicy’, as the signals are identical. So, when eating spicy foods, you experience sensations very similar to eating something very warm.
The difference, of course, is that spicy and warm aren’t physically the same things. You can’t heat your house by filling it with chili peppers. And a hot cup of coffee isn’t spicy, it’s just warm.
If you’re a bird, the difference is totally clear. Birds don’t have heat receptors that are sensitive to capsaicin, the spicy chemical in chili peppers. So, they don’t feel the burn of the capsaicin chemical. This is likely why chilies evolved their spicy flavor in the first place. Other animals will avoid chilies because they find them unpleasant (except us foolish humans who somehow enjoy the burn). This leaves them for birds to eat, who poop out the chili seeds and spread them far and wide.
Temperature is something you can measure about something.
It’s physics.
The hot in peppers is just a chemical that tricks your temperature sensor nerves into thinking it’s hot.
It’s biology.
“Hot” can be used to describe something that is spicy (hot wings, hot sauce). If something you eat is too *warm*, however, you can use the word “hot” to describe it.
If you’re eating a spicy southwestern salad, you probably wouldn’t use “hot” to describe it, because it’s a cold food, and you don’t want to potentially confuse other English speakers.
So if you’re ever unsure, use “spicy” to describe something that is spicy, and “hot” to describe something that is too warm. But keep in mind that if you’re eating something that is both hot AND spicy, saying “This is too hot” might produce a question like “Hot as in spicy?”
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