Why can we “taste” spicy foods with other parts of our body like our eyes or throat or when we use the bathroom, but we can’t do the same with other tastes?

Question

Why can we “taste” spicy foods with other parts of our body like our eyes or throat or when we use the bathroom, but we can’t do the same with other tastes?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Spicy food is not actually a taste. It’s a feeling. Spicy food has a chemical called capsaicin that latched onto your heat detection cells, and makes colder things seem hotter. So something that in actually is ~100 degrees (inside your mouth) feels much hotter. That works with other parts of your body too. Your hand (~95 degrees) feels much hotter, and what you are feeling is literally a fake burning sensation caused by the capsaicin.