Deconstructing the Myths around Hot Sauce
When you think about Hot Sauce, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Let’s take a guess – the random selection of words might include ‘artificial flavor’, ‘spicy and kills the taste buds’, and ‘not suitable for everyday cooking’. While this might be a popular opinion, let’s dig deeper into why hot sauce has an uncertain reputation.
Let’s look at the ingredients in Blue Zones Hot Sauce and understand how it elevates your food and don’t be shy in incorporating it in your meals! Almost all of Blue Zones Hot Sauces are completely gluten-free, 100% natural with no added preservatives or sugar – and when the ingredients are fresh, there’s no doubt the hot sauce will always stay killer. The Nalga De Perro Hot Sauce is made from popular cayenne peppers while the Conbirra Hot Sauce has native congo peppers from Nicoya Peninsula.
A good hot sauce needs to have qualities ranging from smoky, tangy, slightly sweet with different levels of spice – mild to hot. The main ingredients of hot sauce will always have chilli peppers, vinegar, salt, vegetables, and some sort of citrus – grapefruit, orange, lime, or lemon. With this list of ingredients being so straightforward, it’s the chili peppers that become the victim of “too much spice” due to which people refrain from using in daily cooking!
It’s not the Chili Peppers that should be the main focus, it’s the capsaicin that brings out the heat in the pepper. The Capsaicinoids are the chemicals responsible for the “hot” taste of chili peppers. While for some the chili peppers leave a burning sensation on the tongue, the capsaicin has numerous health effects. This chemical helps in banishing migraines, clears a runny nose, speed metabolism, and is also a super ingredient found in creams and lotions to soothe arthritis.
Hot sauce is often called a preservative – the reason being that hot peppers are natural antimicrobials a.k.a they kill the germs that might be present in the bottle or a tin! Just when you thought of rewarding Vitamin C title to oranges, the mild capsicum and fiery peppers both contain double the amount of Vitamin C that protects your cells!
Call it Chile, Chili, shatta, or mirchi – various cultures around the world have adapted to their own style of hot sauce depending on the terroir. It is said that the inhabitants of Mexico, Central America, and South America started consuming chili peppers more than 6000 years ago. Blue Zones Nicoya, Costa Rica has some of the oldest and healthiest living population and that’s no secret that their chilero hot sauce is a contributing factor to longevity.
We grow up eating food from our culture but eventually, our taste and spice tolerance evolve a lot by trying different cuisines. So, the next time you’re preparing your scrambled eggs for breakfast, let’s pop that hot sauce!