Sometimes it can feel like your insides are on fire after biting into that burrito you just loaded with way too much heat. While your eyes are watering and you’re frantically searching for water, you’re thinking to yourself, “how much hot sauce is too much?”
There aren’t too many ingredients in hot sauce but a big one in most brands is sodium. There are low sodium hot sauces but make sure to check the label before hand because loading on the hot sauce can cause you to unintentionally consume way more than your recommended daily sodium intake.
It’s also not a good idea to overdo it on the hot sauce if you have a sensitive stomach because it can cause stomach aches very easily. Hot sauce can also cause acid reflux which isn’t a good addition to any meal.
But let’s not ignore all the benefits of hot sauce because it really does do a lot of good for the body. Capsaicin, which is responsible for making chilis spicy, has been reported to decrease inflammation, relieve soreness and help fight prostate cancer.
Splashing a bit of hot sauce on your food has also proven to help you eat less. The physical pain of eating spicy foods causes you to eat slower and the spice itself speeds up your metabolism.
It is true, as with most things, that there is a fatal dosage of chili peppers, but unless you are actively trying to break a world record of some sort (which I do not recommend) then it is highly unlikely that you’ll ever come close to consuming that amount of peppers.
According to the professor of horticulture at New Mexico State University and director of the Chile Pepper Institute, you’d have to eat about 3 pounds of the hottest pepper in a powdered form all at once and you’d most likely vomit before the peppers killed you.
Enjoy your hot sauce and don’t worry too much about harming yourself, just keep in mind that too much of anything is never a good idea. Your body can only take so much heat.