Stefan, >you dig out funny things. It happened quite suddenly that you began to >quote heaps of references in your posts. There must be a new source >which you now have access to. Which is it? Did you discover a new li- >brary? :-) Kind of: the biomedical library and the library of archaeology and anthropology of U. Penn are excellent. You can search abstracts at http://www4.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/PubMed/ >My radical opinion on hot spices: >Chili, garlic, onions, mustard etc. are all for severely s i c k >people. When I was on the top of my heavy metal intoxification I >craved garlic. The burning was s o good, the taste excellent and >I could eat huge amounts. I also could eat big parts of chili whereas no >other instincto whom I know was able to eat only a tiny piece. You are talking about eating spices the instincto way. I am sure that the most "toxic" Mexican couldn't do that. I myself used to like spicy foods, but certainly couldn't eat monomeals of hot chili. >It's true that hot spices cause salivation (even of tears ;-)) and >speed up the digestion. So they truly help in detoxing. But in my very >humble (but radical) opinion they are only needed in severe cases. I have no definite opinion about spices. They can indeed help digestion, among other properties. What was interesting in this text was that: -taste preferences have a strong cultural component in humans -which could interfere with instinctive eating. -foods that would give a very strong stop are not necessarily harmful And of course, the mysterious process of how children come to like spicy foods is particularly interesting. Best wishes, Jean-Louis [log in to unmask]