Have you ever tryed putting hot sauce on your food and had a bad experience? If you are one of those people who just can’t handle spicy food but wish you had more of a tolerance, try to slowly build a tolerance by consuming peppers with low grade heat, then gradually move up the scale. Believe it or not, genetics, ancestry and cultural histories play a large part in determining whether or not someone may or may not have a tolerance to spicy food. Generally, Central and South Americans as well as people from India and North Africa have a higher tolerance for spicy food than Western and Eastern Europeans. Lastly, I would like to address the issue of ingesting large quantities of capsaicin. A good rule of thumb is: “Whatever burns on the way in, will burn on the way out”. This is because the mucus membranes and soft tissue that line your mouth are very similar to those found in your rectum. I know it is not the most appetizing thing to think about, but it is worth mentioning. I have personally noticed that consuming a bite of a fresh pepper (even a habanero or dare I say a Naga Jolokia (Indian Ghost Pepper >1,000,000 Scoville Units)) produces less discomfort than some processed artificially flavored hot sauce that contains synthetically altered or concentrated capsaicin. Also, take into account that the Scoville heat scale, as groundbreaking and informative as it is, is not an absolute. I have had roasted jalapeno peppers that were hotter than roasted cayenne peppers. I have also consumed cayenne peppers off the vine that were hotter than fresh habanero peppers.