Why do people eat very hot peppers?

Spiciness, after all, is not a flavour, not like sweet or salty or sour. Spicy means pain. The sensation of spiciness is the result of the activation of pain receptors in the tongue. read more

Hot peppers do not cause stomach lining damage or ulcers. It just exposes them, and once exposed, obviously you cannot eat hot food until healed. Different hot chillies have different flavors and hit different parts of the mouth. read more

Likewise, bell peppers, which have some pepper flavour but no capsaicin, are not at all popular in Mexico. While most scientists still do not quite have a handle on the human preference for spicy foods, the best explanation comes from a mechanism called "hedonic reversal", or "benign masochism". read more