Can Eating Too Much Pepper Cause Heartburn?

Food for humans is not just something that is used to satiate hunger; it’s much more than that. Human beings are the only creatures that eat even when not hungry, drink even when not thirsty and make love in all seasons. Well, this inordinate eating certainly explains a lot of lifestyle diseases and eating disorders. Speaking of eating food when not hungry, humans are also the only creatures that eat to satisfy their taste buds rather than their stomachs. So eating food is just a tiny part of a huge process; selecting, preparing and cooking food comes prior to it.  

Have you ever noticed how we often turn healthy foods into foods that cause health disorders and distress, simply by the act of cooking or seasoning? Take green vegetables for instance. There could be nothing more healthier than fresh green vegetables. But often we ruin the health benefits contained in them by cooking them in wrong type of oil or wrong amounts of oil, or by adding wrong seasonings. Using olive oil is a great idea, but using butter to cook is not a good option. Similarly eating a raw vegetable salad is much healthier than eating deep fried vegetable cutlets. Dipping the vegetable cutlets in store-bought sauce or ketchup is another way to nullify the health benefits and add harmful substances into your body. 

Many a times, we do everything right. Right from selection of healthy foods to cooking them right (or not cooking them as in raw vegetable salad), everything is done perfectly. But you reach out for the seasoning right before eating the salad. Using mayonnaise for dressing the salad, or using too much of salt or black pepper can not only ruin the health benefits of the fresh veggies, but also create distress or health disorders, depending upon the amount and kind of condiments or spices that you add to the vegetables.  

Dealing with heartburn is not a smooth process. Many people who suffer from this issue on a chronic basis may be suffering from GERD or hyperacidity. Such people often have a list of safe and danger foods with them. But green vegetables are definitely in the safe list for such folks. But a silly mistake like adding black pepper to the seasoning may spell danger for them. Spices in general are dangerous because they instantly trigger an episode of heartburn in sensitive individuals and in patients suffering from digestive disorders.  

So the bottom line is that you need to monitor each and every item that you pop into your mouth, and that includes the dressings, seasonings or the oil that is used for cooking. Black pepper is a known stomach irritant and there are research and clinical study reports to corroborate this fact. A study was conducted to assess the effects of both black and green pepper. Results confirmed that both types of peppers stimulated excessive production of pepsin. They also stimulated parietal secretions, led to increased loss of potassium and damaged the mucosal lining of the stomach. The gastric cells lining the inner layer of the stomach began to exfoliate after administration of the spices. Micro bleeding was observed from the mucosal layer of the stomach, and in sensitive individuals the bleeding was quite large and even grossly visible.

So the final conclusion is that seasoning your food is okay, but you ought to maintain a safe limit. Overdoing anything can be harmful. Eating too much of black pepper can not only create heartburn or aggravate it if already present, but abusing this spice on a long term basis could very well turn out to be dangerous for your digestive system, urinary system and may even induce a miscarriage if you are pregnant.  

Spices are meant just for adding flavor to your food, and none of the spices or condiments is actually essential for maintaining good health. Actually you do not even need to add extra salt to you food, because all the natural foods contain sodium in them and your body can comfortably subsist on these amounts. Black pepper should not be consumed in large amounts, even if you are fairly tolerant of this spice, because it can damage your stomach mucosa if done so, which in turn can lead to chronic ill health of the digestive system.