Red-Hot Chilli Pepper
If you love spicy food, specifically hot pepper, here’s a tip: Add them to your next meal. In fact, add them to all your
meals. Researchers out of Japan found that women expended more calories when they consumed meals that included
red pepper, even high-fat meals. Aside from fresh red chilli pepper, try red chilli pepper spice. In a study that controlled
total calorie intake as well as environmental factors that could inf luence caloric burning (i.e., additional training or
exercise), adults were placed in a sealed room, intended to accurately measure calories burned, for 36 hours. Each
participant received one of four different diets: Participants in Group One received an exact number of calories they
needed to maintain their weight. Those in Group Two were provided a weight-maintenance diet plus 1.03 grams of red
chilli pepper with each meal. Participants in Group Three were given 25 per cent fewer calories than what they needed
for weight maintenance. Finally, the people in Group Four were given 25 per cent fewer calories than they needed
for weight maintenance plus 1.03 grams of red chilli pepper, which contained 2.56 milligrams of capsaicin (active
component of chilli pepper) with every meal (for a total daily dose of 7.68 milligrams of capsaicin).
Here’s what the researchers found: Those who consumed 25 per cent fewer calories experienced a decrease in calories
burned after eating as well as total calories burned over the course of the 36 hours. That’s not surprising because we
know that the body will adjust to a limited caloric intake by decreasing the amount of calories you burn over time.
However, the group on the decreased-calorie diet plus red chilli pepper didn’t experience a drop in calories burned.
Those participants expended just as many calories as the non-dieting groups. Plus, the addition of red chilli pepper
to the reduced-calorie diet increased the use of fat as a source of energy. So red chilli pepper not only nullified the
metabolic drop-off that usually occurs when dieting but also helped the body burn more fat.3
120 | JULY/AUG 2015 | oxygenmag.com.au
Nutrition