Here's a video from TED–Ed about hot spices. It does not discuss cool or neutral heat spices such as cinnamon or nutmeg. The video explains how spices provide the flavor effect of heat. It tells why some of the hot spices make you tear up and others make your nose run. And you can find out why some make you sweat and some make your heart race. If you are wondering what the hottest peppers are, you can find out here.
Spices are high potassium foods. They have some of the highest ratios of any food group. Most of them have ratios from about 5 to almost 100. The main exceptions are capers, chili pepper, horseradish, prepared mustard, vanilla extract without alcohol, distilled vinegar, and of course salt.
Spices are generally used in small amounts so any one spice does not provide a lot of potassium. However if used several times a day in different dishes, they can still provide a few hundred milligrams of potassium in a day.
If you are using high potassium foods to try to reduce your chance of hypertension, osteoporosis or kidney stones, you should be trying to get a high potassium sodium ratio. In order to do this you should eliminate or cut back on your sodium intake as much as possible.
Since the main source of sodium in the diet is salt, you should avoid salt. Spices are a great way to make up for the missing salt flavor. They add tons of flavor. If you experiment around, you will be able to find combinations of spices that you like even better than salt.
Tables Of High Potassium Foods
Tables of high potassium foods can be found by clicking the List of Posts tab at the top of this page. Look for the food group your food of interest is in and click on that link. The link should have “table” in the title. The table with spices is here.
