What to do if your hands burn from cutting peppers

I believe that many people who cook frequently have had this experience: after cutting peppers, their entire hands feel hot and painful as if they were burned by fire. At this time, some people will rinse with cold water, but this cannot completely solve the problem at hand. So what should you do if your hands feel burning from cutting peppers? Today, let’s learn how to cut peppers without feeling the burning pain on your hands. Even if your hands are burning from cutting peppers, what should you do?

The substance that produces the spicy taste in chili peppers is a type of capsaicin, which is collectively called capsaicin. When cutting peppers, capsaicin sticks to the skin, causing the capillaries to dilate, resulting in redness and heat of the skin, and accelerating the local metabolic rate. At the same time, it will stimulate the pain nerves, which is why we usually feel burning hands. It is generally believed that this is caused by capsaicin causing chemical changes in the nerve endings of the skin.

Capsaicin is soluble in ethanol and alkaline aqueous solutions, but insoluble in cold water. In industry, capsaicin is extracted from chili peppers using edible alcohol as an extractant. Therefore, based on this principle, in life, you can apply alcohol to dissolve the capsaicin on your hands. After cutting peppers, you can wipe your hands in one direction with an alcohol cotton ball, then wash your hands with clean water, and then dry them. Do this three times until the symptoms are relieved.

In addition, you can also wash your hands with a small amount of vinegar. This is because vinegar is acidic and can neutralize capsaicin. If there is no medical alcohol or vinegar, washing your hands with hot water is also a good idea, because capsaicin will produce irritating evaporation under high temperature. Although it is not as effective as alcohol and vinegar, it is worse than cold water.

There is a method. When cutting peppers, you can press the peppers with the tips of your fingers instead of pinching them with your fingernails. This way, your hands will not be easily burned.

What should you do if your hands get burning when cutting peppers? In the above story, we taught you a method to cut peppers without getting your hands burning, but if you really accidentally get your hands burning after cutting peppers. So what should we do at this time? In fact, the best way is to wash your hands with vinegar, which we all have at home. After pouring vinegar on your hands, rub them vigorously. Then rinse it off and your hands won’t feel so hot and painful.