How much heat do you enjoy? Start with a sauce you know

Establish what feels right to you

Choose a familiar sauce and an ordinary meal. Notice how much you add and how you feel after several bites. Is the burn enjoyable throughout the meal, or do you start avoiding the sauced pieces?

Write down a simple observation, such as “a few drops with scrambled eggs suits me best.” That is a more practical reference than “I like spicy food.”

Change one thing at a time

Compare a new sauce on a similar portion of the same food. Changing the bottle, amount and dish together makes the difference harder to explain. Begin with a small amount suited to the product’s intended use and give yourself time to assess it.

SHU can help when both figures describe finished sauces and were established on comparable terms. With a maker’s own heat scale, a familiar use may be a better guide. Someone else’s heat rating does not translate directly into your preferred serving size.

One bottle may suit several uses

A sauce that feels too strong on a sandwich might suit you in a small amount spread through a larger dish. There is no obligation, though, to find a use for a product that makes eating uncomfortable.

Consider whether you prefer a little of a stronger sauce or more of a milder one with a similar flavor. The second option lets you add more garlic, fruit or acidity along with the sauce. This is a cooking preference, and it does not require a program of increasing your tolerance.

When you have added too much

Stop eating the sauce and let the burn subside. Milk may help if you tolerate it: in a study of oral burning, both whole and skimmed milk provided greater relief than water. That finding concerns the sensation in the mouth, not protection against stomach symptoms.

Avoid a product that causes heartburn or recurring stomach pain, and seek advice about persistent symptoms. For your next purchase, you can keep the heat level familiar and change the flavor, perhaps from garlic to smoke. That can bring more variety to your meal than another increase in SHU.

Sources

1. Putting out the fire — Efficacy of common beverages in reducing oral burn from capsaicin — Nolden, Lenart i Hayes / Physiology & Behavior
2. Heartburn and acid reflux — NHS

Find your next sauce

Match flavor and heat to the dish you are making.