There’s a fire going on at most quick-serve and fast-casual restaurants around the world and Malaysia is no exception to this inferno of spicy food. According to some in the quick-serve restaurant industry, more and more people are leaving the comfort of traditional fare and are choosing to eat spicier foods like Asian and Mexican cuisine.

In fact, if we take this story across the ocean to the U.S.A., we’d find that most Americans (54%) have a preference to foods that are either “hot” or “spicy.” This number is up slightly from just a couple of years earlier.

 This spicy preference includes:

- Main dishes

- Sauces

- Condiments

- Dips

Spicy Food = Live Longer? It Just Might Be True.

More recently (and a little closer to home) a Chinese report claims that there’s a connection between people who eat spicy cuisine and how long they live. Researchers studied and surveyed about 500,000 Chinese people between 2004 and 2008. They gathered insight about their diet – including food choices.

Seven years later, a follow-up was done, and researchers found something very interesting:

Those who consumed spicy foods once per week were 10% less likely to have died during those seven years. Furthermore, those who ate spicy foods between three and seven times per week were 14% less likely to have died.

Studies Show…Spice Gives Your Super Powers (Ok, Not Really)

Lu Qi, associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health was quoted as saying “We know something about the beneficial effects of spicy foods basically from animal studies and very small-sized human studies.” Past studies have told us that the active ingredient in spicy foods, known as capsaicin, is linked to positive outcomes like:

- Lowered risk of cancer

- Lowered risk of heart disease

- Lowered risk of respiratory disease

- Improved metabolism

- Improved gut bacteria

- Improved weight management

From what we have here, it looks like upping your spice intake a few times per week can have benefits to your overall health. Researchers note that it’s a moderate increase that will have the best benefit. Eating 10lbs of spicy, fried chicken wings isn’t the way to go here. Some extra chili powder or a few dashes of hot sauce on your favorite dishes will do the trick.

You’re Probably Already Eating Spices

Most restaurants add spices to most of their menu items – just enough to enhance the flavor – and not so much that it makes you drink a gallon of water afterward. So if you really wanted to, you could (we suppose) say that dining out makes you live longer, right? Maybe? Regardless, we do know that spices do make life better. We don’t need a study for that, right?

Got a favorite dish that you like to add the spice to? Let us know in the comments.