Which muscle of the body, proportional to size, is the strongest? Yes, it’s the tongue!
Along with licking stamps and forming words, this important body part allows you to taste…but sometimes that’s a dangerous endeavor. A burnt tongue really hurts! Here are a few remedies for both spicy-hot and temperature-hot burns…
Fix a spicy-food sting: If you’ve just eaten spicy-hot food and you feel as though your tongue is on fire, swish whole or 2% milk, sour cream or yogurt around in your mouth. (Indian restaurants, which tend to serve very spicy food, always have yogurt on hand to remedy the heat.)
Chocolate cure: If you eat something made with chili peppers or cayenne pepper and you burn your tongue, quickly eat a piece of chocolate. Casein, a protein in chocolate, seems to attach to and remove the capsaicin—the hot-hot-hot chemical compound found in chili peppers—from the tongue’s nerve receptors. In any case, it’s a good excuse to eat a piece of chocolate!
Hot-temperature burn help: After rinsing your mouth with cool water, drip a few drops of pure vanilla extract on the tongue burn. A little sprinkling of white sugar will also abate the pain (this comes in handy at a coffee shop or restaurant). Let the sugar sit until you feel relief, then rinse your mouth again with cool water.
Soothe a burning throat: If that searing-hot liquid got as far as your throat, two teaspoons of olive oil will soothe and coat the burn. A tablespoon of honey may also help.
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