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how to handle hunan hand
One of the dangers of cooking spicy food (and we love our spicy food here “In the Kitchen”) is from hot peppers. More specifically, from the hot pepper’s spice burning your hands or eyes or other sensitive body parts. The chemical in chile peppers that causes the burning is called capsaicin and its medicinal benefits are legendary, but at the moment we’re most concerned with how to prevent it from creating circumstances in which you’ll need medicines to cure its effects on your body.
In its natural form, capsaicin is known to help digestion by increasing the digestive fluids in the stomach and to help fight bacteria that could cause infections. It may also prevent heart disease, lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and prevent clotting and hardening of arteries. It is an antioxidant and has even been engineered into some topical pain-relieving creams. They contain lots of vitamin C, vitamin A, and beta carotene, and in general the hotter they are, the more they have.
And those are just the medical benefits, not to mention how good they are in food. Still they’re dangerous. Now, if you want to be specific, almost all the capsaicin is contained in the seeds and the white membrane inside. Removing those from a hot pepper is a sure way to decrease the end result’s heat. It’s also good to watch out for them as the source of contaminating your hands.
Yes, I know all the experts tell us we should we rubber gloves when cutting up peppers, but honestly you can still forget to take them off when touching your nose or eyes and they’re inconvenient and expensive. I just don’t like them. Plus the dangers lies with hot sauces too. Just the other day I was putting some hot sauce on a pork chop, got a little on my finger, wiped it off with a napkin, and then got it in my eye a little later.
Thus we live with the danger and so we went out looking for solutions. There are several scenarios we wanted to investigate. First, there’s the general cleanup. You’ve just chopped some jalapenos and now you want to wash off your hands to prevent any accidents later. Most sources say that a vigorous washing in soap and warm water should do the trick.
Water alone is actually counter-productive since capsaicin is not water soluble, as in it doesn’t dissolve in water. Water would just spread the burning around. Thus you need something more. And if you get what’s called “Hunan hand,“ i.e. so much capsaicin on your hands that they get a painful burning sensation, stronger measures are called for. Emergency rooms actually use a diluted bleach solution (approximately 1 Tablespoon of bleach to a liter of water). Soak your hands in it briefly and the bleach will break down the capsaicin alkaloid. But only briefly and then wash your hands thoroughly. You don’t want bleach in your eyes any more than you want capsaicin, but at least bleach is water-soluble. If you want to avoid the bleach on your hands, you can coat your hands in vegetable oil. It won’t eliminate the heat, but it will reduce it.
Now if you get capsaicin in more “sensitive” areas where you’d rather not put bleach, like your eyes or, well, guys you know what I’m talking about, you can use contact lens solution. This is also said to break down the alkaloid, although some doubt the effectiveness of this method. Couldn’t hurt to try it!
Regardless of what method you use, be very careful. Seriously, I’m deathly afraid of burning poor Isabella’s tender skin and will be making sure my hands are clean after handling hot peppers in the future.
And don’t forget to clean under your fingernails.
Warning: These are collected home-spun remedies from various sources. We are not medical professionals. If you experience a food-related chemical burn, which is what we’re talking about here, consult a doctor or go to your emergency room.
COMMENTS
I wear the rubber gloves that I use when washing dishes. Yes they’re a bit thicker and clumsier than those latex kind you can wash but they serve to not only protect hands but to make me want to get them off as soon as possible (also reminding me not to touch eyes or face, etc.). As I often have a sink full of soapy water that I am dumping things into as I cook, I just stick in my gloved hands, scrub the gloves vigorously with the wash cloth, follow that with the cutting board and knife ... and hey, presto. All done.
Yes, it’s less than spontaneous but I haven’t had Hunan Hands (or eyes or mouth or nose) ever. So it’s a trade off I accept.
Posted by Julie on 08/21/06 at 10:22 AMCommenting is not available in this weblog entry.
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