Why does food go bad?

Let’s face it, all food spoils eventually (except for honey, so crazy!), but some foods have a longer shelf life than others. Everyone knows that the fresh punnet of strawberries from the local farmer’s market will spoil more quickly than those canned peaches in the backwaters of your pantry, which you will definitely use one day. The point is, different foods spoil at completely different rates, and a lot of this depends on storage conditions.

4 Reasons for Food Spoilage (and how to prevent them)

1. Oxidation - As soon as your food comes into contact with air, oxidation starts to occur. This means that the food immediately starts to break down and decay, affecting the taste color, and nutritional value of the food. So make sure to whip out that Tupperware, or better yet, glass jars, for some airtight storage solutions. When it comes to hot sauce, you will notice a change in color when oxidation occurs, stick it in the fridge to help with this!
 
2. Enzymes - Ever wonder why your bananas seem to brown overnight, while your carrots last in your fridge for ages? Well, this is something to do with their enzymatic structure which determines how food ripens and how it affects their flavor and coloring. That is why hot sauces that contain fruits tend to have shorter shelf lives than those that don’t. There is, unfortunately, no way to prevent the natural process of food ripening, but by learning the proper storage methods of various foods it definitely helps! Some tricks of the trade include keeping your food in good containers, storing cooked food above raw food, and eliminating moisture from your fruit and veggies.
 
3. Temperature - Changes in temperature can speed up the decaying process 10-fold! Your yummy treats stored in pantries should be kept between 50 and 70 F, while refrigerated goods should be kept between 34 and 40 F. Items kept in your freezer should remain below the freezing level until you are ready to cook with them. We don’t recommend freezing your hot sauce, but keeping it in the fridge will prevent temperature changes, and then it will last longer. When food reaches higher temperatures, they deteriorate exponentially quicker due to the growth of microorganisms (such as molds, yeast, and bacteria).
 
4. Physical Damage - Store a half-eaten avocado in the fridge and it will spoil much quicker than a whole one, and this same logic applies to almost all ingredients. If you break or damage the exterior layer or break the food’s surface, you introduce the risk of bacterial growth. So make sure you handle your ingredients carefully and that they are appropriately packaged to prevent breaking that physical barrier. When it comes to your favorite sauce, the physical barrier is the lid, so make sure you keep that cap tight on your bottle as soon as you are finished using it.

You’ve done everything right; stored your unopened hot sauce appropriately, checked the best by date, noted the ingredients, and given the bottle a good shake up but you’re still not sure how to tell if your hot sauce is bad?
 
This is where it’s about relying on your senses. Look for strange textures, black dots, or fuzzy mold. We wouldn’t blame you for wondering, how hot sauce can even get moldy, especially considering that so many are made with vinegar? Well, while the vinegar slows decomposition significantly, it doesn’t prevent it entirely. If you can’t spot anything suspicious visually then give it a whiff. Does it smell like hot sauce or is it slightly sour? Finally, a taste might be your only option. Ingesting a little bit of spoiled hot sauce doesn’t have severe health risks and you’ll know if it’s bad immediately as humans developed to dislike rotten food as a protection mechanism.

When making your own hot sauce, you can’t just revert to the label for longevity guidelines and so some precautions need to be put in place to extend its shelf-life.
 
Firstly, sterilization is key. This includes all of the utensils you use to make the sauce and especially the jar you plan to bottle it in. Ingredients matter, remember the more fruits you include the faster it will spoil. If possible, avoid using oils as this is more likely to cause food-borne botulism. Botulism is a disease that can occur when home-canned goods aren’t canned correctly and oil stored in a low-acid and low-oxygen environment (i.e.— a jar) favors the growth of this bacteria. Not to worry though, this is only really an issue for homemade and home-bottled sauces. Store-bought hot sauces containing oils have gone through rigorous processes to prevent this risk. Finally, make sure you cook your sauce for at least 20 minutes and then store it with an airtight lid. All this should result in a six-month shelf-life (a cool and shady shelf) and a good rule of thumb is recipes that 20% vinegar will have a ph level safe for preserving. All of this being said, just to be on the safe side, we suggest keeping your homemade sauce in the fridge.

SEE ALSO: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO HOMEMADE HOT SAUCE

Quick! Your hot sauce is on the brink of expiration and you don’t want to waste this spicy goodness! Well here are some ideas on how to use it in your everyday cooking!

• Add a vinegar-based hot sauce to brownies, yes we know that this sounds bizarre but chili and chocolate is actually a classic combination and the vinegar will react with the baking soda, giving your brownie a little lift and a much-needed kick!
• Take your favorite hot sauce and add it to meat marinades, if there is vinegar in the sauce this will work to help tenderize your meat!
• Mix it into dips, or add to your next pot of bean chili for an extra kick.
• Add your hot sauce to some butter and toss it through your next batch of popcorn.
• Every time you have guests over, stick it on the table as a condiment on its own, we promise your spicy-loving friends will help you finish off your sauce.

Well maybe hold off on throwing it away just yet. If your vinegar-based hot sauce has reached its expiration date (and is showing no visible signs of mold but you just can’t bring yourself to taste it), then it can be used as a useful tool to remove rust. Hot sauce is a great alternative to using pricey heavy chemicals and especially penetrating oils. The trick is to use a hot sauce that’s vinegar-forward because the acidity is what eats through the rust. So go and grab some steel wool, your expired bottle of hot sauce and scrub away rust on tools, crockery, or even your grill. Making sure you give them a good rinse afterward. Easy as pie… or actually, easy as hot sauce.

Well, that depends on your favorite hot sauce! But it is reliant on so many factors, such as the bottling process, the quality of ingredients, and the actual ingredients used, that we can’t say for sure. It is recommended that you check the expiration date, have a sniff, have a little taste and if everything seems fine, then you know what, it probably is!

So at the end of the day, only you will know if your hot sauce is inedible or not, but to help prolong your beloved bottle’s life, make sure you keep it in the fridge (or unopened in a cool space), clean the cap, don’t dip directly into the bottle, check the ingredients, and, for the love of all things spicy, don’t lick it!

What does it mean if you love hot sauce?

There are several theories on why humans love hot sauce, one of which is that it comes down to your personality. That being said, personality is

complex and while some traits are innate, others are conditioned. Evidence suggests that liking hot sauce falls somewhere between these

two ideas. However, unlike with personality, there is no Myers-Briggs test to determine your spicy personality traits and research is mostly anecdotal.

According to Dr. Paul Rozin, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, people eat spicy food as a thrill-seeking activity. He calls this type of thrill-seeking “constrained risk” or “benign masochism”. Similar to enjoying roller-coasters, scary movies, or even listening to sad music, benign masochism allows people the excitement of a ‘negative’ or ‘dangerous’ experience with the comfort of knowing that everything will be fine.

Now, anyone who has tried our African Ghost Pepper sauce may not appreciate comparing the experience to “listening to a sad song,” but the truth is eating chilli is relatively harmless.

Despite this, “can chilli kill you?” and “can I eat hot sauce every day?” are some of the most googled chilli related questions on the internet.

According to Paul Bosland, professor of horticulture at New Mexico State University and Director of the Chile Pepper Institute, death by chilli pepper is possible in theory but is extraordinarily unlikely in people with well-functioning digestive systems. He states that “people’s bodies would falter long before they reach that point” and it would take a 150-pound person consuming 3 pounds of extreme chilli, in one sitting, for the possibility to occur. In fact, evidence suggests that eating hot sauce has health benefits like boosting your immune system and metabolism and promoting weight loss.

In addition, scientists have also speculated that liking hot sauce may have something to do with the nature part of your personality—your genes. Unlike with cilantro, there is no spice-loving or spice-hating gene but tolerance to spice can be inherited. Dave Dewitt, a chilli historian, says to think of it as an allergy. Just as some people find pollen an irritant, some people are more susceptible to capsaicin as an irritant. This explains why some of your friends seem to chug the hot sauce bottle while others only need a tiny drop to get their fix.

Gender also plays an interesting role in our love for hot sauce. Although gender does not make you more or less likely to call yourself a chilli-head, it does dictate why you might. According to a study in Food Quality and Preference, women tend to like spicy food for intrinsic purposes like the stinging sensation and flavor. Men, on the other hand, are more drawn to spicy food for extrinsic factors like machismo and bravado. This plays into the idea that strong men can handle spice. That being said, despite the science, when it comes to hot sauce, nurture beats nature every time. Exposure, be it cultural or social, is still the greatest determinant of whether someone indulges their spicy personality.

Basically, your love of hot sauce could come down to your natural thrill-seeking proclivities, your sensitivity to reward, your genetics, or your culture and none of it really matters. All that matters is that you’re on the hot sauce train and you’re not getting off anytime soon.

The Origin Story

Who invented hot sauce, you ask? Unsurprisingly, the history of hot sauce traces back to the only place where chilies naturally occur—Central America. More specifically— the Aztecs. Chilli is believed to be one of the earliest plants cultivated by humans and archaeologists have found evidence of its use by the Aztecs as far back as 7000 BC. The first hot sauce in the world, most likely, consisted of ground-up chilies mixed with water and herbs. The Aztecs used it to enhance the flavor of their food, for medicinal purposes, to pay taxes, give tributes, and even as a weapon or punishment. So, if you’ve wondered whether hot sauce ever killed anyone, the answer may be yes.

After it arrived in Europe, one of the first countries to customize chili peppers was Hungary. At the time Hungary was controlled by the Turks who were introduced to peppers from Arab and Indian traders. Hungarians loved the flavor but not the heat and so they removed the seeds, dried out the pepper and ground it into a fine powder called paprika—the key ingredient in our Safari Smoke Seasoning. To this day, Hungary is the only country in the world with the specific micro-climate needed to grow paprika peppers of the highest quality.

That being said, the Hungarians weren’t the only country to embrace and regionalize spice, and today every culture in the world has its own type of hot sauce and style of hot sauce. For instance, Peri-Peri made from the African Bird's Eye Chilli originates from Mozambique. The sauce is popular in

Southern African cuisine and we also use it in our Bird’s Eye Chilli Sauce.

Hot sauce is so regionally particular that there are even spicy spelling discrepancies within the English language. Chili, Chilli, or Chile are all acceptable forms of the word depending on where you are. “Chili”, the American spelling, derives from the dish “Carne con chili” (meat with chili) now commonly referred to as “chili con carne” or just— “chili”.

Hot sauce was first commercialized in 1807. According to newspaper ads of the time, a sauce called “cayenne sauce” was bottled and sold in Massachusetts, suggesting it might just be the oldest hot sauce in America. In the mid-1800’s a New York City company called J McCollik and Company produced a bird pepper sauce, probably not unlike what we know as bird’s eye chilli today. But the real pioneer of the hot sauce industry was Edmund McILhenny, inventor of Tabasco sauce. McILhenny grew his Tabasco peppers in Louisiana and sold his sauce at $1 a bottle. The sauce became a cultural phenomenon gaining its popularity in restaurants and hotels as a staple condiment. If you’re a fan of Tabasco, you’ll love our Jalanasco Fermented Jalapeno Sauce. It’s got that familiar vinegar tang but flavor-wise we’re in a league of our own.

In addition to the Tabasco craze, it was around this time that hot sauce became prevalent in home cooking. Hot sauce recipes first emerged in cookbooks around 1872. A recipe book called Mrs Hill's Cookbook, published by Annabella Hill contained a spicy BBQ sauce recipe that included red pepper and cayenne and a curry recipe that included homemade curry powder. Moreover, leading up to the 1900s, several hot sauce companies had emerged. These companies included Bergman’s Diablo Pepper Sauce who popularized the 5-inch-tall bottles with narrow necks that are still used today.

Hot sauce’s prolific history begs a few questions: is hot sauce bad for you? Is Hot Sauce good for your health? And why do we love it as much as we do?

Thankfully, chilli is great for your health. Despite capsaicin (the active component in chilli) technically being a deterrent, humans love it and it loves us right back. Hot sauce is considered an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant. It is known to improve your metabolism and has been used in cold, sinus, and flu remedies for hundreds of years.

Good to know that thousands of years of consumption comes with benefits beyond flavor enhancement.
Loving hot sauce is entrenched in cultural norms, and centuries of complicated history but turns out it may also be about personality type. Research has shown that people with higher risk-seeking tendencies are more likely to enjoy spicy food. So, if you love roller-coasters or surfing you’re more likely to douse your fries in hot sauce than ketchup.

Today, hot sauce is found on every part of the globe and the average grocery store may have multiple aisles dedicated to the condiment. It’s been estimated that Americans buy over 50 million bottles of hot sauce a year and the global hot sauce market was worth USD 2.54 billion in 2020. It’s expected to reach USD 4.8 billion by 2028. Quite the success story for the humble (or feisty) chilli pepper that began native to only one region and African Dream Foods is proud to be a part of its story.

1. Potjiekos

It would be a total crime against food to discuss to-die-for South African cuisine without spotlighting potjiekos, a stew-like dish cooked traditionally over an open fire.

Translated literally to “small-pot food,” potjiekos (known locally as “potjie”) has all the markings of a stew with one essential twist: unlike stew, potjie is rarely stirred. Stirring mixes a stew’s ingredients, creating a more muddled flavor profile. Potjie’s cooking method, on the other hand, brings out each ingredient’s individual flavor with a distinctive depth. The result? A rich, warming dish with an unbelievable range of vibrant flavor.

While potjie recipes vary greatly from one chef to the next, traditional iterations often include oxtail, a medley of fresh vegetables and potato. If you have the chance, it’s best to enjoy this one in its customary context: with a few good friends and a long fireside chat.

If you’ve ever thought you had to choose between savory and sweet, bobotie is a dish that’s dying to prove you wrong. This one’s best described as a

curried mince. When it comes to the flavor profile, imagine a fragrant and hearty mix of ground beef, onion, turmeric and herbs topped with a delectable golden custard.

If you’re playing by the book, you’ll want to sample a bobotie with dried fruits (such as raisins or sultanas). If that’s not your jam, though, adding a little chutney (or ADF Sweet Dream Sauce) makes the perfect substitute.

Get the recipe here!

Neville Ngomane contacted me in 2018 asking me to bring my Wild Shots Outreach program to his secondary school just outside Sigagule village in Mpumalanga, South Africa. At the time Neville was only 17 years old and I was intrigued to meet this proactive young man who clearly had a passion for wildlife.

Upon my arrival, Neville has already organized the classroom and recruited a group of students who were interested in wildlife conservation and photography. During our photography workshop, Neville proved to be as motivated in person and immediately I saw something special in his willingness to learn and his test photographs.

After the photography workshop, I took him and his class on their first game drive, and amongst all of the excitement, he managed to capture some amazing images. Coming across wild dogs, rhinos, and cheetahs, this sparked an hour-long conversation about rhino conservation and his thoughts on the matter. Overall the experience was so inspiring, to see such a young man, who had experienced unimaginable hardship, be so passionate about a cause and about spreading conservation awareness. I knew this was just the beginning of his journey to success.

The next year, Neville and I kept in touch, unemployed and not sure where his life was heading, Neville never gave up and still had big dreams of making his mark on the world and spreading messages of conservation. Through the Wild Shots Outreach program, we managed to rally together and give Neville a second-hand camera and laptop. We could see from a mile off, the promise that this young man had. All he needed were some tools that many of us take for granted.

Taking him under my wing, I started taking Neville with me on photo assignments. I have never met anybody so willing to learn and absorb all the information thrown his way. One such engagement was covering a rhino dehorning operation for Rhino Revolution, an organization that dehorns rhinos in a desperate attempt to stop poachers from killing them, and I noticed Neville working hard to get low angles right in front of the rhino. Being that close to such a powerful creature is enough to invoke fear in anyone, but Neville was up to the task. Showing me, once again, that this man approached life with a fearlessness that would take him far.

When I returned to my office I went through his images and one shot really stood out. We named the image “Desperate Measures”. We decided to enter the image in some competitions and Neville went on to win a worldwide competition and the title of “Young Environmental Photographer of the Year”. We were ecstatic, but this was just the beginning.

From there Neville’s career exploded, winning this accolade led the image to gain global recognition. Neville made his debut on both national and international TV, sharing his message on conservation awareness and the power of photography.

We took Neville and his group from rural Mpumalanga to Cape Town for the Wild Shots Wildlife Photography Conference. Here the students’ photos were seen by top wildlife photographers including the keynote speaker, world-renowned photographer, and best-selling author Michael Poliza.

At African Dream Foods it is our privilege to support organizations such as Wild Shots. We hope that reading about Neville's journey to success made you feel as warm and fuzzy as it makes us feel! Purchasing a bottle of our hot sauce, spices and seasonings is so much more than simply enjoying the craft sauce we create it's supporting funds like Wild Shots and others who protect and conserve wildlife in Africa. We donate with every bottle purchased! To view our full range and get yours today, simply click here.

At the end of the day, our love for hot sauce’s fiery flavor is something of a biological anomaly. Think about it: no other species in the animal kingdom would knowingly and habitually submit themselves to searing oral pain.

If aliens, for example, were to land on Earth during Hatch Valley’s annual chile-eating contest or Italy’s yearly chili-eating marathon, they might sincerely question what drives large groups of primates to torture themselves with a weird little fruit that simulates a first-degree burn.

So why are we so obsessed with setting fire to our tongues? The answer, surprisingly, boils down to a secret ingredient and some really solid psychology.

Capsaicin: Hot Sauce’s Secret Ingredient

Scientists can’t pinpoint when humans developed a love for heat-packed delicacies—but they have nailed down the reasons why humans love hot sauce. When it comes to hot sauce’s satisfying kick, we have a unique chemical compound called “capsaicin” to thank. This hot little number can be found in chilis, cayenne, jalapenos, and any other pepper made famous for its fiery flavor.

According to leading research, plants most likely evolved to use capsaicin as a defense mechanism to keep predators from ingesting their seeds. But in an ironic twist of evolutionary fate, humans developed a taste for them. The rest—as they say—is history.

Psychologically speaking, hot sauce offers your body all of the feel-good benefits of an adrenaline rush without any of the hassle or hazard. No wonder humans love hot sauce so much! For those of us who can’t bungee jump on our lunch break, the tongue-tingling condiment is a harmless (and delicious) way to cheat the body’s chemical reward system and score a little extra of the “good stuff” with any meal.

Interestingly, hot-sauce-induced adrenaline hits can become pretty addictive. Of course, like any drug, habitual ingestion of spicy foods will eventually build tolerance. That’s why, as your system acclimates, you just might find your taste buds begging for even more.

Don’t worry, though: unlike most other addictions, the health implications of a hot sauce habit are overwhelmingly positive. Reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, improved digestion, and an increased metabolism are just a few of its many perks.

To peruse African Dream Foods full range of mild to hot-hot-hot sauces, spices and seasonings; simply click here. Go on - you’re just a few clicks away from the most satisfying, safe, feel good rush there is!

African Ghost Peppers (~1,00,000 SHU)

Of course, the idea that spicy foods stimulate sexual desire is anything new. Even the ancient Indian Kama Sutra, one of the world’s most widely read guides on eroticism, makes mention of it, suggesting that men apply a powdered pepper concoction to their nether regions as a tactic for seduction.

To be frank, dousing your genitals in chili powder is 100% a terrible idea that will likely end with an embarrassing sexual encounter and a trip to the emergency room. But that doesn’t mean spicy foods have no sexual enhancement properties. In fact, many believe hot sauce to be one of the most effective aphrodisiacs.

What’s an Aphrodisiac?

An aphrodisiac is a substance (most often a food or beverage) that triggers feelings of lust and attraction and/or boost sexual performance. Named for Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, aphrodisiacs are said to deliver a unique cocktail of chemicals and hormones that make their consumers feel a little more “in the mood.”

Over time, foods like chocolate, oysters, lobster, asparagus, and pomegranates have gained reputations as libido-boosting superfoods. Alcohol also makes the list—suggesting there might be something scientific behind the comical concept of “beer goggles.”

Hot peppers (such as the chilies used to create most hot sauces) are also commonly considered one of the most powerful aphrodisiacs. But when it comes to these so-called “sexy foods,” do they really work, or is it a bunch of pseudo-science?

Is hot sauce a powerful aphrodisiac? The short answer is likely yes. Most spicy foods undeniably contain chemical properties that will wake up your senses and raise your body temperature. That said, no food can truly be hailed as an all-powerful love potion.

While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officially maintains that support for aphrodisiacs in general is 100% unscientific, the anecdotal evidence is certainly nothing to bat an eye at, either.

At the end of the day, how capsaicin affects your mood is largely determined by your body chemistry and individual taste. After all, arousal is more psychological than physical. So if you love the way hot sauce tastes, there’s a fairly good chance it will spice things up for you in the sack, too. In other words, next Valentine’s Day you just might want to ditch the box of chocolates and grab your sweetheart an assortment of African Dream Foods hot sauces instead.

To see our full range of temperature-increasing, heart-rate-quickening, flush-inducing hot sauces, seasonings and spices, simply click here.