Will spicy food really keep you warm in the cold?

As the persistent cold weather continues, many people are coming up with their favorite ways to stay warm. When asked about these “stay-warm remedies”, everyone would have some sort of a trick as an answer. What about the remedies that involve food? Aside from soups and hearty casseroles, are there any foods that actually keep the body warm? 

What to eat to stay warm during winter?

One common answer would be: Spicy food! Especially spices and peppers would pop into many cold minds. However spices like cayenne pepper, chili flakes, or even the hot peppers themselves do not actually have a mechanism that would keep your body warm. 

Capsaicin, a compound found in peppers, is the heat agent that makes spicy food actually spicy. The body might be tricked to feel warmer after consuming foods that contain capsaicin, but it is a rather fleeting sense of warmth. It is merely a reaction to capsaicin, and not a change in temperature. 

The best bet to stay warm through food is to have actual heat: Cozy soups and stews, hot drinks, soup, and warm whole grains. These hot dishes will actually warm your insides with their high temperatures. Combining these with immune boosters is also a clever way to stay strong in the cold weather of course.