Chili For Side Dish and Health

Chili as spicy fruit is used widely as a flavor cuisine around the world. Asia Food like Indian, Malaysian, Indonesian, Singaporean, Philippines, and Sri Lanka Food use a lot of chili at their daily cuisine and also as ingredient of "sambal" (chili sauce). Sambal is eaten as a condiment or as a side dish. Many types of sambal will vary in taste and spiciness. It can be very hot for the uninitiated.

Below are some popular sambal types in Indonesia:
1. Sambal Bajak (Badjak): Chili (or another kind of red pepper) fried with oil, garlic, trassi, candlenut and other condiments
2. Sambal belacan (the Malay style sambal): Chili is pounded together with toasted Shrimp paste (belacan) in a stone mortar.
3. Sambal Terasi, similar to sambal belacan but it has stronger flavor. It is made from red chili,oil, garlic, trassi, candlenuts and other condiments.
4. Sambal Mangga: shredded young mango is added to freshly ground Sambal Trassi, usually eat together with roasted seafood.
5. Sambal Balado (Minangkabau style Sambal): Green chili sauteed with oil, shallot, garlic, green tomato, lime/lemon juice, and salt.
6. Sambal Kecap Manis: dominant taste is sweet (in Indonesian language: sweet=manis, kecap=soy sauce)
7. Sambal Udang: Chili fried with oil, garlic and shrimps.

Chili plant is belonging to the Solanaceae family plant. Most often used of Chili plant species are include Capsicum Annuum, Capsicum Frutescens, Capsicum Chinense, Capsicum Pubescens, and Capsicum Baccatum. Chillies contain a chemical compound called Capsaicin (8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide). Beside Capsaicin, chili also contain many compounds which are similar to the capsaicin compound, called Capsaicinoids.

When eaten chili, Capsaicinoids compound is bonded with pain receptor in the mouth and throat causing hot taste. Receptor then will send a signal to the brain say that something spicy has been eaten. The brain will respond this signal by increasing heartbeat, transpiration, and release the endorfin hormone.

Red Chilies contain vitamin C in large numbers, also contain Carotene (pro-vitamin A). In the yellow and green chilies, vitamin C & Carotene are not too high.

Chili also has benefits for the body health, which are:

a. the experiment in the laboratory with the mice has shown that capsaicin able to kill cancer cells
b. from the latest research, it indicates that capsaicin is able to lose weight of obesity people.
c. in the experimental mice's pancreas suffering from diabetes, capsaicin is used to kill nerve cells , this allows the cells that produce insulin start to produce more insulin.
d. The process of cardiovascular risk can be slow down by the foods that contain chili.
e. Chili is considered capable of controlling the pollution in the food microbes.
f. Some research shows that capsaicin has an anti Ulcer protection benefit in the stomach infected by H. pylori bacteria.