The Science of Life's Why Pepper Makes You Sneeze?

Pepper grains

Instead of inhaling pepper, take a deep whiff of it and you can't help but sneeze.

Why does pepper make you sneeze?

Because the chemical piperine gets into your nose.

Pepper, whether white, black or green, contains an alkaloid called piperine. For the nasal passages, piperine is an irritant, and if it gets into your nose, it can irritate the nerve endings in the mucous membranes of your nose. This irritation causes you to sneeze.

In fact, the nose is trying to get this irritant out quickly, and the only quick way to do that is to sneeze.

Pepper tree

Did you know...

When you sneeze, air rushes out of your nose at over 160 kilometers per hour!

The human nose has about 5 million olfactory receptors.

Normally a person's nose secretes several hundred milliliters of mucus per day.

Few facts about pepper:

Pepper is known as the "king of spices" because it is one of the oldest and most popular spices in the world.

Pepper was introduced to China during the Tang Dynasty, but it was not cultivated until the middle of the last century.

Pepper was so valuable in ancient Rome and Greece that it was used as currency.

Legend has it that when the Goths defeated the Romans in 410 A.D., they demanded 3,000 pounds of pepper along with other valuables as ransom.

In the Middle Ages, pepper could be used like money to pay rent, taxes and even as a dowry.

In the nineteenth century, the town of Salem, Massachusetts, played a major role in the world pepper trade and created America's first millionaires.