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There is little evidence that spicy food in hot countries is an adaptation to reducing infection risk

Nature Human Behaviour volume 5, pages 878–891 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Spicier food in hot countries has been explained in terms of natural selection on human cultures, with spices with antimicrobial effects considered to be an adaptation to increased risk of foodborne infection. However, correlations between culture and environment are difficult to interpret, because many cultural traits are inherited together from shared ancestors, neighbouring cultures are exposed to similar conditions, and many cultural and environmental variables show strong covariation. Here, using a global dataset of 33,750 recipes from 70 cuisines containing 93 different spices, we demonstrate that variation in spice use is not explained by temperature and that spice use cannot be accounted for by diversity of cultures, plants, crops or naturally occurring spices. Patterns of spice use are not consistent with an infection-mitigation mechanism, but are part of a broader association between spice, health, and poverty. This study highlights the challenges inherent in interpreting patterns of human cultural variation in terms of evolutionary pressures.

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Fig. 1: Spice and temperature.
Fig. 2: Horrendogram of proposed links between spice use and infection risk.
Fig. 3: Spice and GDP.
Fig. 4: Spice and traffic accidents.
Fig. 5: Geographic sampling bias.

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Data availability

This study uses only previously published data and all published sources are given in the Methods and Supplementary Information (Table 1). All variables analysed are provided in Supplementary Tables 4 and 5.

Code availability

All code used is available by request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Y. Ohtsubo, Y. Zhu, H. Kreft and W. Jetz for providing data, and M. Cardillo for assistance and advice throughout the project. The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Macroevolution and Macroecology, Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Lindell Bromham, Alexander Skeels, Hilde Schneemann, Russell Dinnage & Xia Hua

  2. Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Hilde Schneemann

  3. Mathematical Sciences Institute, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Xia Hua

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Contributions

A.S., H.S., L.B. and R.D. collected data, X.H. and A.S. analysed the data and L.B. wrote the paper. All authors designed the analysis, interpreted results and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Lindell Bromham.

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Additional information

Peer review information Nature Human Behaviour thanks Ranier Gutierrez, Caitlyn Placek and Roland Sookias for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Charlotte Payne.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Results, Supplementary Tables 1 and 2 and Supplementary Fig. 1.

Reporting Summary

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Supplementary Data 1

Details of all statistical tests conducted on all datasets.

Supplementary Data 2

Data analysed for this study (combined dataset).

Supplementary Data 3

Data analysed for this study (country-level dataset).

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Bromham, L., Skeels, A., Schneemann, H. et al. There is little evidence that spicy food in hot countries is an adaptation to reducing infection risk. Nat Hum Behav 5, 878–891 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-01039-8

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