system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is it that when eating spicey foods, drinking water briefly "cool down" the flavor, only to have it return as soon as you swallow the water?
gpt
The reason that the burning sensation returns is that the chemicals (one of which might be capsaicin) that make things spicy are not soluble in water. So water does not wash them away. Water is polar and can only easily dissolve and interact with other polar things. Imagine placing oil and water in the same container. The two liquids will not mix. Milk, on the other hand, is less polar and made of fatty (nonpolar/lipophilic) molecules. Milk would do a better job of washing the nonpolar, spicy chemicals away and will provide more relief than water.