Why Mint Makes Your Mouth Feel Cool

Mint, similar to chili peppers, is a biochemical success story. Their wonders lie in the special molecules that they produce — capsaicin in chili peppers, and menthol in mint. Scientists hypothesize that the plants’ ancestors began to produce chemicals to repel predators.

"Plants probably evolved compounds to use as a defense mechanism, and through natural selection, they found some that happened to work," Paul Wise, an associate member at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, told Live Science.

"The plants that produced the compounds were less likely to be eaten," he said. Those that survived long enough to reproduce were able to spread their seeds and pass their genes to subsequent generations.

That's why mint makes menthol. But why does it make your mouth feel cool?

The answer, in short, is that menthol tricks our bodies into feeling cold, even though we're not. Both menthol and capsaicin affect the system of sensory receptors that monitor things such as touch, temperature and pain. Called the somatosensory system, this complex network of neurons is different from the systems responsible for taste and smell.

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