What makes food spicy?

Jamie wants to know, "What makes food spicy?" and Jacob asks, "Where does spice come from, how is it made and why does milk help?" Let's follow the flavours that tickle our tastebuds with sensory scientist Professor Heather Smyth. Nij and the kids will learn all about how taste works and why spiciness packs such a punch! For more great kids podcasts, download the free ABC listen app (Australia). There you’ll find more kids news podcasts, educational children’s stories and storytelling, podcasts from your favourite characters like Bluey and Hey Duggee and plenty more of the best kids podcasts like Imagine This, Dino Dome and News Time. For all ages from 0–4-year-olds, 5–8-year-olds, 8–10-year-olds, tweens and teens. And you can watch our kids shows on ABC iview and on the ABC Kids and ABC Big Kids channels of YouTube kids.

You can listen to What makes food spicy? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

What makes food spicy? is an episode from ABC Imagine This: Big ideas for little ones by Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

This episode is 0:14:22 long.

This episode was published on May 5, 2026.

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