D-Spice inventors seek to make all diners feel welcome

An Edmonton-based couple who came up with a way to make spicy food less painful to eat without sacrificing the flavour will get a chance to further develop their innovation.

Sahil and Khushpreet Kapoor came up with D-Spice, a powder that aims to mitigate the burn factor and digestive consequences of spicy food without altering its flavour.

"Many people, like myself, enjoy spicy food, but are forced to avoid, modify, or stop eating it because the burn can be very overwhelming sometimes," Sahil said. "Even if the burn is not overwhelming, the aftermath can be worse."

The Kapoors have been accepted into the fall cohort of the Technology Readiness Level-Up Program from Labs4, a federally funded program to commercialize research. They will work with a food scientist at NAIT's Centre for Culinary Innovation, which has helped other entrepreneurs bring new products to market.

The product is rooted in Sahil's own experience. "I was at a social gathering, and I'm already vegetarian, so there was limited stuff for me," he told Taproot. "The food that I got was super spicy, but I was too embarrassed to say, 'This is spicy, I can't eat it.' I already had limited options; I was being picky, so I didn't want to sound extra picky. Then, I realized that I have been in these situations a lot."

He observed family members going through the same thing, which he described as a form of "meal exclusion." So he and his wife invented D-Spice, a substance that mitigates the burning sensation caused by a chemical reaction involving capsaicin. Diners add it to their food to cool the burn while enjoying the same flavour as those who have greater spice tolerance.

The Kapoors built one prototype of D-Spice in India, where the ingredients they wanted to use are plentiful, and they are taking steps to build a 2.0 version. Sahil would not say what the formula is — in part because it isn't finished — but shared that one component is calcium lactate, which he said helps reduce bowel irritation and diarrhea.

The final formula will determine whether D-Spice is considered a conventional packaged food or a natural health product under the law, though Sahil said it's most likely going to be the latter. This would exempt D-Spice from the jurisdiction of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, leaving the Kapoors to deal only with Health Canada.

The Kapoors make a good team, Sahil said. Khushpreet is the more scientific one, with a background in nursing, while Sahil has project management experience.

Potential customers for D-Spice include both consumers and restaurants. Consumers increasingly want customizability, the Kapoors wrote on their website, so D-Spice could give restaurants a competitive edge. Imagine ordering butter chicken to share, or even making your own spicy dish for a group. If your party is split on spice tolerance, D-Spice would allow everyone to get what they want without needing different preparations.

For now, they have a waitlist for D-Spice, and they are working on communicating what the product enables, which isn't just lessening the physical consequences of hot spice. Beyond their goal to make food more inclusive, Sahil said, they could also address challenges such as Canada's $58-billion food-waste problem, about half of which occurs at the consumer level.

"I have seen people in the workplace just throwing away the whole (dish)," he said. "It kind of hurts my heart that we are wasting so much."

While working for the Bissell Centre, Sahil said the organization's subsidiary, Bissell Harvest Catering, grappled with keeping spice under control without sacrificing the cultural integrity inherent to food.

Why not just add less spice to the recipe and provide spice boosters such as hot sauce? Food cooked to be mild can lose its defining character, he suggested.

"How can we keep the dishes authentic but still cater for everyone?" Sahil recalled asking himself. "Recipe compromise is a problem. If you dilute the recipe, it's not authentic anymore. Let's say you go to a restaurant and order butter chicken. If you find that it's spicy, you can ask the chef to dilute it, but then it's not authentic anymore. That causes more complaints for the restaurant because people don't understand the authentic dish is different than what they ordered."