The Long History of Moral Panic and Salsa

You see, I’ve spent years helping my Mexican-American clients see that they do have tons of fresh veggies in their favorite Mexican foods, and salsa is one of my favorite examples of this.

Sharing with my clients that salsa is a viable vegetable source is often an “aha” moment for them. It makes them say “oh I actually can do this.”

So when I started sharing on social media about how salsa is a vegetable, I was surprised at the backlash.

Didn’t I know that tomatoes are actually a fruit? Didn’t I know this was a slippery slope to calling pizza a vegetable (which is a policy discussion that is misrepresented)? Wasn’t I letting people off too easy? Being too soft and not pushing them to make big enough changes?

I was told I lacked common sense, called a pendeja, and mansplained to. I found this reaction really bewildering at first, aside from the fact that, well … it’s social media.

But as I’ve learned more about the history of Latin American food, and especially about Europe and the United States’s reaction to it, I’ve started to feel like it’s just history repeating itself.

Turns out there’s a long history of moralizing against salsa (and tomatoes). It used to sound like fear spicy food would loosen morals … and today it’s wrapped up in low-carb propaganda.

So let’s take a look at this long history of the case against salsa, and why you should tune it out.

This article is featured in the salsa issue of our zine! Read the whole issue here.

hand dipping a chip into salsa. Text reads "the long history of moral panic and salsa"

Origins of Salsa

Salsa is one of the most ancient Mexican foods.

Typically made with native Mexican vegetables like tomato and chile pepper, Mexican people have been serving salsa as a core staple alongside beans and corn for centuries (probably millenia).

Early accounts of the Mexican diet in the 15th century mention a typical meal structure of a corn base (typically tortillas or tamales), beans, and a chile sauce for dipping or seasoning.

In fact, chile was such an integral part of the Mexican diet, that avoiding chile was a form of religious penance in Aztec culture, according to historian Sophie Coe in her book America’s First Cuisines.

How Europe Reacted to Salsa

They believed food influences character, and that people should strive to have more European character.

At the time Europeans arrived in the Americas, the prevailing theory of health among Europeans was humoralism.

There are entire books about humoralism. But the element of humoralism that’s most important for our conversation today is the idea that someone’s environment and diet not only affected their health, but also their character.

In other words, “you are what you eat.” The colonizers took this concept and applied all their prejudices against Indigenous people to it.

Meaning, if you ate like a Spaniard you would be more like a Spaniard which was “good” in their eyes, and if you ate Indigenous food you would be more like an Indigenous person, which they saw as shameful.

Humoralism and Indigenous Food

Historical documents from the time show lots of agonizing on the part of the Spaniards over food. They asked questions like are tortillas an acceptable substitute for bread for communion (opinions were divided)?

They pushed wheat and pork heavily, arguing these foods contributed to the favorable Spanish temperament, and discouraged common Indigenous foods.

During a sermon, Bernardino de Sahagún lectured a mostly Indigenous congregation: “You will not eat what the Castilian [Spanish] people do not eat, for they know well what is edible.You will become like them if you eat their food and are careful with your bodies as they are.”

This illustrates the thinking perfectly. Food influences character, and people should strive to have more European character. It’s not remotely subtle, they were saying this very explicitly.

Hesitation around tomatoes

So how did this mindset affect specific foods? Let’s start with tomato and chile — two core ingredients in salsa, and two ingredients the Spanish were deeply suspicious of.

While tomatoes are widely used in Italian and Spanish cuisine now, they were not immediately accepted in Europe. There may have been fear that tomatoes were poisonous, given their resemblance to poisonous nightshade.

According to historian Rebecca Earle in her book Body of the Conquistador, while the Spaniards were not able to avoid Indigenous foods completely, they were wary of any conquistadors who were “drifting about amongst the Indians, eating chilli and tomatoes.”

These themes continued throughout history, with a popular health writer of the late 19th century warning excessive tomato intake could lead to tooth loss, according to Coe.

Spicy foods and morality

Europeans took to chile much more quickly than tomatoes, mostly because they were a cheaper alternative to the highly in demand black pepper. Yet there was still a tone of caution and classism when it came to chiles.

Ironically, this reticence may have stemmed from how quickly chile was embraced. Once spice was easily accessible, it was no longer a status symbol in Europe. According to Coe, this is one factor leading to the decline of popularity of spicy foods in Europe.

Protomédico (chief royal physician) Hernandez blamed a 1576 epidemic in Mexico city on the excess consumption of corn and chiles, asserting they “generated profuse bile and blood” (Earle).

One professor in the 19th century went so far as to say the moral danger of eating chiles was evident, just by observing the habits of the average Mexican (Coe).

This is yet another example of the link between racism against native Mexican people and moral fears around Mexican food.

Salsa and Morality Today

While we may not literally hear people equate eating salsa to being of bad character today, if you look under the surface you will still see some moralizing around salsa, and not in a positive way.

It may present itself as another diet fad–like fears around lectins in tomatoes–or jokes about how spicy food will mess with your stomach. And with the rise of the Make America Healthy Again movement, the obsession with wellness and morality is only rising.

When I try to point out that people can in fact use salsa as an easy way to eat more vegetables, there are two main arguments people use to try to prove me wrong.

Salsa isn’t “enough”

First, they’ll argue that salsa “isn’t enough,” and imply that it’s “lazy” to count salsa as a vegetable. They will argue that the serving sizes are too small (not if you eat salsa like I do 😋).

Or they’ll say sure, maybe tomatoes and chile are healthy but they can’t possibly be as healthy as leafy greens, which is what people should really be eating, right?

They will jokingly say that I might as well count ketchup as a vegetable, using the same logic. (Salsa is more vegetables than ketchup, just FYI).

What strikes me the most about these arguments is the scoffing, the idea that eating a vegetable can be as easy and simple as eating salsa is diminishing its value as a vegetable.

Why does it feel like the implication here is that a healthy habit only “counts” if it’s really difficult to do? Why do we insist that people should always be doing more, and if they want to connect an existing habit to a healthy goal, then that’s taking the easy way out?

Aren’t tomatoes a fruit?

The second most common argument people will make is that tomatoes are, in fact, a fruit.

This may seem like an innocuous fun fact, but keep in mind we are culturally in a low-carb frenzy, and many people think fruits have too much sugar in them (this is false).

The confusion here is that when you’re thinking botanically, yes, tomatoes are a fruit. Just like bell peppers, eggplant, and zucchini. But from a culinary and nutrition standpoint, tomatoes have way more in common with carrots than they do with papaya.

As a dietitian, I don’t think we need to spend as much time distinguishing between fruits and vegetables as people think we do. I just want people to eat more produce.

In some cases where we are very closely monitoring someone’s blood sugar, we may draw some lines between fruits and “vegetables,” but even in this case, tomatoes would fall on the side of vegetables due to their low carbohydrate content.

So when someone fixates on the fact that tomatoes are technically a fruit, it reveals a deeper anxiety. Of course, the fear of carbs is there, but so is the idea that they have to earn health through discipline and great effort.

Why we need to reframe

But how exactly does this mischaracterization of Mexican food–and salsa in particular–harm our health?

It goes deeper than just causing people to miss out on all the wonderful antioxidants in tomatoes and chiles. Join me while I put on my public health theory hat.

They make people feel like eating vegetables has to be a struggle

Making change feel possible

An important concept in public health is self-efficacy: which the American Psychological Association describes as an “individual’s belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments.”

In the nutrition world, having high self-efficacy means someone believes they are capable of making positive nutrition changes.

In a 2025 study evaluating the connection between self-efficacy and diabetes management, adults demonstrating self-efficacy were more likely to eat a diabetes-friendly diet and had lower a1c (a measure of average blood sugar over three months).

While there isn’t one proven way to increase self-efficacy, time and time again I find it helpful to encourage people to see that their health goals are realistic and something they already know how to do.

My goal is to help my clients say “Oh I think I can actually do this!” In my experience, these ‘aha’ moments happen when I incorporate foods they’re already familiar with.

Arguments that salsa is not a good enough vegetable source do the exact opposite. They make people feel like eating vegetables has to be a struggle. Which, in turn, can make it harder for people to make positive nutrition changes.

Increasing variety

Insisting that salsa doesn’t count as a vegetable also keeps people stuck in the same loop of 3-4 “acceptable” vegetables. They feel like they need to eat broccoli or kale all the time. And yes, broccoli and kale are wonderfully nutritious, but a key component of nutrient adequacy is variety.

According to one study, eating a wider variety of fruits and vegetables was associated with lower inflammatory markers, even when the total number of servings stayed the same.

Another study saw that people who ate a wider variety of vegetables also had a higher intake of vitamins and minerals. This is most likely due to the fact that different colors of fruits and vegetables are associated with specific vitamins and minerals.

And this is precisely why overly focusing on one or two “optimally” healthy vegetables like kale and broccoli is counterproductive, and instead we should focus on getting as many different vegetables in as we can, salsa included.

Moving forward

Hopefully by this point I’ve convinced you not only that salsa is a vegetable, but that anyone who tells you otherwise is tapping into some very old misconceptions that can actually harm our well-being.

One of the things I find most notable about the Spanish colonial view of food in the Americas, is how explicit they were about what they were doing and why they were doing it.

Oftentimes, food is an unintentional mirror to what’s happening in society. But the Spanish were very intentional about using food to craft their image of themselves, to suppress, and to establish a hierarchy.

That’s why it’s so painful when these misconceptions about Latin American food persist today, and it’s also why these views of our food are so persistent.

My mission as a dietitian is to undo these misconceptions, and help Latinas rethink how they see nutrition by centering, celebrating, and reclaiming the nourishing power of Latin American food and culture.

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🌶️ This article is featured in the Salsa Issue of our digital zine! Read the whole issue for more spicy takes, nutrition facts, and alllll the sabor.