Clinton in NY: I always carry hot sauce

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton on Monday said that she always keeps a bottle of hot sauce handy in her bag.

“Hot sauce,” she said when asked what she constantly carries in her bag.

The comments, first reported by TMZ, came during an appearance on Power 105.1 FM’s “The Breakfast Club.”

{mosads}“Really? Are you getting in that ‘Formation’ right now?” host Charlamagne Tha God asked before quoting Beyonce’s song “Formation.” ‘’Hot sauce in my bag, swag?’”

Clinton said that she was indeed serious, leading the host to joke that Clinton is angling for African American voters with a Beyonce reference.

“I want you to know that people are going to see this and say, ‘she’s pandering to black people again,’” he told Clinton.

“OK – is it working?” the Democratic presidential front-runner quipped. “Seriously – I’ve been eating a lot of hot sauce and raw peppers.”

Charlamagne Tha God then suggested that Clinton’s spicy diet may be the root of her coughing on the show.

“That’s why you’re coughing – you may need to slow down a bit,” he said.

“Yeah, I’m having a rebellion against it,” Clinton retorted. “[But] I think it keeps my immune system strong. I really do. I think hot sauce is good for you.”

Clinton has repeatedly championed the benefits of eating hot peppers, a daily practice she began during husband Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

“I read an article about the special immune-boosting characteristics of hot peppers,” she told NPR last January. “I thought, that’s interesting, because, you know, campaigning is pretty demanding.

“I’ve always like hot food – Mexican, Indian, Thai – but I started adding hot peppers, and then I got into eating them raw, wherever they weren’t really, really too hot. Maybe [it is] one of the reasons I’m so healthy and I have so much stamina and endurance out there today.”

Clinton also told NPR that she formerly carried Tabasco sauce before ultimately settling on eating “real hard-core hot peppers” daily instead.

“I can’t do them all,” she said. “So if you’re out there listening, don’t meet me with a raw habanero and say, ‘OK, take a bite.'”