How Chili Peppers Work

or something like super Starling vocal band. Some might say abrasive, some might I think it's very soothing to hear death metal. Supposedly, there's a study out there, the head of ridiculously small study population that found that it's calming has a calling influence metal music does paid for by the Metal Association of North America Scandinavia. Uh yeah, kind of surprised they played the Chili Peppers since, uh, it's pretty easy on the ears, isn't it. Well, one of the songs with

California Cation. The other later stuff isn't as good. I could go a little crazy with that one. I'll talk. What were you going to quote? I was gonna say, give it away, Give it away now or something like that, or fight like a Brave. I haven't heard that one. That's early stuff you get to say, like under the Bridge downtown. Yeah, I ate a chili pepper. I actually read his biography. I guess it was an autobiography, Anthony Keatis,

because I was he writing about himself. Yeah. I was just going through a kick where I was reading music autobiographies of for just rock star stories. Didn't you recommend the more by the best? Which one was it? Uh? There's one, um quintessential one. I can't remember what it's called, the Quintessential Crew. Yeah, just look at I mean it's that's not an autobiography, that's just a biography. Yeah, but that one's really good. The Slash one is good and

the Keyest one is good. Man, he that guy. He had troubles, oh yeah, just bad drug troubles and woman troubles over and over and over. But he's good now. Well good for him. Yeah, welcome back to the fray, Anthony Keynes. That's what I say. So we're not talking about the red hot chili peppers. We're talking about red hot chili peppers, right, not the right We're talking about chili peppers, depending on where you are in the world, c h I l I peppers or c h I

L E peppers or just chilies. Yeah, you can say that. I think a lot of chefs just call them chilies. Well, yeah, because they're like, they don't waste words. No, they don't say peppers. It's a couple of extra syllables. Yeah, exactly, No, chef, give me some of those chilies. Uh. It is the bell pepper and the celery stalk and the onion. It's part of the trinity of I guess you would call it nolange cooking. Sure, the bell pepper is a chili pepper. It's just um, a non hot chili pepper, but it's

still the same thing. Um. And it turns out that we get that terminology chili. It actually was used by the Aztecs or the Triple Alliance and Mesoamerica, the Triple Indy's the Triple Alliance prior to the arrival of Columbus. And it was Columbus himself where we get the the misnomer chili pepper, because Columbus can that guy get anything right.

So he comes across the chili pepper and decides that it must be a relative of the black pepper, with which he and the rest of Europe are already very familiar. So he calls it the chili pepper because he hears up in Mexico they call it chili's. It's what the Triple Alliance calls it. So that's where it came from, chili peppers. But it has no relation whatsoever to the chili or the pepper. The black pepper um and it's

been around. It's actually one of the oldest domesticated crops in the America's actually, yeah, it started out in South America about six thousand years ago. I saw nine thousand, let's stay between five and twelve. Uh. And they don't know whether it was Bolivia or Brazil. There's a heated debate in the pepper community on the country of origin, but they do know that birds are the ones who disperse them, and birds can't feel heat in their mouth.

They carry them around and propagate the seeds. And uh. Then Columbus, of course brought them to Europe, and that's something spread. That's why you can use hot sauce or chili pepper spray or something like that on your bird seed to deter squirrels. Yeah, because the birds are fine, but the squirrels. And it says here the birds can't digest PEPPERSI but nobody can really digest pepper seeds. If I can whole, I totally can't know you can't. I will show you right now. You can show me your stool.

Uh No, we can't digest them either because we don't digest seeds that aren't chewed because they're covered in cellulose and it just goes straight through to our poop. Exactly same with corn. Yeah, because that is a seed. It is. I'm glad you finally said that somebody needed to say. I think that's one of the trendy facts. Don't you think that corn is a seed? Yeah? Yeah, probably seems like I saw that all over the internet. It's pretty hot right now. Corn and poop. It's a hot topic. So, um,

I did a dump be dumb on that on hot topics. Man, No corn, corn and you poop? Yep? Yeah, see hot topic. So um Columbus brings the stuff back and it spreads like crazy like syphilis. Yeah, because think about this, um, chili peppers, we're are native to the America's and we're unknown outside of the America's until about five hundred or so years ago. Now they're grown in just about every

country in the world. Um. There's all different types of varieties. Um. But it turns out that there's twenty five wild species and five domesticated species. And one of them. Noteworthy things about chili peppers is most of the time, when humans domesticated a wild crop, they would stop using the wild version of it because it was just so far inferior to the domesticated version. Not so with with um chilies. Wild chilies are just as prized, if not more prized,

than the domesticated ones. So there's five species chuck. And by the way, chili peppers blowing to the night shade family with potatoes, tomatoes, gojiberries, eggplants in nightshade yep, and um. The five species are fun to say. Yeah, I wasn't even gonna do it, but I encourage you too, Okay, Uh kep Cicum and you um keep ciccum, kept cicum frutescents, kept scumb but cadam and kept Cicum pubescence does have little hairs on them. I saw that one coming. So

those are the five families. Uh, peppers are generally hot, although we'll get into all that with the varieties. Like you said the bells, everyone knows bells aren't very hot. But um, what you're talking about with the heat is what's called their pungency. And the heat actually uh comes from alkaloids present in the peppers called cap sasan yes, which we talked about in December the pepper pepper spray episode, because that's the cap that's what they're using in pepper spray.

If you didn't listen to it, check it out. It's a good one. But yeah, it's kind of funny to think about defense. Self defense tool is really just uh, canned hot pepper. Yeah, because that stuff can be It works, Yeah, it really does work. Um. And with with the the pungency of a pepper, most people think that it's found in the seeds. That's actually a myth. Well, it is found in the seeds, it's not housed in the seeds, right, So the seeds are attached to the pepper itself through

something called the placenta. It's a membrane that white stuff that's inside of a pepper, right, and that's where the capsaan um is is stored. Um and since the seeds are attached to the membrane, a lot of that stuff makes it way its way to the seeds. But if you really want the high heat, you eat the membrane. If you want want the high heat, just eat the whole thing. H D seed and D membrane mine. But if you're looking for heat, then don't even sweat it. Literally,

don't sweat it. That's yeah, that's like the second at least pun that you've made. Oh yeah, yeah, well was the first one? Something was They were both accidental hot. I can't remember what it was. Well, those are just words. No, it was perfect, It was really great. Uh So the pain is actually not coming from your taste buds because they don't feel pain. It's coming from pain receptors in your mouth, and it sends a message to your to your brain saying this is super hot. I wouldn't eat

that much unless you like it. Right. It's the same pain receptors that UM tell you that say the sip of coffee you just took is too hot, or like something is thermally too hot. It's triggered by cap sason. It's the t r p V one receptor and that triggers the release of a neuro transmitter called substance P and that's cap sastion can also block. What's crazy is yes, so the it's well when we'll talk about it a

little more later. But cap sason is used as a topical pain reliever, right like Shaquille O'Neal knows that he does he uh, I think yeah, Um, So cap sasan If you rub it on the skin, it goes to those TRPV one receptors and basically overloads them so thoroughly that they're no longer able to transmit the sensation of pain in that area. So it's a local anesthetic. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah it is. Uh, And lots of other health benefits we'll talk about. Peppers are great for you.

Peppers are super Uh. They do not cause ulcers, that is a myth um and in fact, they protect the stomach lining or can and they can also thin the blood, so you need to watch out for that if you are on an anticoagulant. Yeah. I don't know if they say that on the prescription or not, but the pepper prescription, no m prescribe to it in Alabania today. No, the anticoagulant prescription. Of course it might. But if you are in a contest or just at dinner and your mouth

becomes inflamed, um, don't. Well, you can drink water. I think it provides a temporary respite. I don't know if it even does that. It does for me. It basically smooths the stuff around and throughout your mouth, which is not good. What you want is something fatty like milk. Yeah, because cap sasan dissolves in the presence of fats or like um, if you eat a lot of Mexican food or Indian food, Um, that that sour cream and that yogurt is a nice way to smooth that out. That's

what it's there for. Baby. Well, that in taste and in flavor and texture and everything else. Yeah, I guess. So. Yeah, it's not like they're, like you said, some sour cream because this is too hot, but it definitely helps. I read an article actually with a guy who was in a contest and he was a hot pepper guy, and he described I think he ate like three ghost peppers just in twenty seconds, and he was fine at first.

Then it got hot like in it not in his mouth, but in his throat and then, um, he just kept going through waves like he said it would go away, and I thought it was good, and he's like an hour later, it felt like a red hot burning nickel on my stern um and it was just moving and sway down, I guess. And then he said he felt jubilation, like exhilaration, which we'll talk about this one of the effects of peppers that can you know, pick up your mood. But he said he was just like I felt like

he was on cocaine. Weird. Yeah, yeah, because they trigger a release of endorphins exactly, so you can get a runners high or some sort of high off of eating pepper, which is why some people eat peppers. They really makes him feel great. Yeah, I guess this guy wasn't a runner. He must have just done some cocaine before his line, right,

that was his god too. And um, so you said that birds are immune to the effects of peppers, and they also spread the seed by pooping it out right, Um, mammals are not immune to the effects of it, including humans, and apparently humans are the only mammals that purposefully eat peppers, and it's been called a form of benign masochism. Yeah, but it makes sense if um. And the reason why they think peppers have that kind of burning thing is

is to protect itself, to ward off mammals from eating it. Um. But the the idea that we can get some sort of rush from it, it's kind of counterintuitive if you think about it as far as evolution goes from the pepper standpoint, because that encourages people to keep eating you. That's a good point. All right, Well, let's take a break here and we'll come back and talk a little bit about how the heat is measured in a hot pepper. You know, all right, I guess we need to talk

about uh Scoville. Mr Scoville was your doctor. He's a pharmacist. Yeah, but I wondered if he was a doctor. I think he got an honorary doctorate. He deserved one. You count those? Uh? Sure, all right, probably depends on where it's from, what it's for, but sure, yeah, I would. I want to be like you can call me doctor Mr Clark, doctor Mr. Uh. He was a pharmacist, like you said, who developed um something called the Scoville organ elliptic test in nineteen twelve,

and uh, what is this? A hilarious name for what is it is kind of weird, isn't it should just call it the chili test or something. It just made me laugh like a goon a. Well. Previous to this test um, the only test was basically just to have people eat them and ask them how hot? It's pretty hot? Okay, that's a pretty hot pepper. Give me some milk fat, right, technically pork fat whatever. You just need a slab of fat and then get rid of it real quick. Yeah.

They said chocolate too will help you. Well, it's a fatty yeah, full of lipids. I think that's people just like the eat chocolate. They're hot stuff. Uh So, Scofield says, there's got to be a better way, and he says, why don't we devise a test where we have people eat peppers and ask them how hot it is? Pretty much, but let's do it in a little bit different way. Let's keep feeding them peppers that are more diluted until they can't feel heat any longer, and just make it

a little more organized and formal. So the Scopeville, the Scoville heat unit is what it comes up with, right, So, for example, of bell pepper has a zero not hot, but say Hoban euro some types of Hobban euro peppers can get up to like five hundred thousand UM. I think the red something, Oh what is it? I'm sorry, the red Slavinia Haban euro pepper got up to five

hundred seventy thousand Scoville heat units. It's very hot. And what that means is that it would take five hundred and seventy thousand cups of water to dilute one cup of extract from the red Slovenia Haban euro and one shot of milk fat right before before anybody could say I detect no heat whatsoever. So that's what the Yeah, it's a tremendous amount of war. And it's not like he was pouring a whole cup of this stuff into

five hundred and seventy thousand cups of water. I think he just used fractions probably, So yeah, in a minute to come to that conclusion, I was like, what kind of bat did this guy have in his yard? A big one? Uh? So that was the old test um. And even though they no longer use that, they still used a s h u Scoville heat unit as the unit of measure, which I think is a nice little tip of the cap it is because it could have changed it. Wilbert Scoville's ghost is like, I approve. Uh. Now,

what they do is use liquid chromatography. Uh. And they've been doing that since about the seventies. And that's not specific to testing peppers. It's basically just separating and analyzing compounds of any mixture, right, But you can target the specific type of compound and in this case, you're looking for the alkaloid cap saction. Yes, and you determine how many parts per million is present in at a given pepper,

and it takes the subjectivity out. Yeah, And it's literally just measuring the level cap sastion level in any pepper. But what's need is they figured out Scollville is clearly onto something because they figured out that if you take this high performance liquid chromatography measurement and multiply the number it spits out by sixteen, you will come to the

Scolleville unit that you would seen by a factor of sixteen. Bad, But that's neat that you can it's not like sixteen seven or something like that, or or multiplied by the fact that you can multiply it by a standard number and come to the Scoville heat unit each time means he's doing something right, something, there's something there Scoville ware to go that sounds like one of the real men of genius commercials or something, right, I guess. Or else

should we get to some of the types of peppers? Now, are we there? Yeah? Yeah, I think so, because if you're a scientist, there's two ways to classify a pepper by its heat using the Scoville heat unit index, and by its shape. Yes, and then color. Well, apparently scientists don't classify it by color. I'm talking about you and me, buddy. Hotheads were in the kitchen, Okay, we're and we're looking at peppers, and we're like, look at that red one.

Look at that green wrinkly one. All right, that one's funny. That's a funny shape. That's how we classify red. Funny shaped one's really hot. Wrinkly or smooth is another thing you might notice. But you're right, as far as science is concerned, its heat and shape. And then the shapes go from shape A to shape I right, And my favorite descriptor is the lantern shape. I think that's great. Yeah, that's the hotba neuro Yeah, very thin skinned, uh and

very hot? Yeah? Can you can you eat peppers? Which I didn't even ask this. I eat a lot of peppers. Um, My heat tolerance isn't great. I do like the heat, but I'm a bit of a whimp. So like, what what kind of pepper do you normally? Can you eat? Like a Scotch bonnet? Well, I mean I cook a lot with just bells. Of course that doesn't county because they're peppers, all right, Um, so I cook a lot with those, but um, I cook a lot with poblanos, anaheims, chips, lapenos, serranos,

and Chipotle. Is you just threw me off? It's chapolte Chipotle. Chipotle is a smoked taban euro right, yeah. And Ancho is a dried serrano. Ancho is dried pablano ancho powder. Yeah, that's from Pueblo, Mexico. Uh. Poblanos are great if you want to make a good chile reno, because they're about the right size and they're really just hardy, thick, waxy they hold up. Well, yeah, you mean I are aficionados of those things, of the pablana, know of the chill reno.

Oh yeah, find a good one of those. Yeah, you know, it's funny. In uh college, you know, I worked at Mexicali Grill, which I don't think is even a thing anymore. I know the one in Atlanta Highway Clothes, which was

very it was an institution, sure. Uh and their chill reino like a lot of the When you go to some you know, kind of the cheaper Mexican places that have like the menu with eight combination dinners, a lot of times you will find a chill rena, which is a ball of beef wrapped in cheese sitting on top of a one inch square green bell pepper. I've not seen that one. Yeah, that was what our chill rena was. Basically just meat and cheese. Man, But you want the

real thing, which is stuffed in a real pepper. Huh. And a lot of people use breading unnecessary. I can have it both ways. It's well, it's supposed to have some sort of fried wrapper around it, and the breading is usually too much. The better way to do it is like a thin omelet, almost like a crepe around it. Everyone's going, yeah, good stuff, all right, Well let's back up.

Then back to the bells, which you don't consider peppers evidently. Well, I mean as far as you're talking heat, yeah, no heat, but they're great to grill and and I can't say anything. I can't really go beyond a hall of pen Oh you can't stand the heat. No, So I'm frequently getting out of the kitchen. But I actually made a New Year's resolution to eat more hot stuff because I realize, like I'm such a total worst when it comes to this thing. Like you can build up a tolerant and

I have. I've gotten much better at like eating spicy stuff. But yeah, if I like habanero is way too hot for me, it depends on what kind of spice it is. To a lot of times, I'm more tolerant of some than others. But I've learned that once you get past that very unpleasant, painful sensation, there's like a whole new world of tastes out there. Yeah you know, Yeah, good point. Uh So the bells are the little squatty squatty dudes. Um they can be uh. I don't know if a

lot of people know this. All the different colors of the bell pepper is the same pepper, the red bell, the green bell, the yellow bell, the orange bell, it's all the same, but they taste differently. Yes, because there it's how long they're ripened. So what the green one is ripen or harvested? First? Wait a minute, Wait a minute, it's all the same pepper, right a minute. That's why you'll get a red pepper. This still has a little green buddy, like a little patch of green. Oh wait

a minute, hold on, So you didn't know this? No? Wow, All right, well that didn't happen much for real. Yeah, well that's great man, thank you for teaching us. The green peppers is picked first. That's why they're less expensive to um, and they are a little bitter and they are not nearly as sweet. Then you have yellow than orange than red as they ripen, and that's why the red is most expensive. And it's because it's the most mature, delicious.

It is delicious, and they are sweet and kind of fruity. Um. But you're smoked on, smoked on um roasted. Yes. Oh, I do it all the time. And then you just peel the skin off. Yeah what I do? This article says to do it in the oven. I either put it on the grill I do with fire, or just on the stove. I'll just put it on the stove. That's a convection. You just put like an old piece paper on it. Yeah. I'll just throw the red pepper on the fire until it's all black, and then I

throw it in a paper bag. I don't do paper because I don't usually plastic. Yeah, I'll just put it in like a grocery store bag. That seems cocinogenic. Uh no, I don't think so. Well we'll find out. Yeah, check back with me in twenty years. Well, because you then you run into the sink and wash all that char off of it, So I don't think it's coming to contact what you're eating with the plastic, right, so you use the sink. Huh yeah, just because it's really hot

to the touch. Still. Well, that that's the other thing that I noticed in this article says leave it for like fifteen minutes, which seems smart. I don't ever have time for that. So I just put it under the cold water, get all the seeds in the membrane and the skin off got you, and then slice it up

and throw it in a salad. It is delicious, very delicious. Uh. But the okay, the red pepper has more because it's matured longer, has eleven times more beta carotene than green and one and a half times more vitamin C, so they're healthier. That's what you're paying for, the beta carotene. That's right, big money in beata, right. Uh. And then you can also have chocolate purple and even white bell peppers,

and this is now you're just lying now. I think those are just different varieties, though I don't think those are like how mature they are, like the white ones are grown in the dark or something like that. I don't know. I have no idea. Um, the pimiento and paprika are both where you they come from red bells thought, and paprika is well, then how is how is that? How does that have any kind of Paprika has a little bit of heat to it, doesn't it? Uh? No, No,

I'm thinking of cayenne pepper. Yeah, cayenne is made from hot red chilies, and paprika is just smoked unless it's Hungarian paprika, and that's sweeter and that's not smoked. So if you see a recipe that says paprika, you should probably know whether it's smoked or Hungarian. And if not, I would probably just go with hungarian. Oh you think, well, unless you just know you want a smoky flavor. This has been quite a ler. Banana peppers very mild, Peppercini's

very mild. You get those on your subway sandwich? Yeah yeah, or like as a side on a Papa John's pizza. Oh yeah, like that. That's right. I knew i'd seen those. And then of course the best one of all, the pablano pepper, right. Uh. And then the pimento, which we just mentioned, and that is a variety of the red bell I think, and that's what they put in olives and cheese. What about the hot guys seat, I don't mess with them that much. But yeah, like we said,

there's Halapano, Serrano, abaniro, Chippotle, so it is Chipotle? Yeah, what do you think it was? We were saying Chipolte? Are you saying Chipotle? I was saying Chipotle, said that? And then Anaheim Anaheim. Yeah. I think some people transpose to l and say Chipotte. Yeah, they definitely do. I got confused. I know how to say it right, but

earlier I was like, wait, they didn't sound right. Yeah. Uh. And then of course you have the delicious tai chilies or bird's eye chilies, and those are really good and super hot, and they are small and thin but pack of punch. So normally the rule of thumb is thin long ones that are red are going to be your hottest, right, But there's exceptions to those rules, which is the Scotch bonnet. Scotch bonnet is like it's like even, it's like more

pumpkin shaped. It's like it's habaniro but it's even it's less lantern shaped and more pumpkin shaped. And I think it's like a yellow yellow orange and very hot, very frequently found in like Jamaican cuisine, the Scotch bonnet. Uh, if you dry the pepper out and you have like the ento pepper, the chipotle dried stuff that we're talking about, it's gonna be hotter. Get that in mind. Some people who like peppers will just put them in a food dehydrator and eat them like that. Yeah, or just let

them just dry out in you're in the sun. If you're slack, you're a hippie chuck. We also said that. So if you're a scientist, you say this pepper is shape a and as a Scoville rating of five chilion. Right, Okay, Um, then you've just described a pepper to another scientist. They know what you're talking about. But there's a something called

the Chili Pepper Institute. It's an institute that's associated with the University of New Mexico, and New Mexico, by the way, is the the foremost domestic producer of chili peppers in the United States thanks to a man named FABIOND. Garcia, who was a pioneer in cultivating peppers here in the United States. He released his first variety, the New Mexico number nine. I thought you canna say his first album

Mambo number five. Yeah um. But he's like known as the father of chili peppers in the US, the North American chili and in India they are. Um, they're the world's largest producer of chili's. Yeah um. But there's so there's another way to describe them beyond shaped, color and heat, and the Chili Pepper Institute came up with this. It's for the heat profile. And basically there's five components to the heat profile. Um. There's the heat the Scoville heat

unit to it. Yeah um. Then there's how fast it hits Like you were saying that guy who ate some ghost chilis um that they were kinda like it took a minute to come on. He's like, this isn't so bad. Some peppers that hit like immediately. So that would be the second descript or the second component um. The third would be whether it lingers or dissipates quickly or how fast it dissipates. Eventually it's going to dissipate you hope, yeah, and then come and burn the next day coming out

the other end. Yeah, you know, yeah uh. And then the fourth one is um where it's sensed, like is it in the throat, is it on your tongue, is it in the roof of your mouth? Where does it attack? Basically? And then the last one is whether it's flat or sharp. So flat is say, um, I saw, and I think that that New Yorker article or maybe the Smithsonian one

that sent you UM. Flat is where it's like your whole tongue is just coated in the sensation of heat, whereas um sharp is where it feels like little hot needles in your mouth or something like that. And the preference in America is for a flat sensation, whereas Asian countries tend to prefer the sharp sensation, like the tai chilies. Yes, interesting sharp, that's right. Uh. Do you like hot Asian food? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Um, I like curries and stuff like that. Nothing too hot though.

I mean, like, I'm still a pretty big woos and I'm also like comfortable enough with myself that I don't feel the need to show off or accepted dare of course not no, so yeah, I don't need that hottest stuff, but I will sometimes. If you're still accepting food related dares in your late thirties or forties, yeah, then you don't know you should seek some help. Did you read about that guy, Ted Busser Busser, Oh, he was in the New Yorker article. He that's exactly what he does. He's,

you know, thirties forties. He's on YouTube some help and he accepts um challenges, food challenges, so people will send him like the most disgusting thing they can find, and then he eats it on on air. But one of the things that he eats are like really hot peppers. Has become kind of like a a de facto pepper judge, right, because there is this whole community out there. Yeah, well,

we'll talk about that after we take a break. How about that stop, so Chuck, we kind of teased that there's a there's a community of chili pepper ficionados out there to tough guys and women. Yes, and yeah, I meant that in the non gender specific Yeah. And they range from um, just people who like to eat them, to people who make their own hot sauce, to people who are competing by growing cultivators. Yeah, the hottest peppers on the planet. And they it gets pretty dicey. They

get um, very competitive and very snippy. From what I read. Yeah, there's about you know, um, the legitimacy of the heat that they claim. Yeah. So there's just again a really great New Yorker article called the fire Eaters from I think a year or two back, and it gives a really great outsider's view of this community, and it is very snippy. One of the problems is there's no official central body that says this is the hottest pepper on

the planet. Well, Guinness does, Guinness doesn't. A lot of people defer to Guinness, to some other people are like Guinness does. No, they're they're just they're dilettants. What we need is a governing body that's dedicated only to chili peppers, well not Guinness, right, yeah, And one reason why is

because it changes, like people are cultivating these things. There could be a new hot, hottest pepper every three months exactly, and Guinness isn't gonna stay on top of that, right So there it's kind of like, why are you being talking to those guys. So some people do defer to Guinness because it is the closest thing that they have to um a a judgment saying this is the world's

hottest people just like we're saying that. But um, there's no organizing, central body that that is dedicated to judging which is the hottest chili pepper, and there should be there. According to these people, they could use it. They think the government should supply it, but they can't even decide on whether that the hottest pepper in the world should be its peak or what an averages it's mean. So

right now, um, Guinness goes by the mean. And as it stands in the world, the hottest chili pepper as of August two thousand thirteen is called the Carolina Reaper. Yeah, the HP two B in H seven out of rock Kill, South Carolina and the Carolina Reaper has an average, an average. Remember that um red Slavinia Habaniro had five hundred and seventy thousand Scoville heat units. This one averages one million, five hundred sixty nine thousand, three hundred Scoville heat units.

That's right, and a peak of over two point two million. And hats off to Ed Curry of pucker Butt Pepper Company and uh Fort Mill. He's he's a very controversial pepper grower. He is. He blended. The original cross breed was between a ghost pepper, which was the previous hottest pepper introduced to the North America in two thousand, uh, the infamous ghost pepper, and then he uh crossbreeded that with bread that with a red habanerro. So the the

boot toil Lokia is the ghost pepper. It's from India and from two thousand seven to two thirteen it was the reigning champ. Yes, and from before that was that red slavinia from two thousand and seven. Again that's as far as Guinness is concerned. Um, but there are peppers

out there. There's the um so what's the scorpion one, the Trinidad scorpion Butch t Yeah, so that was actually grown by some guys in Australia who crossed a Trinidad scorpion which is already very hot, with a pepper that was grown by a guy named Butch Taylor in I think Mississippi. He's right outside big on this. As it

turns out. Um, I think the thing is like, if there's people who listen to like Front two four two and go boar hunting, if there's a larger population of them and that country, that that country is going to be more likely to be into eating hot peppers. What's Front two four two? They're like an industrial band? What does that mean about me? Because I've never even heard of it. You don't need hot hot peppers? Uh, there

are some who claim. In fact, grower in southern California says, I've had I had a pepper once that was over three million. But I don't even publish that stuff, he says, because it's a fluke. Right, So so that's the that's the question, like should that one be considered the world's hottest pepper or should that plant have to species consistently

have to put out something at three million? Yeah, doesn't matter. Well, it's another question entirely, you know, can't we just I know they get specific about it and they want to do, but it seems like we can just say all of these are very hot, very very hot. You're welcome. Yeah, I don't know. It's scary stuff if you it is, Um, Christopher Guests should do a mockumentary about pepper hot heads. It's right for it, all right. So let's say you want to pick out a pepper at a grocery store.

Look for firm skin, look for super bright colors, which I don't know. I'm pretty down on produce and big box grocery stores. But if you go to a farmer's market, and especially like a local farmers market, you're gonna see weird shaped, super super bright colored peppers. Yeah, weird shaped is right. Remember. Yeah, we've talked about this before. Grif your stores won't sell ones that are perfectly awesome and maybe even better tasting because they look weird, right, that

bell pepper looks like Richard Nixon, throw it in the trash. Yeah, And it's like, I'm um, the longer they ripe in, the hotter they get. So. Like you said, the red ones, Um, if the red ones still have a little green. They're not fully ripe yet, so they probably won't be as hot. But that's that's the case with a bell probably anyway. So you're not looking for heat, looking for sweet. Um. If you are cooking with peppers, uh, it says in here like be sure to wash your hands. But what

you really need to do, if you're serious is where gloves? Where? Um? Where doctors? What are they called rubber gloves? Yeah, rubber gloves, because that is truly the only way. Like, if you come into contact with your fingers and that membrane or those seeds, you can wash your hands ten times and you forget, and like the next day you will get an eye booger out and you'll be like, what in the world my eyes on fire? You take your context and you go to put them in the next one.

I can't imagine. I cooked one night some piea and us some hot peppers and did not wear gloves, and I went peepee later. Oh no, I didn't think about it, and I had a speaking of syphilis burning sensation down below. It was bad. That's how they simulated for medical students. Really it was bad. So I learned the hard way. I just got a box of those nights as at nitrate gloves nitrate or nitrite and explodes. The other one's fine, I think, well, I put him in the kitchen. I

also wear a painter's respirator. What kind of peppers are you working with? The you know, the hot stuff like ghost peppers. No, but I cook with hobby arrows and stuff sometimes, and it's like it's nuclear the fumes are. It's like if you're over the Saint cl in the mountain, you're breathing it in. You'll you'll find yourself or at least I do, coughing and burning. So I'll wear the

respirator in my club. So um, you mean. I would juice sometimes and every once in a while she'd put like a pepper in there, like a hall of peeno, and it would just turn the kitchen into like like a tear gas bomb had gone off. It's crazy. It gets everywhere. It does because these things are basically vaporized and they just spread so easily through the air and it definitely gives it a kick. Um. Oh, if you want to store peppers, um, like we said, you can

dry them out and they'll keep for a long time. Uh, they'll keep you don't want to wash them. You want to just put them unwashed into your fridge. Yeah, true, and they'll just keep just regular peppers. Peppers will keep for a long time. It's not something that goes bad very quickly. But you can freeze them if you slice them, put them on a baking tray in the freezer. Then you can collect them and throw him in a bag and you can keep them for like a year. Nice. Uh,

But I don't see why you'd freeze peppers. Just buy the Mountain need and cook with them or pickle them. That's great. Pickled peppers are wonderful. I can just eat those straight. I don't like pickled things, so I'm not into it. But yeah, it's it's so good for you. Pickling pickled foods are so good for you. There's so many health benefits. I'll you'll eat other healthy things that I enjoy. But how do you not like pickles? Stuff? Like? I could eat pickled any you could cut your finger

off and pickle it. I'd probably eat it. How does anyone not like anything? But I mean, like what about it? You don't like the tartness? No, just the taste anything pickled? Like a pickled a pickle sour kraut. Oh you don't like sour kraut sauer kraut. I guess I could have

seen that. I hate pickled so much that I have to ask and rest, like when I go to a pub and have like a burger and fries, to leave the pickle off, because invariably they will put the pickle down soaking into the French fries in the bun, and it will ruin that for me. Wow, you hate pickles. That might hate pickles that much, Well, all eat the pickles that you get on the side from now. Okay, well it will eat the pickles. You can arm wrestle

her for them. Okay, that's fine, that's a deal. Um. But when I said you shouldn't, you know, just buy the amount. If you're growing pickles or i'm sorry, growing peppers, pickles, pickled peppers, then you might end up with a lot of peppers. And that's why you might want to pickle them or pickle them if you're into that, because we grew peppers one year and they were easy to grow and bountiful. Yeah, pepper planks, Yeah, that equals a lot of peppers. I guess we should talk about growing them

a little bit. Huh, I guess. So they're perennials, so that means they stick around. Well, it depends on where you live. Yeah, if it's cold, you might grow them as animals. They're pretty flexible. Um, you can start them as seeds ten weeks prior to the first frost. You want to germinate them in little trays. First you soaked the seeds for a couple of days. Then you germinate them with a little bit of starter ten weeks prior

to frost. After the last frost comes and goes, you can start to harden them by moving them outside a couple hours at a time and talk to them, say this is good for you. You shake them. It takes a couple of weeks, um a few hours each day more until they are hard and ready, right, and then they start to grow. You want to fertilize them. When the peppers grow out and turn hard, you can cut them.

And when you do, you want to cut some stem because it extends their shelf life, and then you have peppers. You can also just go to the store and buy some peppers. Yeah, if you're in the garden garden, Yeah, if not, or I've just grown from seed. Man, it seems like such a nightmare to me. Well, it's for people who have time and what are hobbyists. But I also get like, if it's a very like if it's an heirloom something or just thing you're not going to

find anywhere. With peppers, I mean, sure there are some like if you want to buy the Carolina Reaper, you can get packs of those seeds for like ten bucks or something. Right, You're not gonna find those at any stores. So I get growing those from seed, But like growing like a squash plant from seed, It's like, what are you doing? Man? You've got you should have better things to do with your time than that a weaker squash

last year from seed? What are you doing? Man? We have a garden, right, But you can just buy like the seedlings. Yeah, you could do that. Okay. Are you saying why do people garden? No? I love gardening. I'm just saying growing from seed a plant, Like, if you like growing from seed, you should get a seed catalog and find something that you can't find elsewhere. That's what I'm saying. I have a very strong opinion on growing things from each their own. With everything, but gardening but gardening,

we start plants a lot too. Not everything is from seed because you're saying sensible peak, But do you do you see my point? Do you get seed catalogs? Not catalogs, I don't think. But we buy buy seeds online. You should get your hands on seed catalog Yeah. Yeah, I can't remember the name of the company. That sounds like to book reading. Yes it is. It's just so. Yes, it's very delightful. It makes you so excited for spring. Uh Off label uses of peppers will say you can

eat them or you can rub them on your pain parts. Yeah, because remember they overload your nose desceptor. That's right. They can lower your blood pressure. They can be antiquagulants, like I think that's one and the same. Think about it. If it thins the blood, it's going to also like lower your blood pressure. True, I would think. Okay, it's also been shown chuck. It lowers bad cholesterol, not even

not just any cholesterol. It lowers your bad cholesterol. And not only does it lower the cholesterol present in your blood, I think it attracts it, right because remember it's fat soluble um and then it gets flushed out of the system. It actually removes the build up of bad cholesterol plaque in your arteries. Man, this stuff is it makes me want to eat more peppers. I already eat quite a bit of peppers. I need to eat more, I think. Uh. In the future, they hope to use it for um,

cancer prevention, stroke, heart attack prevention. All right, you know, I guess it already works. Is that if it's lowering your blood blood pressure, that's what I got from that too. But the cancer, it's its own thing. They found that that cap station itself basically attacks. Wow, I mean that's Are you upset about the growing from seed tirade? Oh no, I don't care. What like it was directed at me. Yeah, it didn't mean for it to be, but it took

a pretty hard turn at the end. There right to your right to your front door, I don't care, right to your garden door? No, no, no, no. Uh. We have an article called ken gost peppers kill you on our website. Cannot it's not good. Um, but apparently three pounds um the peppers can kill you? Is that right? Yeah? How like what's the mode of death? I don't know.

They don't say. That's why it's not a good article. Well, so these these pain receptors, the um t r P, I mean it's a toxin cap sasan is trpv one um. They're also responsible for regulating your body heat. Helping regulate your body heat. So I wonder if you have like a heat stroke or something like that. I don't know. I would just say it's if it's a toxin and

you eat too much of any toxin, you could die. Yeah, But but there's you know, you die from like some toxin slow your respiration and you stop breathing from lack of eye You know what. I bet you had something to do with respiration, because if you are in a hot pepper eating contest, one thing they will talk about is their throat swelling and having a hard time breathing. That'd be my guess. I think they uh. I think there was a Science Daily article originally that said that.

So there was a speaking of ghost peppers up until last year. In two thousand and fourteen, there was a restaurant in Grantham, Lincolnshire, I take two to be in England, probably called Bindy. It was. The restaurant was named Bindy. It was an Indian restaurant um and it had a Curry called the Widower that used twenty ghost peppers among a ton of other ones, and apparently, um, they had sold like five six hundred of them and like about

three quarters of the people finished it managed to finish it. Which, yeah, if you think like the ghost pepper that was like the one that got all the press in two thousand seven. I think what's remarkable is that people that are ordering this are probably have a very high tolerance anyway, and if they're not able to finish it, that says a lot exactly. So that's chili peppers. Everybody, go forth and eat something. You said that it doesn't give you ulcers,

and in fact it actually helps with cases of ulcers. Right, that's right, and that amazing it is. Okay, So if you want to know more about chili peppers, you can type that word into the search bar how stuff works dot com and it will bring up this article. And I said, uh, search bompsys listening. I'm gonna call this a rarely granted shout out. We get requests a lot for shout outs, and we couldn't do them all otherwise our show would be called shout outs. You should know.

But this one was from a fourteen year old girl who sended very sweet from Red. Hi, guys, I'm a fourteen year old girl who's been listening for a long time, and I wanted to say thanks for the time that you spend to make it smarter. It's been really fun for my sister Anna and I uh to listen to your podcast before we go to sleep. However, she's leaving for college soon to study studio art and I'll be

all alone when I listen to you guys. So if it isn't too much to ask, could you give her a shout out and tell her that she is an awesome sister and will be missed. Uh, Sarah, you could tell her that yourself too. By the way you should express your emotions, I don't like to talk. You can also say to my brother's Jonathan, Stephen and Tommy that they are okay. Too many kids are in this family. It sounds like one five. Uh if you oh, and she said, no, don't mention that's sixth one. I'm just kidding.

If you do this, then you guys will be the best podcasters ever, not like you aren't already actually on a just sent an email or maybe it's Anna to you guys last night about hula hoops and uh, if you could put both our emails on the air, that would be the best. I'm not gonna do that, Sarah, but I did write her back, so um, this is a secret from annas it would be a big surprise. So uh Sarah, Tona Anna, good luck at college. You will be missed. You're a great sister. That's a nice

Chuck and their brothers Jonathan, Stephen and Tommy and Desert. Okay, man, that was nice, very kind of you. You never know. Uh, well, if you want to see if you can tell get Chuck's heart strings, give you your best shot. Good luck. You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff

you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at at home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com.