Hot, hotter, hottest..

 

How many times have u gone… “Oh @*%$..i ate a chili!!'” Its weird that many of us know that its hot without knowing the reason for it to be so… Well, chilies have a little secret weapon in them called capsaisin. It is an irritant for mammals including humans and it produces a burning sensation when in contact with tissue. Now i’m assuming your next question would be… why do chilies vary in hotness?… Well its simple really… the answer is simply because, chilies have a variety of species just like any other plants.

How are the hottest chilis determined? Believe it or not, the most common test involves human taste-testers. In the “Scoville Organoleptic Test”, chili extract is diluted in sugar water until the heat of its spice is no longer detectable to a panel of tasters. The resulting heat rating, measured in Scoville heat units, is a measure of how much the chili had to be diluted. “The hottest chiles, such as habaneros, have a rating of 300,000 or more, indicating that their extract has to be diluted 300,000-fold before the capsaicin present is undetectable.”

For normal human beings like me and you (i hope)… the normal bird-eye chili or “cili padi” is enough to send you spinning through space and back, the ranking of the bird eye chili in the Scoville scale is just a mere 50,000–100,000. It sounds alot but in fact its nothing compared to its other species. The most plain chili would be the bell pepper or known to most of us as… capsicum.

Now for those slighty weird ones out there, there is something that may satisfy your hunger for stomach ulcers and gastritis. Bhut Jolokia or Ghost Chili is commonly regarded as the world’s hottest chili pepper. Measuring at not 100 or 200 thousand units… but an ass-whooping 855,000–1,075,000 units. Now thats one way of commiting suicide. Also, in some places, bhut jolokia is also known as naga jolokia. Its origin is from northeast india.

So the next time you curse over those dreaded chilies that make it in your mouth… spare a thought on how it works and be thankful all you normal people that the pepper in your mouth is no ghost chili =)

 

BELL PEPPERS For weenies only
	BIRD EYE PEPPERS / CILI PADI Enough to send most of us   flying  without wings
Bhut jolokia/ Naga jolokia… Not something you should try before signing up for life insurance