Whether you love or hate spicy food you will have tried a spicy pepper once in your life. If a bell pepper is too spicy for you then you may want to stop reading the article at this point. However, if you can handle a little bit of spice, read on.
The record for the hottest pepper in the world was recently broken with the creation fo the Dragon’s Breath Chili Pepper. This is a pepper so hot Anthony Keidis wouldn’t even want to be associated with it. The pepper measures 2.48 million units on the Scoville scale. To put that in comparison the jalapeno pepper, which let’s face it, is too hot for many people, registers as high as 8,000 on the scale. A cayenne or tabasco pepper would only reach 50,000. The hottest pepper before the Dragon appeared was the Carolina Reaper at 1.6 million units. Oh, and for you bell pepper fans, the delicious capsicum rates at a score of 0. The pepper has a recessive gene that doesn’t allow the production of capsaicin and so produces no heat units.
If you are still struggling to understand just how hot this is, US military spray is 2 million units. This pepper is basically a weapon. The creator of the pepper was trying to create something so hot for medical purposes, not for diet. He did put it on his tongue for 10 seconds and simply touching it already started to burn.
The pepper is so hot you could die if you ate it. When something this hot is consumed the body reacts by trying to stop it getting further. It could close your airways and cause you to go into shock. Your mouth and throat will likely be covered in blisters and burns and it would wreak havoc on your stomach if it got there. While you should avoid eating such a thing it will be touring the UK at the Chelsea flower show in a sealed container. We recommend wearing sunglasses when viewing the pepper, just incase!
