Don't get it
Love spicy food, in moderation, but really don't see the point in deliberately inducing pain, not even in competition. It's like a competition to see who has the most stupid.
Fear the Reaper: Man hospitalised after eating red hot chilli pepper
A man had to be taken to hospital after eating one of the world's hottest peppers in an eating contest, it has emerged. The 34-year-old was rushed to an emergency room in New York after developing "excruciating" pain from eating the Carolina Reaper, according to a report in the British Medical Journal this week. The chilli …
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 11:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Don't get it - It's like a competition to see who has the most stupid.
But that's pretty much it. An awful lot of "sports" are basically just that, it's just that it gets called machismo rather than stupidity. I guess there was survival value back when losing a few males wasn't much of a problem, so whoever discovered that eating certain plants in quantity was fatal didn't do any real harm to reproductive rates.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 12:21 GMT A Non e-mouse
Re: Don't get it - It's like a competition to see who has the most stupid.
An awful lot of "sports" are basically just that..
I've seen a couple of interviews with pro cyclists. They all say that professional cycling is all about pain endurance: Who can handle the pain the longest? I'd be surprised if many other endurance sports don't have similar characteristics.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 21:11 GMT d3vy
Re: Don't get it
"Love spicy food, in moderation, but really don't see the point in deliberately inducing pain, not even in competition. It's like a competition to see who has the most stupid"
This just about describes every visit I have ever made to an Indian restaurant with "the lads from sales" (in previous employment I was subjected to such horrors - now that I am a contractor I have a solid fool proof excuse *
What is it in the human psyche that has some of us think that eating a hotter curry than someone else somehow makes you better? Especially when you are visibly NOT enjoying it.
I like spicy food, but wouldn't partake on a night out... Its bad enough being hungover the next day without excreting molten lava too.
* Participating in employee get togethers increases my exposure in the event of an IR35 investigation - This may or may not actually be true - but I'm not risking it!
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 12:54 GMT macjules
Re: The Carolina reaper...
Me too, at the same festival. It made a soup rather ... interesting. You can get this from the amazing Chilli Pepper Pete shop.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 13:19 GMT Andy The Hat
Re: The Carolina reaper...
I deseeded about 30 Bih Jolokias (~1million SU), made as little contact with the seeds or fruit as possible (the seeds were for planting) and washed the Marigolds I was wearing three times before the bursting bubbles of the soap lather stopped hurting my eyes ... I then made a small batch of Whammo Hot Sauce (lll) with the fruit - it was a bit fiery but really good!
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 08:45 GMT Mongrel
Re: The Carolina reaper...
"and washed the Marigolds I was wearing three times before the bursting bubbles of the soap lather stopped hurting my eyes"
Rinse your hands\utensils with dilute bleach solution first as it breaks down the capsaicin to make it more water soluble and much easier to clean up.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 14:37 GMT LeahroyNake
Re: The Carolina reaper...
I have a rather small jar of hot sauce with the main ingredient Carolina Reaper. I use it to spice up bolognaise, chilli and currys. If I'm feeling especially brave I have some on chips.
My late brother gave it to me years ago, I have no idea where it came from but the memory always gives me a smile before I down a few pints of milk;)
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 18:16 GMT handleoclast
Re: The Carolina reaper...
Tesco were selling them last year (and I hope will sell them again this year when they come into season).
Even a tiny bit made the whole meal inedible.
I found that half of a large one, all of a medium-sized one, or two small ones added just the right amount of bang to a meal.
That was just the right amount that, 30 minutes later, there was a very warm (but not quite fiery) sensation when I had a piss. More than that and it becomes painful to piss. Less than that and it's not hot enough in the mouth.
YMMV.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 18:13 GMT DrBobK
Re: The Carolina reaper...
I got some Carolina Reapers from Tesco's as well. Not nearly as evil as I'd imagined. I ate half of one raw (sliced into little bits, not eaten in one go) to see what it was like and it wasn't painful, just very, very hot. Nice fruity taste when chopped and cooked in homemade refried black beans. I may have developed a tolerance to chillis - been eating them very regularly for decades.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 18:18 GMT Jason Bloomberg
Re: The Carolina reaper...
I saw what it did to Sergei and Yulia Skripal so I'm steering well clear of it!
I do enjoy a very hot chilli or curry but it's always a fine line between hitting perfection or brewing up what can be best described as battery acid.
Having ridden the wave, soaked T-shirts in sweat, even done the 'should have washed my hands' thing, I have no inclination to enter any hottest chilli contest. At my age I have no desire to re-enact the 'Alien' or 'Scanners' scenes.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 09:42 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: The Carolina reaper...
At my age I have no desire to re-enact the 'Alien' or 'Scanners' scenes
But the chilli might have a role in migraine treatment.. (one of the 'features' of migraines is that the pain is often caused by heavily-dilated blood vessels in and around the brain. My current migraine medication is a vasoconstrictor[1] so maybe chilli could be used instead and won't make me nauseous like the sumatriptan..)
Actually, on second thoughts, I'll stick with the sumatriptan. I enjoy mild-to-warm curries but can't see the point of really hot ones. If you are not used to them, you won't taste anything because your taste buds get nuked by the capsacin and, if you are used to that level of heat, you won't really notice how hot it is.
[1] Which also turns out to be useful in delaying and prolonging the effects of alcohol on the brain. Who knew?
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 19:36 GMT Fruit and Nutcase
Re: The Carolina reaper...
Along the A27 from Chichester in Portsmouth are "Thousand Hills"...
They have a set of 4 Carolina Reaper products made from their own grown chilies.
I've not sampled those, but slowly going through a jar of "On Respirators", so it will be a while before I try the Carolina Reapers
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 15:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Not the worst of it
the "now wash your hands" instruction needs to be acted on first
I've never found soap and water are terribly effective in properly removing residual capsaicin, and the hottest things I handle are supermarket sourced scotch bonnets, probably around a mere 200,000 Scoville.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 19:39 GMT Rugster
Re: Not the worst of it
Wash your hands with cooking oil first. binds to the capsaicin and then washes off. I made the mistake of rubbing my eyes and shortly after making a bathroom visit some years ago whilst learning what not to do. Not a mistake to make more than once.
And to all the people slating the heat, it's not like that once you are used to it, tolerance increases with exposure and the nice heat you get from ever increasing strength is glorious.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 21:02 GMT Terry 6
Re: Not the worst of it
Oh dear. yes. a few years back having pizza at one of those places that has a pot of dried chillies on the table. And at some point I needed a wee. And made the awful error of not remembering to wash hands first. Ouch.
As an undergrad at Bradford Uni a good curry meant "burnt at both ends". But as noted with the YMMV, when, in my second year I had a curry with some Birmingham students on a visit I made there they kept boasting/warning me how hot their curries were. I found mine surprisingly mild so I spooned some chilli powder on. Then I noticed that the table had gone silent. They were all staring at me, blowing through their mouths and making panting noises, while turning red.
In Bradford we often got these "macho" types of visitor who announced they could eat the hottest curry there was. We always tried to discourage them, genuinely. Telling them to go for something mild. But usually we failed. (Though sometimes, if the were really obnoxiously boastful about what they thought they could take, we'd deliberately start to make it sound like a challenge.) And enjoyed the fun. To put that in context; in my first term I did the inevitable visit to the campus GP, who had a stack of prescriptions ready written, followed by a visit to the chemist shop, who had a large box of brown bottles (Kaolin I think) ready....
Icon appropriated for this topic....
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 19:10 GMT ZippedyDooDah
Re: Not the worst of it
You remind me of my student days in Manchester 1979/1982.
In Rusholme in Manchester, there was a very cheap curry house called "The Palace" . It served a curry called "The Killer". It tasted delicious and lived up to it's name as half way through it became very unpleasant.
AFIK, in later years came the "Suicide". I can't find any evidence that it still exists. Must be burnt out.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 09:50 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Not the worst of it
"macho" types of visitor who announced they could eat the hottest curry there was
When that happens I'm always reminding of the Goodness Gracious Me sketch where they go out for "An English" and daringly ask for "the blandest thing on the menu"..
Kaolin I think
Probably Kaolin and morphine. The kaolin (being basically calcium carbonate) helps neutralise excess acid (and helps err.. solidify the gut contents) and the morphine smooths out spasmodic gut reactions. Sadly, not a lot of chemists carry it these days because it's got that eeevvviiillll morphine in it.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 15:22 GMT Zog_but_not_the_first
Re: Not the worst of it
" anything with chunks of real chilli can get a bit "Chuck Berry""
Johnny Cash Shirley?
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 11:13 GMT lglethal
Like Moths to a flame...
"Dragon's Breath was created by a farmer for the Chelsea Flower show and is so potent that it had to be kept in a sealed container when it went on display."
It had to be kept in a sealed container primarily because otherwise some Chav would try to prove their manliness by eating the darn thing and the farmer doesnt want to be sued for the damage it does to them...
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 22:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Like Moths to a flame...
Darwin Award material? Possibly. Something that would stand up in court (outside, of course, the US....) ? Not a chance in hell.
I dont know.... These days unless you make things difficult to steal then you have not been diligent enough in protecting people from their own stupidity....
Not forgetting that a 70 something year old pensioner ended up arrested for murder and bailed pending further enquiries after he stabbed a bugler with his own screwdriver when attacked by said thieving cu*t who then died in the street where his accomplices dumped him while they made their own get away.
fortunately they seen sense and was advised later that he would face no charges.... they should pin a meddle on him...
but its not quite as bad as in America, where a man in new york was walking around pointing what looked like a gun at people. it was reported by several people that a man was walking around pointing a gun... when the police arrived on scene and the man took up a pose like someone taking aim to shoot, he was shot and killed. It turned out he was pointing a metal welding gun.....
it all kicked off with the locals calling it a racist and unlawful killing, and one report I read said the police involved in the shooting had to be seen to in hospital for minor injuries...
its a crazy world we live in where we have to protect the stupid from themselves, or its our fault when they hurt themselves or others....
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Thursday 12th April 2018 09:55 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Like Moths to a flame...
you have not been diligent enough in protecting people from their own stupidity
My dad was an industrial pharmacist and worked on trying to make a temazipam preparation that couldn't be abused by addicts (who were in the habit of injecting the capsules liquid contents).
They tried formulating it as a high molecular-weight gel that couldn't be sucked up through a needle. Initially, it was a success until the addicts realised that. if they heated the gel, it became liquid.
Queue a series of addicts with potential gangrene in their arms because, as soon as the gel cooled in their veins, it would solidify again, blocking the blood vessel. Seems the team underestimated that cleverness and lack of common sense of people wanting their fix.
The product was withdrawn ASAP.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 11:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: In my youth
Evaporated milk mate, about half a can will neutralise it in the stomach and dissolve the capsaicin oil in the mouth. Quickest fix there is, apart from rinsing your mouth with not-scalding-temperature hot water, which displaces the capsaicin "oil". Kidneys stopped coping with Ghost Nagas in my 50's - like peeing lava.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 02:15 GMT Charles 9
Re: In my youth
To deal with capsaicin, you need either fats or alcohol. It's not water-solubule. Ice cream's a good idea not really for the sugar but for the fat content. The cheese is a good move, too. Cream cheese should hit the spot because it's only semi-solid. A good creamy dip or dressing (like Ranch) should be fatty enough to take the edge off. And using mouthwash is handy for a quick fix in the mouth (because of its alcohol content).
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 15:42 GMT wolfetone
Re: In my youth
"Evaporated milk mate, about half a can will neutralise it in the stomach and dissolve the capsaicin oil in the mouth. Quickest fix there is, apart from rinsing your mouth with not-scalding-temperature hot water, which displaces the capsaicin "oil". Kidneys stopped coping with Ghost Nagas in my 50's - like peeing lava."
I was making some sort of snack involving fried kidney beans and chopped up bacon, and I used the Blair's Mega Death sauce (The hottest one they do). Anyway, instead of a few drops about a teaspoon left the bottle. No matter, I carried on. Ate it, and I have never experienced pain like it. I was crying, my mouth felt like it was being stabbed multiple times.
Unfortunately for me the wife was on a "lactose free" diet, so there was no milk of any sort in the house. All I had was a four pack of Red Bull which I brought with me to the toilet. Swilled it round my mouth, gargled it, spat it out. Rinse and repeat, however after 4 cans it was still hellish. Ran down to the Tesco 3 floors below the flat, bought 2 lots of double cream and a 4pt of whole milk, downed the cream on the way back up to the flat.
Unfortunately for me a few hours later, no amount of cream or milk could heal my poor arse from the hellish abolutions I deposited in the toilet.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 11:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Ghost Peppers
I grow them on my kitchen windowsill all year round under LED lights. Anytime I need a chilli fix, I just reach out and grab one, eat it raw... and after a few years of doing thus... I can report that my eyesight has suffered - CSR they thought, but the big b*stard spots in front of my eyes could well be from bleeding on the brain around the visual cortex leading to pressure on the optic nerves. Lovely flavour though, I don't feel the heat anymore. It's an addiction, what can I say? I've got the Dragon's Breath Chilli Seeds bookmarked on ebay, for when these eventually die, if I don't die first.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 13:26 GMT Andy The Hat
Re: Ghost Peppers
Trouble with the Schoville tests now is that they are based on a single highest result from one seed or even a few placental scrapes from one heavily dehydrated fruit. It used to be an average of the entire fruit pulp so "1.5 million" or "2 million" in modern terms does not really mean a lot.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 16:31 GMT jake
My chickens love peppers in general, including the extremely hot ones. Birds don't have capsaicin receptors, and so don't feel the heat. The original wild hot chili (probably a variation of the tepin) was a tiny little thing, swallowed whole by birds (thus "bird chili"). Birds, being birds, later poop wherever they want, distributing the seeds. Every spring, I have volunteer chili plants growing wherever I allow the chooks to graze ... The volunteers that come up in the south-facing brush lines (or hedgerows) are the most likely to survive the winter, and are our first harvest in the spring. No, the birds don't lay spicy eggs (although I've been known to joke that they do!).
One wonders about the current avocado fad in Europe ...
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 14:28 GMT Robert Helpmann??
does it keep rabbits and deer at bay?
Rue and cat piss keeps them away. If you don't have a cat of your own, see about getting the remains of a neighbor's litter box and spreading it in a circle around the perimeter of your garden. If you add a double fence, you will have a very effective deterrent.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 17:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
'..If you don't have a cat of your own, see about getting the remains of a neighbor's litter box and spreading it in a circle around the perimeter of your garden.'
Fsck me, I've been binning the stuff out for years and now you tell me there's a potential market out there for used cat litter?, that I could have been raking in that sweet sweet katzenscheißgeld for decades?
Me: I want a loan to start a new 'Green' business
Bank Manager: No worries, what exactly would this business involve then?, got a business plan?
Me: Get a truck, go round collecting used cat litter, bag it, market it to garden centres as deer and rabbit repellent...
Bank Manager: Errrrrrr.....what's the 'Green' aspect?
Me: Ever smelled 100 tons of 'fresh' kitty litter?
On topic, I've not had the pleasure of meeting a Carolina Reaper yet (seeds are on the to-do list), I quite like the taste of the Bhut jolokias, but have had to be a bit more circumspect about using them thanks to kiddies, dog(s) and cats, though I do have to say that one of the cats we had back in the 80s did quite like his spicy food, he'd happily munch on unattended curries etc. containing Scotch Bonnets, though his favourite unattended dish was definately buttery mashed potatoes loaded with Cayenne and Dill.
My current lot are a bunch of wussey cats..black pepper (and to a lesser extent, white pepper) are their limits when it comes to raiding unattended spicy food..though a couple of them do seem to really like the taste of black pepper..so there's hope for them yet (the dog's a lost cause, opening a pack of Chili Heatwave(hah!) Doritos near her makes her sneeze and run away..)
Big question is, apropos its repellent properties, would the resulting used litter from chilli eating cats be Super Effective?
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 17:53 GMT Chris G
"Me: Ever smelled 100 tons of 'fresh' kitty litter?"
Made me laugh tea down my nostrils, missed the keyboard but my white cat is no longer sleeping next to me.
The weirdest 'pet' eating chilli was in my horse keeping days, we often use to trailer up and take the horses down to Camber Sands for weekends in the winter. In the evenings we would cook up pre prepared food on a driftwood fire, my mate John had brought some chilli con carne made with habanero/scotch bonnet peppers, when he put his plate down his mare finished off what was on the plate, chilli and rice.
The following day we clocked her at 43MPH running alongside the pickup truck.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 10:05 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
I've been binning the stuff out for years
We use the compressed wood cat-litter pellets. Once the... solids are removed (if the dog doesn't get them first[1]) the remaining sawdust can go into the compost heap. The urine acts as an accellerant and, as long as you also have enough green matter[2] going in as well, produce really good compost.
[1] Cats, being primary carnivores, don't have a terribly efficient digestion system. So quite a bit of the output is still good, meaty protein. If you are a dog anyway - one of our previous dogs used to follow the cats round the garden and consume the treats straight from the source, still nice and warm.. And people wonder why I prefer cats? And why I don't like dogs licking me..
[2] As my wife informs me, compost is a mix of brown matter and green matter. Get the mix wrong and you'll either get silage or unusable stuff that hasn't rotted down.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 11:28 GMT ForthIsNotDead
Not clever...
I know it's seen as a bit of fun, but I was talking to my son who is a paramedic about this subject over the Christmas holidays. It's really not a clever thing to do. The body goes into a form of shock similar to anaphylactic shock - it thinks it's been poisoned - which is exactly what has in fact happened - the body has just ingested a potent toxin. If you're a middle-aged out-of-shape type it can easily induce a heart attack. And guess what, if you've just scoffed one of those chilli's down, aint no one gonna resuscitate you!
Seriously, don't do it!
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 11:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Not clever...
Chilli plants are not out to kill you by the way, the illusion of extreme heat is nature's disincentive - chilli seeds are most optimally dispersed by birds, who lack capsaicin receptors. It takes humans to do something bird brained when it comes to truly hot chillies.
Like most poisons, you can build up a resistance. If you've never consumed extremely hot chillies before, starting off with a Reaper is going to lead you to the emergency room and even for people used to "Restaurant-hot" are not in the remotest sense prepared for the agony and ecstasy of one of the Apex Chillies: Reaper, Ghost< Naga, Dragon's Breath etc.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 13:16 GMT Grant Fromage
Re: Not clever...
Capsiascin is not toxic in any dose you can get from eating chillies known, The effects on the tissues with receptors it matches can put someone into shock, with that comes all the possibilities including death. otherwise this all looks a bit sniffy.
Capsaiscin is neutral and / or benefiical to the gut, but not to your chocolate starfish when it leaves the system.
Hot chillies are stomach benign and full of vit C and a shedload of other nice things.
Lips mouth eyes bum and even ears have plug ins for warning proteins and enzymes that were evolved for anti-bacteria immune wake up and the body functions which get triggered are known to get it from capsaicin too.
I have on a dare done stupid chillies, won a bet and had a day later only a ring stinger on afterburner.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 23:44 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: Hey thanks for the head's up!
I.. don't get it. Found a YT vid of someone eating 15 chicken wings dosed in a Pepper X sauce. He didn't appear to be enjoying the experience. Also curious how this stuff works, ie he had a bunch of sauce around his mouth, but didn't seem to produce inflammation. Also only 58k views, so monetising the experience probably didn't earn much.
Personally I think I'll stick to mild chillis like scotch bonnet, where at least I can appreciate the flavor. If I want pain, I'll work in sales again.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 02:21 GMT Charles 9
Re: Nominative Determinism?
"That makes me think. Has toothpaste got chilli in it? It certainly gave me a Clarkson experience."
You're probably thinking like arthritis creams that use capsaicin as an analgesic. That's why the Dragon's Breath has half its crop earmarked for medical research.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 11:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Nominative Determinism? - Capsaicin may have anti-cancer properties
Chemotherapy more like. The idea of chemotherapy agents is to kill the cancer cells, which are weaker than normal cells, without quite killing you. In the early days it didn't always work out too well, now oncologists usually know when to stop.
Several naturally occurring substances have been investigated for potential chemotherapy use, and proven far too toxic.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 11:58 GMT Richard Gray 1
Obviously not Thai...
I am fortunate enough to be married to a wonderful Thai lady (met in an Irish pub in Norway.. go figure)
As a Thai, she loves her papaya salad "poc poc" (the name comes from the sound in the pestle and mortar). Her freinds love her salad when she puts in about 5-6 birds eye chilies. I can stomach about 1/2 a birds eye chili ) my wonderful other half likes about 20 of the damn things in..
And don't get me started on her drying and grinding chilies or the dried squid that she warms up as a snack in the oven...
Still both are better than the result of her eating "falang" (western) food specifically baked beans in the great British fry up...
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 19:13 GMT Chris G
Re: Obviously not Thai...
Some years ago I used to knock around with a Ghanaian mate who was a chef, when he first learned that I like a good curry he invited me and my girlfriend round for dinner one evening. His girlfiend warned me that his curries tended to be quite hot, so I told her I like a good hot curry.
What she didn't tell me was about the African salad on the side, it had tiny green chillies in it that Fred ate like sweets, when I ate one it was not only bloody hot but on the side I chewed it felt as though I had just been punched by Muhammad Ali.
It also taught me the true meaning of the word afterburner.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 20:51 GMT Colabroad
Re: To be honest
I've come to appreciate the scotch bonnet, (a sweeter cousin of the habernero if my wife is to be believed).
Especially when it's used in jerk chicken cooked/smoked in a grill made of an old metal barrel. I wind down the windows driving past these places just for the smell!
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 13:43 GMT GruntyMcPugh
Re: To be honest
I disagree also, I'm quite partial to a Naga, and they weigh in close to a million. I grew some from the seeds of a pepper a Bangladeshi colleague gave me. Grew into nice tall plants, got quite a few chillis off each, and one was enough to curry a whole chicken, and make it quite rewarding. Some of these hotter chillies actually taste nice, the Naga has a quite complex fug going on (think guava), it's not just one dimensional heat, and it's a hell of a lot nicer than the far less hot bird's eye chilli, which I find quite bitter.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 10:57 GMT Nick Kew
Re: To be honest
@Grunty - Agree, birdseyes are a bit bitter. A decade or so ago they were the only generally-available hot chillies, and I used them a lot. Then came the bonnets and habaneros to a shop near me, and the sweeter flavour of my curries, soups and stirfries was a revelation - though a half a bonnet could substitute for half a dozen birdseyes in terms of heat (sadly not true of the much more bland scotch bonnets which are all I can get now).
You do get desensitised. So an upper limit beyond which things become pure machismo is entirely subjective.
Icon for dragonsbreath. Chewing a habanero raw would be pure machismo for me, though I've chewed birdseyes for medicinal purposes (when I had a concert to sing and a nasty cold).
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 13:48 GMT aenikata
It's not masochism
The endorphin rush of eating hot food is well established - chilli eaters get a high of sorts from it.
People have all different levels of tolerances. Not many dare try the 9 Million Scoville 'Psycho Slayer' chilli extract, even in microscopic portions. For most Instant Regret chocolate is well named (and truly fierce). But there are those of us who find most Habanero sauces 'fairly mild' and treat a 200,000 Scoville BBQ sauce as a regular condiment. Having reached those levels eating a few Carolina Reapers isn't that silly a feat. Assuming you're hard enough to take something way hotter than you've ever had before while also trying to out-eat a bunch who may be better prepared i. But competition is about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, pushing your limits, in chilli eating as well as sports. There's much more stupid things around (like the tide pod challenge).
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 14:04 GMT 0laf
I like things hotter than most people but that doesn't mean I'm remotely interested in eating any of these weaponised fruit. Chili heat for some reasons hits the Chinese Food gland. You eat one, suffer a bit, recover and 10min later your brain is telling you to eat some more.
However I find the videos of idiots eating them on you tube absolutely hilarious so please keep up the good work.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 18:37 GMT handleoclast
I hear eating hot peppers cures hemorrhoids.
Doesn't cure, but makes them a lot easier to live with.
Your intestines release mucous because of the irritation from capsaicin. That softens up the stool. It comes out a lot easier. I eat enough chillies to soften a park bench, let alone a stool.
Warning: if you overdo the chillies and something causes you to cough hard that can result in a penguin walk home for clean underwear.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 14:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Gosh - Not a single mention of Darwin Awards
I'm surprised nobody has asked if anybody has ever died from eating a chilli, indeed the name Reaper does indicate a certain morbidness.
I have to confess that as I've got older, my ability to handle a strong chilli has got worse and worse. I was never very good to start off with, but now even a mild high st curry is far too strong for me. I have no idea how I'd ever be able to handle anything on the scale in five digits, never mind 6 and 7!
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Thursday 12th April 2018 02:27 GMT Charles 9
Re: Gosh - Not a single mention of Darwin Awards
"I'm surprised nobody has asked if anybody has ever died from eating a chilli, indeed the name Reaper does indicate a certain morbidness."
Because it's exceedingly rare for it to happen and IINM entails some pre-existing condition. Otherwise, it may feel like you want to die, but you'll nearly always survive the ordeal.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 15:27 GMT Bandikoto
Shades of seventies/eighties tales about that suspect rock and roll guy
Leave it to a British publication to make such a serious error about American Rock and Roll. "Don't Fear the Reaper" is by Blue Öyster Cult, not the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Also, semen, even in massive amounts, doesn't cause stomach upset.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 16:47 GMT Stevie
Bah!
I have never understood the attraction of food so heavily spiced that all one can taste is the spice. As for the utility of these super-hot peppers, well, most of their uses would seem to contravene either local laws or in extreme cases the Geneva accords on chemical weapon use.
Idiotic.
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Tuesday 10th April 2018 20:08 GMT Luiz Abdala
Special Jalapeños...
We had a very special jar of jalapeños... that sat on the mess hall, behind a Nuclear Power Plant Control Room.
The few employees that had the privilege -or orders - to eat there were aware of that special jar, regularly topped up with the purest olive oil. Never a single piece of those peppers was removed from the jar - except one - since the power plant was commissioned in the year 2.000. It was 2003 and it was still there, looking exactly like a fresh bottle, bought in any store. The bravest ones would serve a few drops of that liquid in their meals, with no ill-effects in the short term. Even the most insipid grub would spring to life with a single oily drop of that vial. I have tasted it myself, and survived to tell the tale.
It was said that the Power Plant was jump-started with a single piece of jalapeño, from that flask, neutron emitters be damned. Since the lights on that mess hall were never actually turned off, fed from the same circuit of the control room, in a constantly inhabited place, nobody knows if that thing could actually glow in the dark or jump-start a Nuclear Power Plant, and nobody will ever know.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
