Plant breeding: The world’s hottest chili pepper is simply brutal
“Pepper X” breaks all previous hotness records around the world. Consumption is likely to cause harm to health.
© Heatonist / Julian Bracero (details)
The ‘Pepper X’ variety is considered one of the hottest chili peppers in the world. He beat the previous record by a wide margin.
Even handling it should be done with the utmost care, and its consumption is probably not recommended: ‘Pepper X’ is the hottest chili pepper anyone has ever raised and breaks all records. According to what was stated in the Guinness Book of World Records. Multiplication yields a value of 2.69 million Scolville degrees (Scolville Heat Units, SHU), the unit of measurement in which spiciness is specified. This means that “Pepper X” beats previous leader “Carolina Reaper” by 1 million units. It is 500 times hotter than the common jalapeno pepper, which is popular in Mexican cuisine, for example.
The plant was bred by Ed Corey from the US state of South Carolina, who is actually responsible for the ‘Carolina Reaper’. In all, the breeding took more than ten years, during which Currie conducted strict breeding selection and crossed several extremely hot pepper varieties with each other to finally obtain the new record holder. Its sharpness was tested in a laboratory at Winthrop University and the achieved value was determined. The pods or seeds of the plant should not be sold – which is probably best for health reasons.
As reported to the BBC, Corey is one of only five people to have taken the entire Pepper A very moving experience: “I felt sharp for three and a half hours before the cramps started. Those cramps were terrible. “I lay on the marble floor in the rain for an hour and groaned in pain,” said the farmer, who is accustomed to eating extremely hot peppers. Untrained people are therefore strongly advised not to “enjoy” it, as the “Hot Chili Callenge” circulating on social media shows. As a result, the young people had to be hospitalized several times; Even deaths have already been reported.
Capsaicin, which is responsible for the spiciness sensation, is found primarily in the so-called chili pepper’s placenta, the light-colored tissue that holds the seeds. Because of the distinctive shape of the fruit, Pepper X is able to develop this placenta over a relatively large area, which leads to an increase in the concentration of capsaicin in the fruit. Through the sensation of heat, the compound causes the body to release dopamine and endorphins, which (if you can handle the heat) can in turn trigger feelings of happiness. According to his own statement, chili peppers helped Corey overcome his addiction to alcohol.
SHU, in turn, goes back to pharmacologist Wilbur Scoville, who developed it in 1912. In the past, the level of spiciness was determined indirectly and purely subjectively, today it is determined primarily by measurement.
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