Over the years we have
grown quite fond of peppers, not the green bell peppers that everyone puts on
pizza and in chili but the red-hot spicy kind! We
love the kind of peppers that add real spice to whatever you're
cooking.
Peppers come in all kinds of
shapes, sizes, colors, and heats. A Scoville is the
measurement of the chemical
Capsaicin, which provides peppers with their spicy flavor. The more capsaicin,
the HOTTER it is. And you can forget about killing that hot
taste by gulping water or beer ... that's the worst thing you can do. Capsaicin
is an oil; water and beer just spread it around. To cool the hot flavor from
peppers, you need to down some milk or something dairy-oriented.
Capsaicin causes a
long-lasting selective desensitization to the irritant pain by repeated doses of
a low concentration or a single dose of a high concentration. This is familiar
to us 'Chile-heads' as the ability to increasingly be
able to eat hotter and hotter foods. Our taste buds basically build
a tolerance to the chemical
allowing us to eat spicy foods without them being spicy. That's why something
that's not 'hot' to someone can be 'killer
hot' to another. So be very careful when someone says "Try this, it's
not hot" ... you never know if it’s going to hurt you!
Chile peppers increase the bodies
endorphin production and endorphins are natural opiates. These are the
mood-elevating substances which are also released when performing physical
aerobic exercises.
But how?
An alkaloid substance called Capsaicin
(8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide) that causes the heat of chiles and peppers is
a flavourless, odourless chemical concentrated in the veins of chiles and
peppers. When eaten, capsaicin stimulates the brain to release a
neurotransmitter called substance P, which lets the brain know something painful
is going on. The brain, 'thinking' that the body is in big trouble, mistakenly
responds by turning on the waterworks to douse the flames. The mouth starts to
salivate, the nose starts to run, the eyes might start to water and the face
breaks into a sweat. The heart beats faster and the natural painkiller endorphin
is secreted. In other words, Chile-Heads get a buzz!
Chile peppers are the fruit of the
plant Capsicum that forms part of the nightshade family (Solanaceae).
The heat of chile peppers is
measured in Scoville Heat Units. Bell peppers rank at zero
SHU's, Jalapeños at 3,000–6,000 SHU's and Habaneros at 300,000 SHU's. The
record for the highest number of SHU's in a pepper is assigned by the Guinness
Book of Records, to the Red Savina Habanero, with 577,000 SHU's.
A recent report was made of a
pepper from India called the Naga Jolokia measuring at 855,000 SHU's.
Pure capsaicin rates at 16,000,000
SHU's.
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