Well, yesterday was the day of heat talk. This got me looking into the heat producers a little more and I found some interesting information.
Capsaicin is what most people talk about when they are talking about hot spicy food. The following is from the long Wikipedia article about capsaicin.
"Because of the burning sensation caused by capsaicin when it comes in contact with mucous membranes, it is commonly used in food products to provide added spice or "heat" (piquancy), usually in the form of spices such as chili powder and paprika. In high concentrations, capsaicin will also cause a burning effect on other sensitive areas, such as skin or eyes. The degree of heat found within a food is often measured on the Scoville scale. Because some people enjoy the heat, there has long been a demand for capsaicin-spiced products like chili pepper, and hot sauces such as Tabasco sauce and Mexican salsa."
Usually, I see mention of things like the Carolina Reaper that has a Scoville unit rating of 2.2 million which is deathly hot. But in the article, there is a chart that mentions the Scoville units of capsaicin at...
Can you read that top line? Capsaicin - 16,000,000 Scoville units. This is the first time I've ever seen it measured that high. It must be a concentrated version. I really can't tell from the article.
So, there probably couldn't be anything much hotter, right? HA!
I found this chart in the Wikipedia article on Scoville units. It talks about the wimpy Scoville ratings.
Then there was this other chart.
What's that top line say? Resiniferatoxin - 16 BILLION Scoville units. Here's a clip from the Wikipedia article.
"Animal experiments on rats suggest that, in humans, ingestion of 1.672 g may be fatal or cause serious damage to health. It causes severe burning pain in sub-microgram (less than 1/1,000,000th of a gram) quantities when ingested orally."
That would make some HHHHHHHHOT chili!
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18 comments:
I am more interested in flavour than heat. And some chili dishes burn going down, and burn coming out.
I used the Scoville scale as the basis for my "Gohmert Stupidity Scale" (https://bilbosrandomthoughts.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-new-official-unit-of-stupidity_14.html). Like the Scoville Scale, my scale tops out at 3,000,000 ghm ("Gohmert Units"), although that often seems far too low for much of today's ass clownery.
Like Elephant's Child said, I'm more about the flavor then the heat. Jalapeno, in modest amounts, is about as hot as I want to go.
Sue - I can't get past the hot to taste anything.
Bill - Someday you can have a special resiniferatoxin award.
Kathy - The English language can be strange. "I'm more about the flavor then the heat." You either meant "than", or forgot a comma after "flavor". Either way would make sense.
I could tolerate hot spicy food a lot better when I was younger. Now it does a real number on me.
Deb - It does ALL the numbers on me.
I like both -- spicy and flavorful food.
John - I'll try and find some resiniferatoxin for you.
I liked that hilarious line in "HOWARD THE DUCK" (1986) when they was in that cafe and that geezer was slowly turning into one of The Dark Overlords of the Universe and that chef geezer looked at the other geezer from the kitchen and said: "That geezer must`a ate the chili". BTW Mike, the old style Ray Harryhausen-esque special effects in that movie still have a certain amount of charm to them, if you haven`t seen it for a long time its well worth a re-watch, as is "BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA" from the same year.
HOT!
LJ - Never saw that one.
Cloudia - Nope!
NO! I don't like it hot, can't eat hot stuff anymore. Just make it flavorful and I'm good-to-go.
I like Spicy but flavor imparted is more important to me than level of Heat. I guess I can eat Spicier foods than most since Friends and Family cannot handle that which I think is just Right and say it's much too Hot for them. Of coarse some Cultures idea of Hot varies, whenever I'm asked in a Thai Restaurant how Hot I want what I've ordered I learned to say medium Hot because that's MY level of tolerance of Thai Spicy. *LOL* I've had them get carried away to where I cough just smelling the level of Heat and would choke if I tried to eat it... it's all subjective I suppose. I learned something interesting on the Food Network Yesterday while binge watching a Cooking Challenge. I Love fresh Cilantro and wondered why some people Hate it and say it tastes vile? They said that with Cilantro, some Genetic Markers make it taste like Soap... who knew? Yes, a mouthful of anything that tastes like Soap would be vile!
As everyone else seems to be saying, "spicy" as a flavor, but not as a temperature for its own sake.
Dawn - I don't know if I've ever had cilantro. I do know I've never eaten soap before.
Kirk - For me, spicy doesn't have any flavor. It's just hot!
I love the heat/spicey foods but not to the point of burning my insides. But I think I like heat more than most. When others say it's too hot I usually think it's just right.
And to what Bohemian said above, yes cilantro tastes like soap to me too!
Ain't nature grand?
Dellgirl - I'm with you.
Peg - I'm all confused. When I saw this comment in my comment stream I thought it was from the previous post and it didn't post. But it did post, here, where it was supposed to. I thought blogger was messing with you. Instead, it was just me messing with myself.
Lady - I want some of that resiniferatoxin... in a well-sealed package.
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