Apparently, when you taste the world’s hottest pepper, both your face and chest feel tight, and it’s difficult to form words, as evidenced by the reaction on the YouTube show “Hot Ones.”
Ed Currie, creator of Pepper X, appeared on the show to receive the Guinness World Record for the hottest pepper, measuring an average of 2. 693 million Scoville Heat Units. A jalapeno, by contrast, measures between 2,500 and 8,000 SHU.
“Did You Invent That Pepper?” asked Currie, after a musician Claus Pilgaard tried Pepper X. “Why?”
Breaking the streak
Until now, no one had beaten the previous record for the world’s hottest pepper in over a decade. Currie is also the creator of that pepper, the Carolina Reaper.
Wilbur Scoville created his namesake metric in 1912, which measures the concentration levels of capsaicin within the pepper.
Capsaicin is a chemical compound that gives peppers their burn. Researchers use laboratory equipment to precisely measure the amount.
Eating these extremely spicy peppers can lead to all sorts of unpleasant effects, including “thunderclap” headaches, when blood vessels tighten suddenly, restricting blood flow to the brain. There can also be more serious complications, including death.
How Pepper X compares to the 6 hottest peppers before it
Since 2011, Guinness has awarded several peppers with the prestiguous honor of “world’s hottest.” Here’s how they stack up to Pepper X.
The post How the world’s hottest new pepper, Pepper X, compares to its top 6 predecessors like the Carolina Reaper and Ghost appeared first on Business Insider.
