Hey, everyone, it's Chuck here, since we're all looking for binge worthy shows to watch these days, you've got to check out the new Discovery Plus streaming service. They have thousands of episodes from brands like Food Network, TLC, Lifetime, HDTV. And it's not just stuff you already watch every day, Discovery plus as exclusive originals that you've never seen and can't see anywhere else. It's the biggest collection of real life entertainment, your favorite shows and personalities, plus exclusive originals, all in one place for just 499 a month.

Stream what you love.

You know, nothing is better than learning while you're entertained. And that's why we love Curiosity's stream. It's Netflix for nerds or Hulu for history buffs, or Disney Plus for the scientists in US. Curiosity Stream has thousands of documentaries on science, nature, history and more you can watch on your computer, your phone, your tablet or your TV. And with our code, as we ask it, 25 percent off your annual subscription visit. Curiosity streamed dotcom code Suay České to subscribe happy nerdy.

Hi everybody.

Chuck here. Happy Saturday. Do you want to know how Chili Peppers work? Because we did and we learned this is from September 10th. Twenty fifteen. How Chili Peppers work. It's hot stuff. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark, this Charles W. Chuck Bright and Jerry, and that makes this stuff you should know. Was so good that, quote, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the band, they apparently used them at Guantanamo Bay, the torture of prisoners.

Really? Yeah, that surprises me. I know usually that's like I've heard of stories like that, but usually it's some kind of dark metal or something like Super Starland Vocal Band. Some might say abrasive. Some might think it's very soothing to hear death metal.

Supposedly, there's a study out there that had a ridiculously small study population that found that it's calming, has a calming influence.

Metal music does paid for by the Metal Association of North America. Right. The Skandinavia. Yeah. Kind of surprised they played the Chili Peppers since it's pretty easy on the air, isn't it?

Well, one of the songs with Californication, the other later stuff isn't as good. Yeah, I could go a little crazy with that one. Yeah, I'll talk.

What were you going to quote.

I was going to say give it away. Give it away now. Or something like that. Or fight like a brave. I've heard that on early stuff you could just say like under the bridge downtown. Yeah, I made a chili pepper. I actually read his biography. I guess it was an autobiography. Anthony Kiedis. Because he writing about himself.

Yeah, I was just going through a kick where I was reading music autobiographies of four just rock star stories.

Didn't you recommend the Motley Crue is the best? Which one was it? Uh, there's one quintessential one. I can't remember what it's called. The quintessential crew. Yeah.

Just look, I mean, it's that's not an autobiography. That's just a biography. Yeah, but that one's really good. This one is good. And the key. This one is good man. He a guy. He had troubles. Oh, yeah, just bad drug troubles and woman troubles over and over and over, huh? But he's good now.

Well, good for him. Yeah. Welcome back to the fray, Anthony. That's what I'd say.

So we're not talking about the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We're talking about Red Hot Chili Peppers. All right, Natalie. All right. We're talking about chili peppers, depending on where you are in the world, chili peppers or chili peppers or just chili. Yeah, you could say that. I think a lot of chefs just call them chilies. Well, yeah, because they're like they don't waste words. No, they don't say peppers. It's a couple of extra syllables.

Yeah, exactly. No, chef, give me some of those chilies.

Uh, it is the bell pepper and the celery stalk and the onion is part of the trinity of I guess you would call it Northlands Cooking. Sure. The bell pepper is chili pepper. It's just a non hot chili pepper, but it's still the same thing. Yeah. And it turns out we get that terminology chili. It actually was used by the Aztecs or the Triple Alliance and Mesoamerica, the triple Lindis, the Triple Alliance.

So prior to the arrival of Columbus and it was Columbus himself where we get the the misnomer chili pepper because Columbus, he's a big dummy.

Can I get anything right now?

So he comes across the chili pepper and decides that it must be a relative of the black pepper with which he and the rest of Europe are already very familiar. Sure. So he calls it the chili pepper because he here is up in Mexico. They call it chili. Yeah. So at the Triple Alliance calls it. Yeah. So that's where it came from, Chili Peppers. But it has no relation whatsoever to chili or the pepper. The black pepper.

Yes. And it's been around, it's actually one of the oldest domesticated crops in the Americas actually. Yeah.

It started out in South America about 6000 years ago. I saw 9000, let's say between five and 12.

Okay. And they don't know whether it was Bolivia or Brazil. There's a heated debate in the Pepper community on the country of origin, but they do know that birds are the ones who disperse them and birds can't feel heat in their mouth. Right. They carry them around and propagate the seeds. And then Columbus, of course, brought them to Europe. And that's how things spread.

That's why you can use hot sauce or chili pepper spray or something like that on your bird seed to deter squirrels. Yeah, because the birds are fine.

Yeah, but the squirrels, the squirrels just run around going hot, hot, hot, hot, hot.

And it says here the birds can't digest pepper seeds, but nobody can really digest pepper seeds. I can't whole.

I totally can. I can't. I will show you right now you're going to show me your stool.

Uh, no, we can't digest them either because we don't digest seeds that aren't chewed because they're covered in cellulose and it just goes straight through to our poop.

Exactly the same as corn. Yeah, because that is a seed. It is.

I'm glad you finally said that. Somebody needed to say.

I think that's one of the trendy facts. Don't you think that corn is a seed? Yeah, it probably seems like I saw that all over the Internet.

It's pretty hot right now. Corn and poop.

It's a hot topic. So I don't know. Don't be dumb on on hot topics, man. Now, corn, corn and poop. Yep.

Yeah, it's a hot topic. So Columbus brings the stuff back and it spreads like crazy. Like syphilis. Yeah. Because think about this.

Chili peppers were are native to the Americas and we're unknown outside of the Americas until about 500 or so years ago. Yeah. Now they're grown in just about every country in the world. Yeah. There's all different types of varieties, but it turns out that there's 25 wild species and five domesticated species.

And one of the noteworthy things about chili peppers is most of the time when humans domesticated a wild crop, yeah, they would stop using the wild version of it because it was just so far inferior to the domesticated version. Right? Not so with with chilies. Yeah. Wild chilies are just as prized, if not more prized than the domesticated ones. They're delicious.

So there's five species, Chuck. And by the way, Chili Peppers belong to the Nightshade family. Yes. With potatoes, tomatoes, goji berries, eggplants in nightshade. Yep. And the five species are fun to say.

Yeah, I would even going to do it, but I encourage you to OK. Capsicum and your capsicum, Tunisie genessee capsicum flutists, capsicum, macadam and capsicum, pubescence, these have little hairs on them.

Yeah, I saw that one coming. So those are the five families.

Peppers are generally hot, although we'll get into all that with the varieties. Like you said, the everyone knows Bel's aren't very hot. Right. But what you're talking about with the heat is what's called their pungency. And the heat actually comes from alkaloids present in the peppers called capsaicin. Yes, which we talked about in December of 2011 with pepper spray pepper spray episode. Yeah, because that's the that's what they're using in pepper spray. If you didn't listen to it, go check it out.

It's a good one. But yeah, it's kind of funny to think about defense. Self-defense tool is really just canned hot pepper. Yeah. Because that stuff can be it works.

Yeah. It really does work. Um, and with with the the pungency of a pepper, most people think that it's found in the seeds and it's actually a myth.

Well it is found in the seeds. It's not housed in the seeds. Right. So the seeds are attached to the pepper itself through something called the placenta. Yeah. It's a membrane that white stuff that's inside of a pepper, right? Yeah.

And that's where the capsaicin is is stored. Yeah. And since the seeds are attached to the membrane, a lot of that stuff makes it its way to the seeds. But if you really want the high heat, you eat the membrane.

If you want the high heat, just eat the whole thing. I d seed and the membrane mine. But if you're looking for heat then just don't even sweat it. Literally don't sweat it. That's yeah. That's like the second at least pine that you've made. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well it's the first one. Something was there were both accidental hot.

I can't remember what it was. Oh well those are just words. No it was perfect.

It was really great. Uh, so the the pain is actually not coming from your taste buds because they don't feel pain. It's coming from pain receptors in your mouth. And it sends a message to your to your brain saying this is super hot. I wouldn't eat that much unless you like it. Right.

It's the same pain receptors that tell you that say the sip of coffee you just took is too hot. Yeah. Or like something is thermally too hot. It's triggered by capsaicin. It's the tea RPV one receptor.

And that triggers the release of a neurotransmitter called substance P and that's capsaicin can also block what's crazy is.

Yes. So the it's what we'll talk about a little more later.

But capsaicin is used as a topical pain reliever like Shaquille O'Neal knows that as he does.

He I think it's like I see hives. Yeah. Oh, really? So capsaicin, if you rub it on the skin, it goes to those tea RPV one receptors and basically overloads them so thoroughly that they're no longer able to transmit the sensation of pain. Yeah. In that area. So it's a local anesthetic. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah it is. And lots of other health benefits that we'll talk about. Yeah. Peppers are great for you.

Peppers are super. Uh they do not cause ulcers. That is a myth. And in fact they protect the stomach lining or can. Yeah. And they can also thin the blood. So you need to watch out for that if you are on an anticoagulant. Yeah. I don't know if they say that on the prescription or not, but the pepper prescription.

No, prescribed it in California. It's, uh, no the anti-coagulant prescription. Of course it might.

Uh, but if you are in a contest or just at dinner and your mouth becomes inflamed, don't well, you can drink water. I think it provides pretty stupid a temporary respite.

I don't know if it even does that. It does for me. It basically moves the stuff around and throughout your mouth.

Yeah. Which is not good.

What you want is something fatty. Yeah. Like milk. Yeah.

Because capsaicin dissolves in the presence of fats or like if you eat a lot of Mexican food or Indian food, that sour cream and that yogurt is a nice way to smooth that out. That's what it's there for baby. Well that in taste and and flavor and texture and everything else. Yeah I guess. Yeah.

It's not like they're like you said, some sour cream because this is too hot. Right. But it definitely helps. I read an article actually with a guy who was in a contest and he was a hot pepper guy and he described I think he ate like three ghost peppers just in twenty seconds. Yeah. And he was fine at first. Then it got hot like in it. Not his mouth but in his throat. Yeah. And then he just kept going through waves like he said it would go away and I thought it was good things.

Like an hour later it felt like a red hot burning Nicole on my sternum and it was just moving its way down, I guess. Man And then he said he felt jubilation like exhilaration, which we'll talk about. This is one of the effects of peppers that can, you know, pick up your mood. But he said he was just like felt like he was on cocaine. Weird, yeah. Yeah, because they trigger a release of endorphins.

Exactly.

So you can get a runner's high or some sort of high off of eating cocaine, which is why some people eat peppers. It really makes them feel great. Yeah. I guess this guy wasn't a runner.

He must have just done some cocaine before it. Right. Because that was his go to.

And so you said that birds are immune to the effects of peppers and they also spread the seed by pumping it out, right? Yeah. Mammals are not immune to the effects of it, including humans. And apparently humans are the only mammals that purposefully eat peppers. And it's been called a form of benign masochism. Oh, really? Yeah, interesting.

But it makes sense if and the reason why they think peppers have that kind of burning thing is to protect itself, to ward off mammals from eating it. Sure. But the the idea that we can get some sort of rush from it. It's kind of counterintuitive, if you think about it, as far as evolution goes from the pepper standpoint. Sure, yeah, because that encourages people to keep eating you. Yeah, that's a good point. All right, well, let's take a break here and we'll come back and talk a little bit about how the heat is measured in a hot pepper.

You know, you should you know, some. Stuff you should know is brought to you by progressive insurance, saving money on your car insurance is easy with progressive.

It's an average savings of over 750 dollars for customers who switch and save. In fact, customers can qualify for an average of six discounts on their auto policy when they sign up.

Yeah, discounts for things like enrolling in automatic payments, insuring more than one car, going paperless and of course, being a safe driver.

There are so many ways to save when you switch. And once you're a customer with progressive, you get unmatched claim service with 24/7 support online or by phone.

It's no wonder why more than 22 million drivers trust progressive and why they've climbed to the third largest auto insurer in the country.

See all the discounts for yourself at progressive dotcom. Get your quote online and as low as five minutes and find out how much you could be saving today.

National annual average auto insurance savings by new customers surveyed in 2019. Potential savings will vary. Discounts vary and are not available in all states and situations such as.

Support for this podcast and the following message come from E-Trade, you want to invest your money, but there's one problem you're not sure where to begin. Luckily, there's ETrade, who offers more than just trading. E-Trade simplifies investing without the financial jargon and has the people to offer guidance and support to make your money work hard for you. For more information, visit ETrade dot com heart. ETrade Securities LLC member FINRA Sipek.

All right, I guess we need to talk about Wilbur Scoville, Mr. Scoville. Was he a doctor? He was a pharmacist. Yeah, but I wondered if he was a doctor. I think he got an honorary doctorate. He deserved one. You count those. Oh, sure. All right. Probably depends on where it's from, what it's for, but sure.

Yeah, I would of course, you if I got one, I'd be like, you can call me doctor.

Mr. Doctor. Mr., uh, he was a pharmacist. Like you said. He'd developed something called the Scoville Organo Elliptic test in 1912.

And what this is a hilarious name for what is it is kind of weird, isn't it?

You should just call it the chili test or something. It just made me laugh like a gun. Well, previous to this test, the only test was basically just to have people eat them and ask them how how. Yeah, but it's pretty hot. OK, that's a pretty hot pepper.

Get me some milk. Fat. All right.

Technically, pork fat or whatever, you just need a slab of fat and get rid of it real quick. Yeah, they said chocolate, too, will help you. Well, it's a fatty. Yeah. Full of lipids. I think that some people just like to eat chocolate with their hot stuff.

Uh, so Schofield says there's got to be a better way. And he says, why don't we devise a test where we have people eat peppers and ask them how hot it is? Pretty much. But let's do it in a little bit different way. Let's keep feeding them peppers that are more diluted until they can't feel heat any longer. Right. And just make it a little more organized. Informal.

So this Scoville, the Scoville heat unit is what it comes up with. Right. So, for example, Bell Pepper has a zero, not hot, but say habanero, some types of habanero peppers can get up to like 500000. Yeah, I think the red something. Oh, what is it? I'm sorry. The red salvinia. Habanero pepper got up to 570000 Scoville heat units. Yeah, it's very hot.

And what that means is that it would take 570000 cups of water to dilute one cup of extract from the red salvinia habanero and one shot of milk fat right before before anybody could say I detect no heat whatsoever.

Yeah, this is that's what yeah. It's a tremendous amount of water.

And it's not like he was pouring a whole cup of this stuff into five hundred and seventy thousand cups of water. It's math.

I think he just used fractions. Yeah, probably so. Yeah.

You know, a minute to come to that conclusion. I was like, what kind of vat at this guy have in his yard?

A big one. Uh, so that was the the old test. And even though they no longer use that, they still use that S.H. you Scoville heat unit as the unit of measure, which I think is a nice little tip of the cap. It is because it could have changed it. Wilbur Scoville's ghost is like, I approve.

Now what they do is use liquid chromatography. Uh, and they've been doing that since about the 70s. And that's not specific to testing peppers. It's basically just, uh, separating and analyzing compounds of any mixture. Right.

But you can target the specific type of compound. And in this case, you're looking for the alkaloid capsaicin. Yes. And you determine how many parts per million is present in a given pepper and it takes the subjectivity out.

Yeah. And it's literally just measuring the level capsaicin level in any pepper.

But what's need is they figured out Scoville is clearly on to something because they figured out that if you take this high performance liquid chromatography measurement. Yeah. And multiply the number it spits out by sixteen, you will come to the Scoville unit.

So he was getting. Yeah. By a factor of sixteen. Not bad, but that's neat that you can it's not like sixteen point ninety five seven or something like that, or multiply it by the fact that you can multiply it by a standard number and come to the Scoville heat unit each time means he is doing something right. Something there's something there. Yeah.

Scoville where they go that sounds like one of the real men of genius commercials or something. Right. Uh, I guess.

Well, should we get to some of the types of peppers now. Are we there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so.

Because if you're a scientist, there's two ways to classify a pepper by its heat using the Scoville Heat Unit Index. Yeah. And by its shape.

Yes. And then color. Well, apparently scientists don't classify them by color. I'm talking about you and me, buddy. Hot heads. We're in the kitchen, OK. Or and we're looking at peppers. Yeah. And we're like, look at that red one. Look at that green wrinkly one. Right. That one's shape. Funny, right? That's a funny shape.

That's how we classify red funny shaped one really hot, wrinkly or smooth. There's another thing you might notice, but, uh, you're right, as far as science is concerned, it's heat in shape and then the shapes go from shape to shape.

I write. And my favorite descriptor is the lantern shape. I think that's great. Yeah, that's the habanero. Yeah, very thin skinned and very hot.

Yeah. Can you can you eat peppers, which I didn't even ask this. I eat a lot of peppers. Um, my heat tolerance isn't great. I do like the heat, but I'm a bit of a wimp.

So like what kind of pepper do you normally. Can you like a scotch bonnet. Well, I mean, I cook a lot with just bells. Of course, that doesn't count. Sure they do. OK, because they're peppers. All right. Um, so I cook a lot with those, but I cook a lot with Poblanos. Anaheim's Chipotle.

It's how opinion Serranos and Chipotle is used threw me off its Chipotle. Chipotle. Chipotle is a smoked habanero, right. Yeah.

And Ancho is a dried serrano. Ancho is dried poblano. That's right. Ancho powder. Yeah. That's from Puebla, Mexico. Right. Uh poblanos are great if you want to make a good chili reino. Oh yeah. Because they're about the right size and they're really just hearty, thick, waxy. They hold up.

Well yeah. You mean I aficionados of those things of the poblano know of the chili reino. Oh yeah. Find a good one of those. Yeah.

You know it's funny in college, you know I worked at Mexicali Grill which I don't think is even a thing anymore. Oh really. I know the one in Atlanta Highway closed, which was very surprised. It was an institution and their chili reno, like a lot of the when you go to some, you know, kind of the cheaper Mexican places that have like the menu with eighty combinations, there's a lot of times you'll find that you'll which is a ball of beef wrapped in cheese sitting on top of a one inch square green bell pepper.

I have not seen that one. Yeah, that was what artillery. And it was basically just meat and cheese. Man No, but you want the real thing, which is stuffed in a real pepper. Uh, and a lot of people use breading unnecessary.

I can have it both ways.

It's well, it's supposed to have some sort of fried wrapper around it and the breading is usually too much.

The better way to do it is like a thin omelet, almost like a crepe around it.

Everyone tell you now those are so good. Yeah. Good stuff. All right. Well, let's back up then. OK, back to the bells, which you don't consider peppers, evidently.

Well, I mean, as far as you're talking, heat. Yeah. Yeah, no heat, but they're great to grill and and I can't say anything.

I can't really go beyond a hall of pain. You, uh, you can't stand the heat. No.

So I'm frequently getting out of the kitchen, but I actually made a New Year's resolution to eat more hot stuff because I realized, like, I'm such a total waste when it comes to this.

Yeah. Like, you can build up a tolerance for sure. And I have I've gotten much better at, like, eating spicy stuff. But yeah, if I like habanero is way too hot for me.

It depends on what kind of spice it is to a lot of times I'm more tolerant of some than others. But I've learned that once you get past that, that very unpleasant, painful sensation, there's like a whole new world of tastes out there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good point. So the bells or the little squatty, squatty dudes, they can be. I don't know if a lot of people know this. All the different colors of the bell pepper is the same pepper, the red bell, the green bell, the yellow bell, the orange bell. It's all the same. But they taste differently. Yes, because they're it's how long they're ripened so white. The green one is ripe and are harvested first.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It's all the same pepper. And that's why you'll get a red pepper that still has a little green buddy like a little patch of green. Oh.

Huh. So you didn't know this? No. Wow. All right. Well, that didn't happen much for real. Yeah, well, that's great, man. Thank you for teaching us.

The Green Peppers is picked first. That's why they're less expensive to. Huh. And they are a little bitter and they are not nearly as sweet. Then you have yellow than orange than red as they ripen. And that's why the red is most expensive. And it's because it's the most mature. It's delicious. It is delicious. And they are sweet and kind of fruity.

But you have smoked one. Well, we're not smoked once roasted. Yes. Oh, I do it all the time and then you just peel the skin off. Yeah. What I do, this article says to do it in the oven, either put it on the grill. I do it with fire. Yeah. Fire works really well or just on the stove. I'll just put it on the. They've got a gas stove. Got a gas stove.

Sure. That's a convection.

You just put like an old notebook paper on it. Roast your pepper. Yeah.

I'll just throw the red pepper on the fire until it's all black and then I throw it in a paper bag. I don't do paper because I don't usually do plastics. Yeah, I'll just put it in like a grocery store bag that seems carcinogenic. Uh, no, I don't think so.

Well, we'll find out. Yeah. Check back with me in 20 years. Well, because you then you run into the sink and wash all that char off of it. So I don't think it's coming to contact what you're eating with the plastic. Right. So you use the sink.

Yeah. Just because it's really hot to the touch still. Oh, well, that's the other thing that I noticed in this article. It says leave it for like 15 minutes, which seems smart.

I don't ever have time for that catcher. So I just put it under the cold water, get all the seeds in the membrane and the skin off. Got you. And then slice it up and throw it in. The salad kit is delicious. Very delicious. Yeah.

Uh, but the oak, the red pepper has more because it's matured longer. Right. Has 11 times more beta carotene and green and one and a half times more vitamin C, so they're healthier.

That's what you're paying for, the beta carotene.

That's right. Big money and betting, right, and then you can also have chocolate, purple and even white bell peppers, and this is now you're just lying.

Well, now I think those are just different varieties. So I don't think those are like how mature they are. Like the white ones are grown in the dark or something like that. I don't know. I have no idea how. The pimiento and paprika are both where you they come from Red Belles, though, Gocha and Paprika is.

Well then how is how is that how does that have any kind of paprika has a little bit of heat to it, doesn't it? Uh, no, no. I'm thinking of cayenne pepper.

Yeah. Cayenne is made from hot red chilies. Yeah. And paprika is just smoked unless it's Hungarian paprika and that's sweeter and that's not smoked CATSA. So if you see a recipe that says paprika, you should probably know whether it's smoked or Hungarian. Yeah. And if not, I would probably just go with Hungarian. Oh you think. Well, unless you just know you want a smoky flavor. Gotcha.

This has been quite a roller coaster. Banana peppers, very mild. Pepperonis. Very mild. Yeah, you get those on your Subway sandwich, yeah, or like as a side on a Papa John's Pizza.

Oh yes. I'm like, that's right, I knew I'd seen those.

And then, of course, the best one of all, the poblano pepper. Right.

And then the pimento, which we just mentioned. And that is a variety of the red bell, I think. And that's what they put in olives and cheese. All right. What about the hot guys, see, I don't mess with them that much, but yeah, like we said, there's pain. You Serrano, Habanero, Chipotle.

So is Chappellet, yeah, what do you think of we were saying to Paul, take everything to Portale? I was saying Chipotles about that and then Anaheim. Anaheim, yeah. I think some people transposed the L and say Chapultepec.

Yeah, they definitely do. I got confused. I know how to say it right. But earlier I was like, wait, that didn't sound right.

Yeah. And then, of course, you have the delicious Thai chilies or birdseye chilies and those are really good and super hot and they are small and thin, but pack a punch.

So normally the rule of thumb is thin. Long ones. Yeah. That are red are going to be your hardest. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

But there's exceptions to those rules, which is the scotch bonnet.

Scotch bonnet is like, it's like, it's like more pumpkin shaped, it's like habanero OK. But it's even, it's less lannan shaped, a more pumpkin shaped. And I think it's like a yellow, yellow, orange and very hot. OK, very frequently found in like Jamaican cuisine.

Oh the scotch bonnet. Gocha, if you dry the pepper out and you have like the ancho pepper, the chipotle dried stuff that we're talking about. Yeah, it's going to be hotter that in mind.

Some people who like Peppers will just put them in a food dehydrator and eat them like that. Yeah. Yeah. Or just let them dry out in your in the sun. Sure. If you're black. If you're a hippie chook.

We also said that. So if you're a scientist you say this pepper is shape A and is a Psychoville rating of five trillion.

Right. OK, and you've just described a pepper to another scientist. They know what you're talking about. Sure. But there's something called the Chili Pepper Institute. It's an institute that's associated with the University of New Mexico in New Mexico, by the way, is the the foremost domestic producer of chili peppers in the United States. Correct. Thanks to a man named Fabian Garcia. Correct. Who was a pioneer in cultivating peppers here in the United States in 1920 when he released his first variety, the New Mexico number nine.

I thought, you're going to say his first album, Mambo number five.

Yeah. Yeah. But he's known as the father of Chili Peppers in the US. Yeah, the North American Chili. And in India, they are they're the world's largest producer of chilies.

Oh, yeah, by far. Yeah. But there's so there's another way to describe them beyond shape, color and heat. And the Chili Pepper Institute came up with this. It's for the heat profile. And basically there's five components to the heat profile. There's the the heat, the Scoville heat unit to it. Yeah. Then there's how fast it hits. Yeah, that's a big one. Like you were saying, that guy who ate some ghost chilies, um, they were kind of like it took a minute to come on.

It's like this isn't so bad. There's some peppers they hit like immediately. Yeah. So that would be the second descriptor. The second component.

The third would be whether it lingers or dissipates quickly or how fast it dissipates. Eventually it's going to dissipate. You hope. Yeah.

And then come and burn the next day. Coming out the other end. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And then the fourth one is where it's synced like is it in the throat. Is it on your tongue. Is it in the roof of your mouth.

Where does it attack basically. And then the last one is whether it's flat or sharp. So flat is say so. And I think that New Yorker article. Yeah. Or maybe the Smithsonian, one that sent you flat is where it's like your whole tongue is just coated in the sensation of heat. Yeah. Whereas sharp is where it feels like little hot needles in your mouth or something like that.

And the preference in America is for a flat sensation. Sure. Whereas Asian countries tend to prefer the sharp sensation.

Yeah. Like the Thai chilies. Yes. Interesting. Sharp. That's right. Do you like hot Asian food. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I like curries and stuff like that. It's nothing too hot though. Yeah. Like I'm still a pretty big worse. No I'm the same way and I'm also like comfortable enough with myself that I don't feel the need to show off now or accepted there.

No of course not. Yeah. So yeah I don't eat that hard stuff but I will sometimes. Yeah.

If you're still accepting food related Dare's in your late 30s or 40s. Yeah. You know you should seek some help.

Did you read about that guy. Ted Busser. Busser.

Oh he was in the New Yorker article. He that's exactly what he does. How old is he. He's, you know, 30s, 40s. He's on YouTube. Seek some help and he accepts challenges, food challenges. So people send him like the most disgusting thing they can find and then he eats it on on air. But one of the things that he eats are like really hot peppers. It's become kind of like a defacto pepper judge.

Right, because there is this whole community out there. Oh, yeah. We'll talk about that after we take a break. How about that?

You know, you should you know, hey, everybody, Microsoft teams is helping priority bicycles reinvent the way they work, right, Chuck? That's right. The pandemic hit, the bike shop had to close their New York City showroom, but they found a way to reopen by doing virtual visits on teams.

Yeah, and now the team can meet with two or three times the number of customers that they could before and people from all over the world can visit their showroom. That's right.

And you can learn more about their story and others at Microsoft dotcom slash teams.

Hey, everybody, Duncan is taking America's favorite coffee to new levels by offering its boldest lineup of new coffee choices in the brand 70 year history.

Whoa, I love that coffee. We're talking the new explorer Bache, a globally sourced blend with smoky, dark berry notes sounds delicious.

La, la and the new Duncan Midnite, a richer, intensely dark roast with hints of chocolate. How about that? Sounds delicious. And that one is an evolution to Duncan's initial dark roast in twenty fourteen to match the darker taste profiles people have come to crave over the past six years.

And around it all out you can get new hot or iced extra charge coffee with 20 percent extra caffeine from green coffee extract. Exactly what we all need to take on. Twenty twenty one order ahead on the Dunkin app and earn rewards. America runs on Dunkin Price and participation may very limited time offer some.

So, Chuck, we kind of teased that there's a there's a community of chili pepper aficionados out there, big, tough guys and women. Yes.

And I meant that in the non gender specific. Yeah. And they range from just people who like to eat them to people who make their own hot sauce to people who are competing by growing cultivators.

Yeah. The hottest peppers on the planet. Yeah.

And it gets pretty dicey. They get very competitive and very snippy from what I read. Yeah. There's about you know.

The legitimacy of the heat that they claim, yeah, so there's, again, a really great New Yorker article called The Fire Eaters from I think, a year or two back, and it gives a really great outsider's view of this community. And it is very snippy. Yeah. One of the problems is, is there is no official central body that says this is the hottest pepper on the planet. Well, Guinness does. Guinness doesn't. A lot of people defer to Guinness.

Some other people like Guinness says, no, they're dilatant. What we need is a governing body that's dedicated only to chili peppers. No, not Guinness, right?

Yeah. And one reason why is because it changes like people are cultivating these things. There could be a new hot, hottest pepper every three months. Exactly. And Guinness isn't going to stay on top of that. Right. So it's kind of like why you've been talking to those guys.

So some people do defer to Guinness because it's the closest thing that they have to a judgment saying this is the world's hottest people, just like saying that.

But the there's no organizing central body that that is dedicated to judging, which is the hottest chili pepper.

And there should be, according to these people, they could use it because they think the government should supply it, but they can't even decide on whether that the hottest pepper in the world should be its peak.

Yeah. Or what the average is.

It's mean. Yeah. So right now, Guinness goes by the mean. And as it stands in the world, the hottest chili pepper as of August 2013 is called the Carolina Rieper.

Yeah, the HP 22 B in 87 out of Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Yep. And the Carolina Reaper has an average. An average. Remember that red salvinia habanero had five hundred and seventy thousand Scoville heat units. Yes.

This one averages one million five hundred and sixty nine thousand three hundred Scoville heat units.

That's right. And a peak of over two point two million. Yeah. And hats off to you, Ed Curry of Pucker, but Pepper Company and Fort Mill, he's he's a very controversial pepper grower.

He is. He blended the original cross-breed was between a ghost pepper, which was the previous hottest pepper introduced to the North America in 2000, the infamous ghost pepper. And then he cross-breed did that with or bred that with a red habanero.

So the the boot colloquia is the ghost pepper. It's from India. And from 2007 to 2013, it was the reigning champ. Yes. And from before that was that red salvinia from 1994 to twenty seven. Again, that's as far as Guinness is concerned. But there are peppers out there.

There's the what's the Scorpion one. The Trinidad Scorpion Butch TI. Yeah.

That was actually grown by some guys in Australia who crossed a Trinidad scorpion which is already very hot with pepper that was grown by a guy named Butch Taylor in I think Mississippi.

He's not that big on this, as it turns out. Yeah, big time. Yeah. I think the thing is like if there's people who listen to, like front 242 and go boar hunting, if there's a larger population of them in that country, that that country's going to be more likely to be into eating hot peppers. What's front 242?

They're like an industrial band. Oh, really? Yeah. What does that mean about me, because I've never even heard of it. You don't eat the hot, hot peppers. OK. There are some who claim, in fact. The grower in Southern California says, I've had I had a pepper once that was over three million, but I don't even publish that stuff, he says, because it's a fluke.

Right. So so that's the that's the question like, should that one be considered the world's hottest pepper or should that plant have to or that species consistently have to put out something at three million?

Yeah. Or does it matter? Well, it's another question entirely. You know, can't we just I know they get specific about it and they want their do, but it seems like we can just say all of these are very hot. Very, very hot. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah. I don't know, it's scary stuff. Yes, it is. Um, Christopher Guest should do a mockumentary about. Yeah, pepper hotheads. It's ripe for it.

All right.

So let's say you want to pick out a paper at a grocery store. Look for firm skin, look for super bright colors. Yeah, which. I don't know, I'm pretty down on produce and big box grocery stores. Yeah, but if you go to a farmer's market and especially like a local farmer's market, you're going to see weird shaped, super, super bright colored peppers.

Yeah, weird shaped is right, remember. Yeah. We've talked about this before. Grocery stores won't sell ones that are perfectly awesome and maybe even better tasting because they look weird.

Right. That Bell Pepper looks like Richard Nixon. Throw it in the trash. Yeah. And it's like, ah, I'm not a crook. Um, the longer they ripen, the harder they get. So like you said, the red ones, if the red ones still have a little green, they're not fully ripe yet. So they probably won't be as hot. But that's the case with the bell probably anyway. So you're not looking for heat, right?

Looking for sweet if you are cooking with peppers. Uh, it says in here, like, be sure to wash your hands. Yeah. But what you really need to do if you're serious is wear gloves where we're doctors. What are they called. Rubber gloves. Yeah, rubber gloves.

Because that is truly the only way. Like if you come into contact with your fingers and that membrane or those seeds, you can wash your hands ten times and you forget. And like the next day you will get a iboga out. Oh, yeah. And you'll be like, what in the world? My eyes on fire are you take your contacts out.

You go to put them in the next one.

Oh, I can't imagine how I cooked one night, some pie in you, some hot peppers and did not wear gloves and I went ppy later. Oh no, I didn't think about it and I had a speaking of syphilis burning sensation down below was bad.

That's how they simulated for medical students. Oh really.

It was bad. So I learned the hard way. I just got a box of those as it nitrate gloves, nitrate or nitrate and I point explodes the other ones fine I think.

Well I put them in the kitchen also where a painter's respirator.

What kind of peppers are you working with. The, you know, the hot stuff like ghost peppers. No, but I cook with habaneros and stuff sometimes and it's like it's nuclear. The fumes are. Yeah. It's like if you're over the sink cleaning them out and you're breathing it in, you'll find yourself, or at least I do coughing and burning. So I will wear the respirator and my gloves.

So you mean I would use sometimes. Oh yeah. And every once in a while she'd put like a pepper in there, like a hollow pain, you know, and it would just turn the kitchen into like, like a tear gas bomb had gone off. Yeah. It's crazy. It gets everywhere. It does because these things are basically vaporized and they just spread so easily through the air space, introducing a paper.

It definitely gives it a, um. Oh, if you want to store peppers, like we said, you can draw them out and they'll keep for a long time. Yeah, they'll keep you don't want to wash them.

You want to just put them unwashed into your fridge. Yeah, true. And they'll just keep just regular peppers. Keep for a long time. Right. It's not something that goes bad very quickly, but you can freeze them if you slice them and put them on a baking tray in the freezer. Yeah. Then you can collect them and just throw them in a bag and you can keep them for like a year. Nice. But I don't see why you would freeze peppers just by the amount you need to cook with them or pickle them.

That's great. Pickled peppers are wonderful. I just eat those straight.

I don't like pickled things, so I'm not into it.

Yeah. No, it's it's so good for you. Pickling pickled foods are so good for you. There's so many health benefits. I eat other healthy things that I enjoy. But how do you know.

Like pickles. Stuff like I could eat pickled. You could cut your finger off and pickle it. I'd probably eat it.

How does anyone not like anything. But I mean like what about it?

You don't like the tartness. No, just the taste. Anything pickled, like a pickled pickle, sauerkraut, you don't like sauerkraut, hate sauerkraut, I guess I could have seen that. Dude, I hate pickles. I hate pickles so much that I have to ask and rest. Like when I go to a pub and have like a burger and fries to leave the pickle off because invariably they will put the pickle down soaking into the French fries in the bun.

Yeah. And it'll ruin that for me.

Wow. You hate pickles. That might hate pickles that much.

Well, all the pickles that you get on the side from now on.

OK, well, Emily, it's the pickles you can arm wrestle her for. OK, that's fine. That's the deal.

But when I said you shouldn't, you know, just by the amount if you're growing pickles or I'm sorry, growing peppers and pickles, pickled peppers, then you might end up with a lot of peppers.

And that's why you might want to recall them or pickle them. Yeah. If you're into that. Yeah, because we grew peppers one year and they were easy to grow and bountiful. Yeah.

Pepper plant because yeah. That equals a lot of peppers. I guess we should talk about growing them a little bit huh. I guess so. They're perennials. So that means they stick around. Well, it depends on where you live. Yeah, if it's cold, you might grow them as animals, right? They're pretty flexible.

You can start them as seeds 10 weeks prior to the first frost. You want to germinate them in little trees first. You soak the seeds for a couple of days, then you germinate them with a little bit of starter. Yep, 10 weeks prior to frost, after the last frost comes and goes, you can start to harden them by moving them outside a couple hours at a time and talk to them, say this is good for you right there, making sure you're all good.

How you shake them up takes a couple of weeks, a few hours each day more until they are hard and ready. Right.

And then they start to grow. You want to fertilize them. When the peppers grow out and turn hard, you can cut them. And when you do, you want to cut some stem because it extends their shelf life. And then you have peppers. You can also just go to the store and buy some peppers.

Yeah. If you're into gardening garden. Yeah, if not.

Or I've just grown from seed man. Seems like such a nightmare to me. Well it's for people who have time and are hobbyists.

But I also get like if it's a very like if it's an heirloom something or just something you're not going to find anywhere with peppers. I mean sure there are some like if you want to buy the Carolina Rieper, you can get packs of those seeds for like ten bucks or something. Oh yeah, right. You're not going to find those at any stores. So I kept growing those from seed, but like growing like a squash plant from seed. It's like, what are you doing man.

You got you should have better things to do with your time than that.

A weaker squash last year from seed. Yeah. What are you doing man. We have a garden. Right. But you can just buy like the seedlings.

Yeah, you could do that. OK, are you saying why do people garden. No, I love gardening.

OK, I'm just saying growing from seed a plant like if you like, growing from seed you should get a seed catalog and find something that you can't find elsewhere.

That's what I'm saying. I have a very strong opinion on growing so to each their own with everything but gardening, but gardening. We use we use starter plants a lot too. Yeah, not everything is from seed because you've seen sensible people.

But do you see my point, I guess. Do you get seed catalogs to look through nut catalogs. I don't think, but we buy seeds online.

You should get your hands on seed catalog. Yeah. Yeah. I can't remember the name of the company. That sounds like good toilet book reading.

Yes it is. Yeah. It's just so. Yes, it's very delightful. It makes you so excited for spring.

Uh. Off label uses of peppers will say, yeah, you can eat them or you can rub them on your pain parts.

Yeah, because remember they overload your nociceptors. That's right.

They can lower your blood pressure. They can be anticoagulants.

I think that's one in the same thing about if it thins the blood, it's going to also like, lower your blood pressure. Uh, true, I would think. OK, it's also been shown, Chuck, it lowers bad cholesterol now, not just any cholesterol, it lowers your bad cholesterol. And not only does it lower the the cholesterol present in your blood, I think it attracts it. Right. Because remember, it's fat soluble. Yeah.

And then it gets flushed out the system. It actually removes the buildup of bad cholesterol plaque in your arteries. Man, this stuff is it makes me want to eat more peppers. I read quite a bit of peppers. I need to eat more. I think it's good.

Uh, in the future, they hope to use it for cancer prevention, stroke, heart attack prevention. All right. You know, I guess it already works is that if it's lowering your blood blood pressure. That's what I got from that, too.

Yeah, but the cancer, it's its own thing. They found that that capsaicin itself basically attacks tumors.

Wow, I mean, that's. Are you upset about the growing from seed theory? Oh, no, I don't care. OK, Ken. What, like it was directed at me? Yeah, I didn't mean for it to be, but it took a pretty hard turn at the end there, right to right to your front door. Right up here to your garden door.

No, no, no, no. Uh, we have an article called Ghost Peppers Kill You on our website and not it's not good, but apparently three pounds of peppers can kill you. Is that right?

Yeah. How like, what's the mode of death?

I don't know. They don't say. That's why it's not a good article.

Well, so these these pain receptors, the t r p I mean, it's a toxin. Capsaicin is t RPV one.

Uh, they're also responsible for regulating your body heat, helping regulate your body heat. So I wonder if you have like a heat stroke or something like that.

I don't know. I would just say it's a if it's a toxin and you eat too much of any toxin, you could die.

Yeah, but but there's you know, you die from, like, some toxin. Slow your respiration and you stop breathing from lack of oxygen.

You know, I bet you had something to do with respiration because if you are hot pepper eating contest, one thing that we'll talk about is their throat swelling and yeah, having a hard time breathing. That'll be my guess. I think they I think there was a science daily article originally that said that.

So there is a speaking of ghost peppers, up until last year in 2014, there was a restaurant in Grantham, Lincolnshire, which I take to to be in England. Yeah, probably called Bindy. It was the restaurant was named Bindy. It was an Indian restaurant. And it had a curry called the Widower that used 20 ghost peppers among a ton of other ones.

Man And apparently they had sold like five, 600 of them. And like about three quarters of the people finished it, managed to finish it, I bet, which. Yeah, if you think like the ghost pepper, that was like the one that got all the press in 2007.

I think what's remarkable is that people that are ordering this are probably have a very high tolerance anyway. Yeah. And if they're not able to finish it, that says a lot. Exactly.

So that's chili peppers. Everybody go forth and eat some. You said that it doesn't give you ulcers and in fact, it actually helps with cases of ulcers, right?

That's right. Isn't that amazing? It is.

OK, so if you want to know more about chili peppers, you can type that word into the search bar, HowStuffWorks Dotcom, and it will bring up this article. And I said search bar.

So I'm going to call this rarely granted shout out. We get requests a lot for shout outs and we couldn't do them all. Otherwise our show would be called shout outs. You should know. But this one was from a fourteen year old girl who sounded very sweet. So I'm reading it. Hi, guys.

I'm a fourteen year old girl who's been listening for a long time and I wanted to say thanks for the time that you spend to make it smarter. It's been really fun for my sister Anna and I, uh, to listen to your podcast before we go to sleep. However, she's leaving for college soon to study studio art, and I'll be all alone when I listen to you guys. So if it isn't too much to ask, could you give her a shout out and tell her that she is an awesome sister and will be missed?

Oh, Sarah, you could tell her that yourself, too, by the way. You should express your emotions. I don't like to talk. You can also say to my brothers, Jonathan, Stephen and Tommy that they are OK. Too many kids are in this family. Sounds like one, two, three, four, five.

This was my guest. Uh, if you. Oh, and she said, no, don't mention the sixth one getting uh. If you do this, then you guys will be the best podcasters ever. Not like you aren't already. Uh, actually honored. Just sent an email or maybe it's Anna to you guys last night about hula hoops. And, uh, if you could put both our emails on the air, that would be the best. I'm not going to do that.

I can do that. But I did write her back. So this is a secret from. And so it would be a big surprise. So, uh, Sara, to honor Anna could look at college. You will be missed. You're a great sister. That's so nice to the brothers. Jonathan, Stephen and Tommy. You guys are OK, man. That was nice. Very kind of you. You never know. Well, if you want to see if you can target Chuck's heart strings, give you your best shot, good luck.

You can tweet to us that that's why ask podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash. You should know you can send us an email to Stuff podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuff. You should know Dotcom. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio for more podcasts, my heart radio is the radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

You know, nothing is better than learning while you're entertained, and that's why we love Curiosity's stream, it's Netflix for nerds or Hulu for history buffs, or Disney Plus for the scientists in US. Curiosity Stream has thousands of documentaries on science, nature, history and more you can watch on your computer, your phone, your tablet or your TV. And with our code as get 25 percent off your annual subscription visit. Curiosity streamed dotcom code. S Why I you to subscribe hepi nerdy warm up a chicken salad stick with a bowl of soup and a half sandwich.

Your scoop. We have five delicious hot soups that pair perfectly with any of our 12 flavors of chicken salad that are made fresh daily and serve from the heart. And with online ordering options, we've made it easier to enjoy chicken salad chick however you prefer. Oh, and don't forget to grab a slice or two of our new salted caramel cheesecake. It's amazing. A bowl of soup and a half sandwich. Your scoop only for a limited time available in-store in the drive thru or online at chicken salad chick dotcom for takeout, curbside or delivery where available.