A nutrition professor of mine told me that if you shake your peppers on the vine they will get hotter when you pick them. The logic was that capsacin (the chemical that makes peppers hot), being a natural defense, is produced more when the plant is under stress. Is this just superstition or is there any truth to it.
It’s true that capsaicin levels in stressed plants are higher, but I’m not sure that shaking constitutes stress - shortage of water and nutrients are the usual stress factors.
Shaking tomato plants (which are related) supposedly increases fruit set by facilitating self-pollination; it may be that shaking pepper plants increases the number of pollination events and that the fruits then have a higher capsaicin content simply because they have more seeds inside them.
I agree stress increases capsaicin levels, but would like to point out that the seeds aren’t the hottest part. That’s a bit of a myth. Actually, I’m not sure that’s what you’re saying but I frequently see recipes recommending you remove the seeds to reduce the heat and I suppose to some extent you’re removing some volume of capsaicin but the seeds really aren’t the part people need be most concerned with. From here.
I hadn’t heard about the alleged shaking-heat connection - but supposedly if you (gently) shake or blow on seedlings of any plant frequently enough while they’re growing indoors, it makes the stems sturdier and helps harden the plant off before you bring it outdoors (simulating the stresses of nature).
Yeah, “stress” means heat, cold, and water. Seeds themselves are bitter, and that’s a good reason to do without them. Often when de-seeding, one removes the ribs, too, which carry a lot of the heat. If you remove the seeds and ribs from a jalepeño, you’ll find that they often taste reminiscently of bell pepper (that good, chile taste). If you eat chiles “just” for the heat, you’re missing out on a lot of the flavour.