What makes peppers hot? I have seen some scale before that rates peppers by their hotness. What is measured (other than how much they make your eyes water) is it a single chemical that makes all peppers spicy? Or a variety of chemicals with similar properties?
I believe it is called capsacin (cap-say-sin)
Specifically, oleoresin capsaicin, also used in pepper spray and various pain management preparations.
The Scoville Scale is the name of the measurement used to compare relative pungency of peppers. A scientician will be along shortly to tell us all how Scoville scores are determined.
It’s a family of chemicals, called capsaicins (cap say ih sin), the most important of which is capsaicin. The heat scale is actually measured by eating pureéd peppers, however (I understand that the scale is how many sprays of sugar water it takes to cool off the mouth, but one would think that some sort of dilution scheme would be more accurate and less cruel).
Oh and the measurement scale is called the Scoville scale which is essentially a measurement of the percentage of capsaicin in a pepper. For reference, pure capsaicin is 16,000,000 Scoville units. The very hottest pepper is the “Red Savina” Habanero, at 350,000 Scoville units!
It is diluted:
From this article.
Ah. My source lied. I have assayed capsaicin by HPLC, which is more reliable than the taste test, but I’m sure Scoville’s method was more fun.
Well there is another scale, more scientific than the Scoville Scale, it turns out. HPLC is more reliable, but not as popular with the Unwashed Masses who want their Scovilles. To wit,
Thanks, I knew I had seen that before. I remembered that Habineros were rated as the worlds hottest, but as an avid pepper and spicy food eater, I SWEAR the Thai food I had for dinner tonight was much hotter than any habinero I ever tasted.
Thai food contains a blend of spices that contribute several different flavor chemicals. My guess is that they stimulate different receptors, and thus have more of a cumulative effect than “Johnny One-note” capsaicin.
This site claims to have a pepper hotter than the habinero, and IIRC, India is said to have developed an insanely hot pepper for use in riot control.
I don’t know how any pepper can be hotter than pure capsaicin itself. I gotta call BS on that one. No offense to your memory.
An awesome Staff Report that will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about this subject:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mchili.html
Enjoy.
Not that anybody might care, but a practical use of capsaicins is their addition to poultry feed.
Birds, it seems, are highly tolerant to the hot spice effect of capsaicin ingestion.
Well, as least as compared to rodents.
Considering the fact that poultry is the major/cheapest source of animal protein in the american diet, capsaicin addition to feed is a way to combat feed losses due to rodents.
The less that poultry producers have to spend on feed by capsaicin addition means the less spent on rodent losses.
Which means less pesticides against rodents and cheaper protein for poor people who use chicken as their primary protein source in their diet. And cleaner animal protein for any that eat poultry.
This based on just the fact that rats and mice don’t like hot stuff, but birds don’t care.
Now, if any animal rights advocates that disagree with poultry consumpsion have a proplem with capsaicin addition to feed, I would suggest a Great Debates Forum.
Not to debate about whether mammals verus birds, are better food sources, but, birds have greater response to capsaicin. I could provide a lot of scientific literature, but would refer to “Sturkie’s Avian Physiology: 4th Edition relevant chapters, since I can’t remember off the top of my head”.
But a quick check of the index should do.
Ouch!
“but, birds have greater response to capsaicin”
should have read: “but, birds have greater tolerance to capsaicin”
Dunno, but here’s the link to the NPR story on it.
Ok, I have no problem with that story. I have absolutely no doubt a pepper could be bred that is hotter than any Habenaro. The point I was making was in regard to riot control; the “hotness” of the pepper the capsaicin comes from is irrelevant to its potency.
Ah, but a pepper plant with a higher concentration of capsaicin would be cheaper to process than peppers with a lower level of capsaicin, since you’d need fewer of them to get the desired amount. And that may be the reason why the Indian military developed the peppers.
From this article.
Yes, the article states that synthetic capsaicinoids can be damaging, but nevertheless I’d bet a poor country like India would favor cost over risk.