The Hottest Pepper In The World? Beware The "dragon's Breath"

[Satanica]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-hottest-pepper-in-the-world-dragons-breath-wales/

[....]
Mike Smith reportedly grew a chili pepper that smashes all previous heat records — all by accident. Smith said he never intended to breed a particularly spicy pepper and he doesn't even like foods with heat, The Telegraph reports.

The pepper came from a plant Smith borrowed from fellow farmer Neal Price, which reportedly was grown using specialized plant food developed by researchers at Nottingham Trent University, the BBC reports.

The growers have named the explosive chili pepper the "Dragon's Breath," a nod to the pepper's Welsh origins. They say it's too hot for human consumption.

"It's not been tried orally. I've tried it on the tip of my tongue and it just burned and burned. I spat it out in about 10 seconds," Smith told The Daily Post. "The heat intensity just grows."

The Dragon's Breath scores at an impressive 2.48 million on the Scoville heat scale [....]

The newly grown chili could have interesting public health benefits: its oil is so intense that it can numb the skin, meaning the pepper could potentially be used as an anesthetic in developing contexts where patients struggle to access anesthesia or with patients with allergies to anesthesia, Smith told the BBC.

Concentrated capsaicin, found in the Dragon's Breath and other extremely spicy peppers, can trigger the immune system to go into overdrive. Capsaicin activates the proteins found on nerve endings, and those proteins can mistakenly interpret capsaicin as a signal of extreme heat entering the body, Live Science reported. The result? Reactions like anaphylactic shock, severe burns, and even the closing of one's airways are all possible, experts warn. So this extreme pepper is nothing to mess around with.

The growers behind the Dragon's Breath are still awaiting confirmation from the Guinness Book of World Records, Smith said. They plan to show off the hot pepper at the Royal Horticultural Society's Chelsea Flower Show in London this week.

 

[Siobhan]

The Dragon's Breath scores at an impressive 2.48 million on the Scoville heat scale [....]

Fuck, that's not food, it's a weapon!

 

[lithiumgirl]

Some daredevil out there right now is thinking ...fuck warnings ... challenge accepted and is going to die and end up a story here for sure.

 

[Satanica]

My son is into finding the hottest peppers, but Carolina Reapers and Ghost Peppers are the worst he's experimented with so far. We have Ghost Pepper powder and Reaper salt, and he actually uses those.

 

[ChaosKitty]

what people don't relize for the mosst prt iss al lthe benifits that come from peppers and they shoud be workign on making one with the most of that not the hottest. Was raised on hot chilis and love them but don't believe in going andd trying to kill myself with any like some have or proving myself eatting them either

 

[Keepalowprofile]

No thank you.

 

[Caligirl90]

OMG just stop people! This is getting insane. I like spice, but this whole "what is hotter and who can eat it" bullshit is too much.

 

[Satanica]

I can't wait until it escapes into the wild and we can watch videos of all the people stupid enough to try it. The reaper and ghost pepper ones are quite entertaining.

If you haven't ever tried one of those, the descriptions of their effects are true. At first you think it's no big deal but then the heat starts increasing and just doesn't stop. Drinking any kind of liquid just results in spreading it more and making it worse. You just have to ride it out.

I had the unfortunate experience of some stealth salsa at a Mexican restaurant. You never know how hot it's going to be, so I scooped just a tiny bit onto a chip and popped it into my mouth. I lost my breath and couldn't breathe which scared the crap out of me, so I totally understand what the articles says about the Dragon being able to kill. For a few seconds I thought someone was going to have to call 911. I've never gotten that "surprise" again, thankfully.