Six hours. That’s how long it took prolific pepper breeder “Smokin” Ed Currie to recover from his ultimate creation: Pepper X. Recognized in October 2023 by the Guinness World Records, it’s the hottest on the planet.
A “millisecond” of flavor followed by a quarter-day of intestinal cramping, the 2,693,000 Scoville Heat Unit fruit is 1,346 times hotter than your average bell pepper and packs a terribly powerful punch. It’s more potent than most commercial-grade pepper sprays. That’s why Currie does not advise anyone eat one raw, as he did.
He ate more peppers for dinner the same day he gobbled one up for lunch, according to Scientific American. But why?
Science can explain how painfully spicy and face-puckering sour foods play into thrill-seeking behavior. In essence, it’s a challenge the human mind is excited to face. That’s one reason social media is not short on content about spicy dares.
“These challenges are really drawing people in who have that psychological affinity — sensation-seeking, reward-seeking types of behaviors,” Elisa Trucco, director of the Research on Adolescent and Child Health Lab at Florida International University, told NBC News. “So the more dangerous it is, the more thrilling it is.”
Both spicy and sour foods stimulate the body’s fight-or-flight response, sending pleasure-inducing hormones to the brain. It’s an experience similar to watching a horror movie.
“That’s where the pleasure comes, from the fact that you’re overriding your body’s signal not to do this,” added Paul Rozin, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.
After using questionnaires to test twins on spice preferences and cross referencing their answers with quantitative genetic modeling, a 2012 study published in Physiology & Behavior also discovered genes may play an important role in determining if a person likes or dislikes spicy food. But the scientists stressed more research is needed to better understand the genetic influence.
Dr. Edwin McDonald, a gastroenterologist at the University of Chicago Medical Center, stressed that spicy and sour foods are safe only in moderation. Anything remotely as spicy as Pepper X, even significantly less so, can hospitalize someone — especially those with high blood pressure or asthma.
“Consuming some foods that have capsaicin in it may be associated with increasing longevity and decreasing the risk of cancer,” McDonald said. “But these are not the peppers that people are doing in the challenge.”
Currie said he will keep crafting up new super-spicy peppers all the same.
“Oh, yeah, I know we can,” he told Scientific American, when asked if he can make a hotter fruit than Pepper X. “We’ve tested a lot of peppers at a higher level, but we don’t yet have a lot of years of averages. You show the average of the tests (when you’re reporting the Scoville rating); you don’t show your single highest test. I think we can achieve a lot more, but there’s really not much use for it — unless it tastes good.”
