Have you ever heard of the “Scoville Scale”? No, well let me tell you a little about this marvelous scientific measurement. Back in 1912, a very smart pharmacist named Wilbur Scoville decided he wanted to measure the “pungency” of chili peppers. Now what does that mean exactly I hear you asking yourself? It’s very simple, he was trying to measure the heat that a chili pepper produces. He developed a scientific method measuring the units of heat, these are called “Scoville heat units” (SHU) which measure the “Capsaicin” concentrate of any given chili pepper…………You still with me?
Let’s simplify the whole thing. A Bell pepper as between 0 to 100 SHU’s. That’s nothing really and would not even make you blink. The Jalapeno on the other hand is between 1,000 and 10,000 SHU’s, now we are starting to get somewhere on the heat scale. The Red Savina pepper hits the scales at anywhere from 350,000 to 600,000 SHU’s, and will make your eyes pop if you are not careful. But the granddaddy of them all is the world’s hottest pepper the Carolina Reaper. An appropriate name don’t you think? This baby measures anywhere from 600,000 to 3,200,000 SHU’s……..yeas that’s right, up to 3,200,000. Now that’s going to hurt.
Now there are some people in the world that come up with strange and sometimes funny challenges for their friends to do. Do you remember the “Ice Bucket Challenge”? Where you had to pour a bucket of ice and water over yourself or a friend, now fair enough, it was for a good cause and did raise awareness for Motor Neuron Disease sufferers, but the latest challenge out there takes the cake, or in this case the chili.
Remember we told you before that the Carolina Reaper was the world’s most pungent chili. Well some enterprising company decided to manufacture chips using them as the main ingredient. Of course you know where this is leading, they are now the world’s hottest chips. This naturally leads to competitions between friends, as who can eat the most of these red-hot-munchies. Now remember, we are talking up to 3,200,000 SHU’s to contend with here, so it certainly is a challenge.
Just for sake of it, let’s ask the presenters of a local news program to take the challenge live-on-air, that should be fun right? The #onechipchallenge, as it is affectionately known is as simple as that. Who can handle eating just one of these mouth-burning-snacks? Television station KDVR Daybreak anchors decided that they would take on the challenge, after all, one chip couldn’t be that bad…….could it?
You are going to love the differing reactions from the presenters as they all feel the power of Mr. Scoville’s heat measurements. Unfortunately Natalie Tysdal’s reaction has gone viral as she tries to come to terms with the inferno happening in her mouth. Take a look at the clip below, and try your hardest not to laugh.
https://youtu.be/XtRsNhd72iA