Too hot to handle

I’ll admit I like my food to be well seasoned food and often it is spicy but not the extreme levels that it would make your eyes water. I found an article that described how the Naga Jolokia is the now the hottest chilli in the world. It originates from Assam in north-western India and is so hot it has to be handled with a chemical mask and gloves. The chilli it is now being grown commercially for the first time by an Australian man named Marcel de Wit, who has spent three years learning how to grow the plants.

Based in Morisset, New South Wales, ’The Chilli Factory' has just harvested its’ first crop of the plant. The chillies which are sold in 100g jars are suppose to last 2 years. Apparently when Marcel tried the chilli for the first time, it was so hot that he to ‘drink a litre of milk and lie down for ten minutes afterwards’ and also people with heart or breathing problems have been warned NOT to eat them. I should think that’s a pretty good indication that maybe eating these chillies is not such a bright idea after all; I mean commercially it will probably be cost effective for food manufacturers but for general home use - well I can already see people daring each other to take a bite!

The Scoville Scale is used to measure the heat of a chilli measured in Scoville heat units (SHU’s). One Scoville unit is equal to a dilution of one part chilli to one million drops of water.