We here at Taste The Pain are always being asked
"What is it that makes peppers and hot sauces hot?" Well, this
is the story....
All chile peppers contain a chemical, called capsaicin,
which is found concentrated in the veins of the fruit (not the seeds as
is widely believed). Capsaicin, when brought into contact with mucous
membranes, such as the inside of the mouth, stimulates the nerve endings,
making your brain think that it is being 'burned', that real pain and
damage are being inflicted. The brain counters by releasing endorphins,
similar in structure to morphine, which bring about the "Chile-High",
just like a runner experiences euphoria after passing the peak of their
endurance.
The amount of capsaicin in a pepper determines how
hot it is. But how to measure this heat?? Well, in 1912 while working
for a pharmaceutical company, a chemist, Wilbur Scoville, developed a
method to measure the heat level of a chile pepper. This test, called
the Scoville Organoleptic Test, is what is called a dilution-taste procedure.
In the original test, Scoville blended pure ground chiles with a sugar-water
solution, and then a panel of testers sipped the concoctions, in increasingly
diluted concentrations, until they reached the point at which the liquid
no longer burned the mouth. A number was then assigned to each chile based
on how much it needed to be diluted before you could taste no heat. In
example, one cup of chile pepper per 1,000 cups of water rates as 1 Scoville
Units. Pure Capsaicin rates over 15,000,000 Scoville Units! The power
of chile peppers is measured with these Scoville units, from the bell
pepper at 0 Scoville units, to the incendiary Habanero at 300,000 Scoville
units! The creator of the "Red Savina™" Habanero has had it tested at
over 577,000 Scoville units! This is so much hotter than the normal Habanero
chile pepper, that the "Guinness Book of Records" lists it as "the
hottest chile pepper" in the world.
The validity and accuracy of the Scoville Organoleptic
test have been widely criticized. The American Spice Trade Association
and the International Organization for Standardization have adopted a
modified version. The American Society for Testing and Materials is considering
other organoleptic tests (the Gillett method) and a number of other chemical
tests to assay for capsaicinoids involved in pungency. Even so, the values
obtained by these various tests are often related back to Scoville Units.
Nowadays the High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) test is used.
In this procedure, chile pods are dried, then ground. Next, the chemicals
responsible for the pungency are extracted, and the extract is injected
into the HPLC for analysis. This method is more costly than the previous,
but it allows an objective heat analysis. Not only does this method measure
the total heat present, but it also allows the amounts of the individual
capsaicinoids to be determined. In addition, many samples may be analyzed
within a short period. As a result of all these tests, various varieties
of chile peppers can be ranked according to their heat or "pungency" level:
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