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Mini: Scoville Scale · Why We Do What We Do

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome
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  Speaker 1: too Why we do what we do? Mini, I'm your
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  Speaker 1: host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We are a
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  Speaker 1: psychology podcast. We talk about all of the things that
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  Speaker 1: humans and non human animals do, and we release these
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  Speaker 1: short episodes. It's just a bite sized chunk out of
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  Speaker 1: something spicy, and sometimes we talk about the ways we
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  Speaker 1: measure things in the world, and sometimes we talk about
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  Speaker 1: the ways we measure food specifically.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love talking about measurement.
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  Speaker 3: It's like one of my favorite things to talk about
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  Speaker 3: because Americans do it so poorly, like we measure things
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  Speaker 3: with other things that are not standard size.
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  Speaker 2: But I do always appreciate a good scale.
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  Speaker 3: I like scales, and so today we're talking about the
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  Speaker 3: Scoville scale. As somebody who likes spicy food, I love
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  Speaker 3: spicy food. I know you like spicy food definitely. I
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  Speaker 3: think that's what happens when you become vegetarian, because food
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  Speaker 3: loses interest, Like you lose kind of interested for you're like, Okay,
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  Speaker 3: it's not as cool. We have to season it, and
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  Speaker 3: spice is like one of the best ways to do it.
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  Speaker 2: But I love spicy food and I'm so excited to
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  Speaker 2: talk about this.
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  Speaker 4: I love vegetables and I think I always have it's
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  Speaker 4: the best of my memory. But I have also liked
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  Speaker 4: spice for a very long time. But uh yeah, So
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  Speaker 4: we'll talk about measurements, speaking of which, this episode will
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  Speaker 4: be about four songs long, which you know as a
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  Speaker 4: standard union measurement.
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  Speaker 2: Sure or one mastoed on song long.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, that's right. If you end up enjoying what
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  Speaker 4: you hear in this discussion today somehow and you would
• 1:39
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  Speaker 4: for them and then make sure that we show up
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  Speaker 4: in their feed all the time. Another great thing that
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  Speaker 4: you can do, and I'll talk a little bit more
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  Speaker 4: about that at the end of this discussion. As I
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  Speaker 4: was talking about this, this is a mini a short
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  Speaker 4: episode that we'll do. We just get into a topic
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  Speaker 4: real quick and then get out of there, and these
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  Speaker 4: come out on Mondays. Our full length episodes come out
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  Speaker 4: on Wednesdays. I think that's what I have to say
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  Speaker 4: before we get into our topic. Am I missing anything? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: No, I think that feels good.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, great, all right, well here we go. Then let's
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  Speaker 4: talk about peppers and measuring their spiciness.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, so, the general scientific consensus currently supports the hypothesis
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  Speaker 3: that peppers, or as they say on Saturday Night Live, pepper,
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  Speaker 3: likely evolved to be spicy, specifically to ward off mammals
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  Speaker 3: from consuming them and damaging their seed germination process.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, but humans are weird. We decided that not only
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  Speaker 4: is it ineffective at warding us away from consuming them,
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  Speaker 4: but that we quite enjoy their hot death trap that
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  Speaker 4: would otherwise keep most animals away from them, because you know,
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  Speaker 4: that's how we do yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Because we're like, oh, this is poison, I should eat this, right, yeah, right,
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  Speaker 3: We consistently do that. Now, the compound that makes this
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  Speaker 3: heat is called capsaicin, which is a chemical irritant that
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  Speaker 3: stimulates receptors in our body that detect heat. And this
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  Speaker 3: is why we refer to the metaphorical temperature of heat.
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  Speaker 2: Even if the actual.
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  Speaker 3: Temperature of the food that we are consuming is low
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  Speaker 3: or even cold, like low temperature or even cold. Yeah, Psychologically, neurologically,
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  Speaker 3: it is nearly identical to the experience of the food
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  Speaker 3: actually being extremely warm.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's the physical sensation. Feels like burning,
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  Speaker 4: like actually like flame touching your boy. But we like
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  Speaker 4: spicy here, you and I, as you said, as we
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  Speaker 4: do many people listening, and many people listening absolutely do not.
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  Speaker 4: And that's okay. You can still be here for this
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  Speaker 4: because I think that the way we've decided to approach
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  Speaker 4: this as a species is kind of interesting anyway. So
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  Speaker 4: how do we determine how spicy something is? The Scoville scale?
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  Speaker 4: Of course.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I am currently dry chilis in my kitchen right now. Oh,
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  Speaker 3: I have like some red pepper chili, like red chili peppers.
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  Speaker 3: And I also got a small batch of Carolina reapers,
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  Speaker 3: so I am currently drying those and we're gonna make
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  Speaker 3: a rub out of it and see how that goes.
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  Speaker 3: And I'm also probably gonna burn my eyeballs out.
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  Speaker 4: I thought you were currently recording a podcast with me,
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  Speaker 4: but okay.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, Well, I mean I have to do
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  Speaker 2: those things. Simultaneously, I am doing that. They are drying.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, but here we are. You're right, You're right, I am.
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  Speaker 3: Let's talk with a scale because we because you know,
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  Speaker 3: we like to measure things. And I don't know how
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  Speaker 3: accurate the scale is.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean if does the Scoville scale sound like
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  Speaker 4: a name a kid made up to describe something as spicy?
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  Speaker 4: Or does it sound like some pharmacists name something they
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  Speaker 4: created after themselves because it's the second one?
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  Speaker 2: Sure?
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  Speaker 4: So.
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  Speaker 3: Wilbur's Scoville, which is the least spicy name I've ever
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  Speaker 3: heard in my life, was a pharmacist who created a
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  Speaker 3: system of measuring the heat of chilis in nineteen twelve,
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  Speaker 3: and he lovingly called this the Scoville scale. If you
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  Speaker 3: could have a scale and name it after yourself, what
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  Speaker 3: would you What would.
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  Speaker 2: It be for?
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  Speaker 4: Hmmm, the board game scale?
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  Speaker 2: Ooh, I like that, the Abraham scale, what about you?
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  Speaker 2: I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: I feel like decibels are already taken. It would probably
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  Speaker 3: be like page numbers read so I think that would
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  Speaker 3: be the Spiker scale would be like, you know, it's
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  Speaker 3: based on like a thousand pages or something.
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  Speaker 4: Very very nice and clear. And we said measuring the
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  Speaker 4: heat of chilis in nineteen twelve. We didn't mean that
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  Speaker 4: he was measuring like chilis from nineteen twelve. We mean
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  Speaker 4: that activity took place in nineteen twelve. Probably, Yes, of course, yes,
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  Speaker 4: of course. All right, So Wilbur Scoville, he had a
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  Speaker 4: verly clever little arrangement. He essentially what he decided to
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  Speaker 4: do was grind up some hot chilies and then he
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  Speaker 4: would mix them with a solution of one part water,
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  Speaker 4: one part sugar. Okay, so we have this little sipping solution,
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  Speaker 4: if you will, as tincture, and he would have a
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  Speaker 4: panel of five judges sip the solution, and he essentially
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  Speaker 4: would just add more of the sugar water units to
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  Speaker 4: it until the panel no longer reported sensing any heat
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  Speaker 4: from the chili peppers.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 3: The amount of dilution needed to reduce the level of
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  Speaker 3: the heat to undetectable levels was the number assigned to
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  Speaker 3: the heat of the pepper. So if, for instance, it
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  Speaker 3: took one thousand t spoons of sugar water to make
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  Speaker 3: the heat of a pepper undetectable, then the pepper would
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  Speaker 3: be rated as one thousand Scoville units.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so it kind of makes sense, like the more
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  Speaker 4: intense the heat is, the more diluted it needs to be,
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  Speaker 4: the higher the number would be to And so you
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  Speaker 4: could essentially just extrapolate from that how spicy the pepper is.
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  Speaker 4: So it really has to do with the dilution. We
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  Speaker 4: dilute podcasts with ads.
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  Speaker 3: Oh boom, all right, we're back.
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  Speaker 4: We're describing the fact that the idea of the Scoville
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  Speaker 4: scale is how much sugar water it takes to dilute
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  Speaker 4: the amount of spice from a pepper to undetectable levels.
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  Speaker 4: And logically this is fairly easy to follow, right, If
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  Speaker 4: it takes a million tea spoons of sugar water, then
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  Speaker 4: we can easily understand that that is like a very
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  Speaker 4: hot pepper, because that's a million is just a very
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  Speaker 4: big number.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
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  Speaker 3: So the weakest pepper is the bell pepper with basically
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  Speaker 3: zero capsation and an SHU of zero.
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  Speaker 2: What is an.
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  Speaker 4: Shu Scoville heat unit?
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  Speaker 2: Scoville heat unit? Great, thank you.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, although you know, some people think bell peppers are
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  Speaker 3: still too spicy for them and they will not even
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  Speaker 3: consume those. Now, for a long time, the Carolina Reaper
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  Speaker 3: was the hottest pepper in the world, and that was
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  Speaker 3: for about ten years with a whopping two point two
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  Speaker 3: million Scoville heat units. However, more recently it was unseated
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  Speaker 3: by a new genetically altered cree fat pepper called pepper X,
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  Speaker 3: with the average Scoville heat unit SHU of two point
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  Speaker 3: seven million. I gotta say, pepper X sucks. It hurts
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  Speaker 3: so much.
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  Speaker 2: Have you had it?
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  Speaker 4: I haven't tried it yet.
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  Speaker 3: It is it's it's poison. It's poison. You can't consume
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  Speaker 3: it and then live through it.
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  Speaker 2: It hurts. It's awful.
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  Speaker 4: And I liked Carolina reapers. I mean they are They're
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  Speaker 4: so intense, like you do need them in tiny, tiny
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  Speaker 4: quantities to get like a huge amount of kick from them. Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: but yeah, I have not tried the pepper AX. I'd
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  Speaker 4: be willing to try it, but good to know that
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  Speaker 4: it's you hate it. It hurts.
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  Speaker 3: There's also right now, just so as we're talking about this,
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  Speaker 3: right now, they're trying to test out and see whether
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  Speaker 3: or not there's an apollo pepper that may even be
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  Speaker 3: hotter than pepper X. And it's currently being tested to
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  Speaker 3: see if it is hotter.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, a lot of sugar water going on there.
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  Speaker 4: So with sugar water, I like Apollo more as a
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  Speaker 4: name than pepper X. I felt like that was Yeah, those.
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  Speaker 3: Peprex feels like it's from Powderpuff Girls.
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  Speaker 4: All right, well, let's get back on track. We were
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  Speaker 4: talking about the Coville scale, and this, of course was
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  Speaker 4: originally conceived. As it was originally conceived, was very subjective.
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  Speaker 4: You can think about the fact that different people have
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  Speaker 4: different tolerances and preferences for spices. So if your panel
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  Speaker 4: of judges happened to be people with more or less
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  Speaker 4: tolerance to spice, then that will influence how much they
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  Speaker 4: detect it. And also, I think again peppers are not
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  Speaker 4: going to be exactly homogeneous clones of one another. Different peppers,
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  Speaker 4: even of the same variety, will have different concentrations of
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  Speaker 4: cap saysin, so you will have a range in the
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  Speaker 4: experience of heat as well as the amount of heat
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  Speaker 4: that would could even be detected.
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  Speaker 3: Right, I mean, different peppers from the same plant can
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  Speaker 3: be different levels of spice.
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  Speaker 2: Like that's something I think people.
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  Speaker 3: Yet you got to really think about that, Like, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: we've all had that jalapeno that we're like, oh, this
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  Speaker 3: is going to be spicy and it's not. And then
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  Speaker 3: we've had the one and it's like, that's not a
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  Speaker 3: high opinion, that's way too spicy. Yeah, and that should
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  Speaker 3: tell you everything about that. Now, in modern times, the
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  Speaker 3: food industry uses high performance liquid chromatography chromatography, Yeah, I
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  Speaker 3: always do that or shortened to HPLC as the standard
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  Speaker 3: for measuring captation and assigning an SHU value. And this
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  Speaker 3: reduces bias and actually increases reproducibility.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's more science y and more rigorous now
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  Speaker 4: for assigning it. And again, at the very least, you're
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  Speaker 4: still going to have some decent amount of variability in
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  Speaker 4: a plant and peppers even from the same plant as
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  Speaker 4: you mentioned. So sure you might wonder like can they
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  Speaker 4: just keep pushing this? Do we want to? As there
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  Speaker 4: is there an upper limit for humans? Yes, there is.
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  Speaker 4: Some competitions have pushed people to consume up to three
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  Speaker 4: raw chili's, putting them around six to seven million shu
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  Speaker 4: or the Skullville heat units, and with people reporting effects
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  Speaker 4: from this, including and not limited to hallucinations, vomiting, gagging,
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  Speaker 4: and passing out from peppers at this level, and scientists
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  Speaker 4: estimate that just thirteen grams of pure capsation would kill
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  Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty pounds adult. For those of us
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  Speaker 4: in the United States who are maybe used to measuring
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  Speaker 4: things not in grams, thirteen grams is not very much.
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  Speaker 4: That is a at all, a pretty small amount. Don't
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  Speaker 4: do that to yourself. Don't consume that or anyone else
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  Speaker 4: for that matter. There is gonna be a point at
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  Speaker 4: which there will be no reason to make peppers any hotter.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I think we've kind of actually crossed that
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  Speaker 4: line at this point.
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  Speaker 2: It's not fun. It's not fun.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, like, what's really important to know is that
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  Speaker 3: peppers that are less hot than the Carolina reaper are
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  Speaker 3: used to ward off elephants from crops like elephants they're
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  Speaker 3: strung up to scare away elephants and humans.
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  Speaker 4: Go I that in a soup, and there's still so like,
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  Speaker 4: things that are significantly less hot than the Carolina reaper
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  Speaker 4: are still so hot that like you can't see them
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  Speaker 4: on their own, like you have to get in something
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  Speaker 4: else and distribute it around. So that So, yeah, we
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  Speaker 4: love spicy food. I definitely celebrate this whole culture of
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  Speaker 4: spicy food. And you know, I think we did it, guys.
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  Speaker 4: I think we're okay. I think we just we have
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  Speaker 4: the varieties of peppers that we have and good job everyone,
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  Speaker 4: pat on the back. Let's enjoy our spicy food and
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  Speaker 4: not try and kill anyone would be my thoughts.
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  Speaker 2: Forward, cut it out, pucker butt farms. We don't need
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  Speaker 2: hotter peppers, Like, what are we doing here?
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  Speaker 4: Definitely people are going to disagree with us, and if
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: you do, you should write in and let us know.
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: You can email us directly at info at WWDWWD podcast
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: dot com. You can reach us on the social media platforms.
• 12:40
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• 12:42
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• 12:44
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  Speaker 2: Yes we are.
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  Speaker 4: I think that that is all I have to say
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: about that. Thank you to our patron supporters who are
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  Speaker 4: already there. I will read the list of names of
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  Speaker 4: people who support us on our full length episodes, and
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  Speaker 4: thank you to my team of people who helped make
• 13:12
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• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Happy to be here.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: Anything that I am missing or that I forgot, or
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  Speaker 4: that you would like to add before we wrap this
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  Speaker 4: one up, Shane.
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  Speaker 2: No, nothing else. I'm trying to think of the quotes
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  Speaker 2: from Done.
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  Speaker 3: It's just like, you know, he who controls the spice
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  Speaker 3: controls everything or whatever.
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  Speaker 2: So very very.
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  Speaker 4: Nice, very nice. Yes, the spice shall flow, yes, yes, Well,
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  Speaker 4: thank you for listening everyone. Thank you for recording with
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: me today. Shane, thank you. This is Abraham and this
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: is Shane. Why We Do what we Do? Mini is out.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: going to wwd wwdpodcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: we hope you have an awesome day.