They’re more than twice as hot as habaneros. They make jalapeños taste like a walk in the park. And if you’re unlucky, they can cause severe bodily harm.
A 47-year-old man engaged in a daredevil eating contest in San Francisco found out the hard way just how hot a ghost pepper can be when he munched into a burger topped with a puree made out of the legendary chile.
The result? A 1-inch-wide tear in his esophagus and a 23-day stay at UCSF Medical Center.
The ordeal, while rare, was documented by UCSF physicians in a case study published recently in the Journal of Emergency Medicine that highlights the potential danger of extreme eating. The doctors said the man, who was not identified, survived despite violently and repeatedly retching and vomiting.
The ghost pepper, also known as naga jolokia or bhut jolokia, measures over 1,000,000 Scoville Units (a jalapeño is about 5,000).
On the Scoville scale — a heat index designed to measure the levels of capsaicin in peppers that make them so spicy — ghost peppers weigh in at 1 million units, or super-hot territory.
A jalapeño by comparison clocks in between 5,000 and 8,000 Scoville units, while the world’s hottest pepper, a cross-breeding feat of spicy engineering, measures about 1.5 million.
Chili peppers are shown at the Houston Hot Sauce Festival.
Chili peppers are shown at the Houston Hot Sauce Festival.
Photo: Courtesy Photo, Houston Hot Sauce FestivalGhost peppers in a field in the Indian state of Assam. Their heat makes jalapeño and habanero peppers seem tame.
Ghost peppers in a field in the Indian state of Assam. Their heat makes jalapeño and habanero peppers seem tame.
Photo: Manish Swarup, APFeel the burn: 9 things to know about hot peppers
Feel the burn: 9 things to know about hot peppers
This clocks in at at between 2,500 and 5,000 Scoville units.
This clocks in at at between 2,500 and 5,000 Scoville units.
As you might guess, the mild bell papper scores a goose egg on the Scoville test.
As you might guess, the mild bell papper scores a goose egg on the Scoville test.
Cover your face: Pepper spray packs a punch of between 500,000 and 1 million Scoville units, though if diluted it can be less. In any case, ouch.
Cover your face: Pepper spray packs a punch of between 500,000 and 1 million Scoville units, though if diluted it can be less. In any case, ouch.
The inoffensive banana pepper offers up a mere 100 to 900 Scoville units. Baby stuff, but useful in its place.
The inoffensive banana pepper offers up a mere 100 to 900 Scoville units. Baby stuff, but useful in its place.
That's the same range as the pimento, though if you ate as much pimento cheese as you acutally wanted, it would probably kill you. Slowly. And you wouldn't mind.
That's the same range as the pimento, though if you ate as much pimento cheese as you acutally wanted, it would probably kill you. Slowly. And you wouldn't mind.
Hey, hey, jalapeno, you're loading up with 1,000 to 4,000 Scoville units.
Hey, hey, jalapeno, you're loading up with 1,000 to 4,000 Scoville units.
Remember that thing where you don't touch your eye after touching the pepper? This is why. The habanero holds in its tiny body some 100,000 to 350,000 units.
Remember that thing where you don't touch your eye after touching the pepper? This is why. The habanero holds in its tiny body some 100,000 to 350,000 units.
Oh, cayenne, you're so cute. And slightly brutal, at 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville units.
Oh, cayenne, you're so cute. And slightly brutal, at 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville units.
The Carolina Reaper holds the world's record for hottest pepper. If you want to burn up like a vampire in sunlight, try this one, at 1 million to 2.2 million Scoville units.
The Carolina Reaper holds the world's record for hottest pepper. If you want to burn up like a vampire in sunlight, try this one, at 1 million to 2.2 million Scoville units.
The restaurant where the hospitalized man got sick was also left unnamed by UCSF, but the contest was part of a trend of people consuming hotter and hotter substances in an effort to outdo one another.
“Is it just boredom?” asked Dr. Craig Smollin, co-author of the study. “Is it just this culture of, ‘I can one-up you?’ Or sort of like a schoolyard culture? I honestly don’t know. I don’t see the attractiveness of being able to say you accomplished this.”
People brave or foolish enough to chew and swallow the super-hot peppers are featured in food-dare YouTube videos. They typically scream or cry, mouths held hostage by the fiery pepper that can scald the tongue for a half-hour — or do worse.
The man in San Francisco chugged six glasses of water after chomping down on the pepper-laced burger, to no avail. That’s when the vomiting started, and soon there was a 911 call followed by complaints of excruciating stomach pain.
Smollin, consulted in the case for his expertise with the California Poison Control System, described the episode as an outlier.
“There’s a lot of people out there who are ingesting ghost peppers and who have been OK, who have been fine,” Smollin said. “But there is a possibility, yeah, you could have a reaction and have a bad complication like this.”
The ghost pepper itself — which is spicy but not acidic — couldn’t alone have caused the one-inch tear in the man’s esophagus, Smollin said. It was the bouts of vomiting caused by the pepper’s irritation.
The man was released from the hospital 23 days later with a gastric tube, UCSF said, after undergoing extensive surgery to repair his throat.
Jasmine Robinson, a manager at San Francisco’s Hot Licks, a chain that specializes in spicy products, said she’d be “surprised” if the man wasn’t required to sign a waiver for the challenge.
Those seeking to purchase the hottest sauces in her store require such a waiver releasing the chain from liability, she said.
“If you have too much or you use it improperly, or if your body just has a harmful reaction to it, then we don’t want to be held responsible,” Robinson said.
Dave Hirschkop, who set out to make the spiciest sauce in the world when he founded San Francisco’s Dave’s Gourmet, said the question when it comes to heat has become: “How far does it go?”
That’s why his hotter bottles now come prescribed with a label urging the customer to use “one drop at a time.”
“At some point, there is a chance that some bizarre set of circumstances will happen and someone will get hurt even worse,” Hirschkop said. “Or die.”
Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michael_bodley
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