Your Spice Rack Could Kill You

We stumbled upon the topic for this week's episode the way we often do. And by that we mean we binge watched some Netflix. "We Are the Champions", episode 2 "It's Like Breaking Bad with Chilis" inspired us to dig into all things related to one of America's favorite poisons: capsaicin! Candace is a fan of the spice, but Elle is admittedly "capsaicin naive". Peppers are rated on a range of spiciness called the Scoville Scale (thanks Wilbur Scoville), with your supermarket green bell at zero, and the formidable Ghost pepper ringing in at 1 million units. The Guinness Book Record holder, the Carolina Reaper, is the spiciest of them all (so far) at double that level. The Reaper's creator, Smokin' Ed Currie, the purveyor of all things peppers and the founder of the Puckerbutt Pepper Company from Fort Mill, SC is always turning up the heat as he is constantly tinkering around with those little gems in order to grow a hotter and hotter pepper.

However, peppers aren't even the most dangerous thing in your spice cabinet. As it turns out, you should be very concerned about how much nutmeg you are sprinkling on your pumpkin spice latte. Just kidding, a little is fine. But, apparently high doses will make you hallucinate, and assuming you survive it, will give you an ugly two day hangover. Cinnamon brings its own forms of peril, as anyone who tried the Cinnamon Challenge will likely agree.

Can Gastroenterology be entertaining? We think so! Let us introduce you to Dr. Ed McDonald, and his blog, The Docs Kitchen. We came to learn about the safety of eating spicy peppers, and we stayed for the laughs, chitlins and trendy diet info. Click here

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