The Final Post: Chili Peppers

I decided for my last post to share a random fact I learned yesterday about chili peppers.

Apparently, historically, peppers got noticeably hotter the further south you went (to a point); the hottest peppers flourished in Brazil, the Yucatan, and India. Biologists now believe that this was actually a defense mechanism developed by chilis in tropical climates to ward off predators, particularly aphids and cicadas (which are disgusting anyway).

Apparently, said predators have a nasty habit of munching on the peppers, and then flying off; the puncture marks they leave behind allow moulds to enter into the pepper and basically rot it from within.

As it turns out, capsaicin, the organic compound responsible for chili peppers' heat, is an antimicrobial agent that prevents the moulds from doing long-term damage to the pepper. It has the added benefit of warding off cicadas and other predatory insects, which are sensitive to capsaicin and can't stand the heat.

As you go further north, the older, indigenous species of peppers become milder, apparently due to the lack of a good reason to pump up the heat. 

Huh.

Well that's the end of that.

Take care, folks!