A pepper rated by Guinness World Records as the hottest in the world is dangerous business, as James Ware found out when he chowed down on a Carolina Reaper and uploaded it for the masses on YouTube.
This thing is so dangerously hot, it was given an average heat rating of 1.5 million Scoville Heat Units, with its hottest individual pepper coming in at a volcanic 2.2 million. By comparison, the Ghost Pepper and the Red Habanero, the second and third hottest peppers in the world, were given ratings of 1 million and 555,000, respectively. On a more earthly scale, jalapeno peppers and Tabasco sauce are each rated at 2,500 SHU. So yeah, the Carolina Reaper is not something you just want to mess around with willy nilly.
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You can imagine, then, that the level of pain Ware experienced when he decided to scarf down one of these fireballs. His words as he grimaces in pain sum it up perfectly: “Why did I do this? This is the most stupid idea for a video ever. Feels like somebody is inside me with a blow torch.”