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Originally Posted by freeztar
Why? This seems to assume that mountains are dry.
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Yes
air at higher altitudes is generally drier. Fly in a plane.
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Well, it's an assumption that they did not measure humidity levels at both altitudes. My point was that, given their "assumptions", that fungus is more prevalent in moist areas
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yes at lower altitudes not high
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As I consider you knowledgeable about chillies through my years of interaction with you, I'm willing to accept your claims. Nonetheless, it would be beneficial for others if you produced a source that corroborated with your statements above.
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Very good of you.
"said Perry (
Who?) oops no Michaelangelica, who is an expert on the domestication of chilies."
Seed coat refers to um...the seed coating.
From the free dictionary:
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I will not even pretend to be able to explain how different plants, in different locales, are able to produce different thickness in seed coats, but that is precisely what this study has observed. In fairness, results may vary in Australia.
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the four botanical groups of chillies have remarkably similar "seed coats" Did they measure any? Where are the measurements for each variety and botanic type?
More balderdash. results will not vary because the chilli is grown in adiffent country
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Not really. Check out this wiki, where they say...
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Scoville units are still used. I agree a HPLCis probably a better way of going, but generally it is not used or it is than converted to Scoville Units especially where Queen Elizabeth reigns. I wonder how they treat all four capsaicins or do they just measure the
one Yanks use in the evil "Pepper (sic) Spray". If so, that measurement is up the spout too.
"wiki is wrong says the expert Australian chilli grower Michaelangelica."
I have grown over 200 varieties of chillies", he said "collected the seed over a number of years and have yet to notice significant variation in so called 'seed coats' in the majority of chillies."
He went on to say, " Soil is unlikely to affect the heat rating of habaneros, but time of harvest may. the first flush of fruit is likely to be hotter than later harvests." he said.
a recent artists sketch of the reclusive Chilli expert from Australia.who is highly critical of American Geographic chilli research.
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What does this have to do with the study's results? Perhaps I missed something.
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THIS
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"You can't tell them apart unless you chew on the fruits," he said.
Chewing on fruits—tough field work, Tewksbury joked—helped the team to establish a gradient of hotness along a 185-mile-long (300-kilometer-long) sample area in Bolivia.
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is subjective balderdash, not science.
Capsaiacin levels could go up because of insect attack rather than fungus attack.
Many plants produce toxins when attacked.
What fungus did they observe? I have rarely seen fungus on chillies grown here; in fact never.
Heat from chillies will also vary according to the time of harvest.
The Mayans and others hybridised chillies for at maybe a1,000 years. they were into hybridsation and had huge botanical gardens long before the first one appeared in europe in 15C. It is likely they hybridised chillies that were hotter. Latitude (and/oraltitude) has little to do with it
Two more doubtful assumptions
- The finding, he said, adds weight to a hypothesis that humans first started to eat chilies for their antimicrobial properties.
- He noted that the majority of people who eat chillies live along the Equator, a region of the world where microbes also flourish and cause a range of intestinal diseases
Most anti-microbial action is probably in the leaves!
Perhaps people just liked eating them with their chocolate?
Perhaps people in hot climates like to sweat because it makes them cool?
Perhaps the high Vit C level keeps them healthy?
Perhaps they enhance the flavour of food?
perhaps they werepart of the local cuisine for 1,000-2,000 years or so.
perhaps there are historical reasons like the slave ships using chillies in the muck they fed prisoners.
OR the Brits and french had mostly colonies in equatorial Africal and grew chillies
I can make twice as many speculative, unsupported assumptions as the researchers do and don't even get paid for it
Anyway where is the evidence for this Equatorial Chilli Obsession?
The British eat a lot of Chilli,
(a region of the world where microbes also flourish and cause a range of intestinal diseases) so too Japan, comparatively very little even in tropical China with the exception of Schezwan.
The people who know how to eat really hot chillies are the people in the Caribbean. They would blow the Bolivians out of the water.
Chillies were adopted widely because they were an easy to grow, cheap substitute for pepper. Something else Columbus got wrong and is still perpetuated in the name. Chillies have nothing to do with the Pepper vine.
Ihe more I read the study the crankier i get. There is enough stupid folklore about chillies as it is, without a prestigious journal like this adding to it. Perhaps there is more detail somewhere else rather than in this sketchy report?
Next time
American Geographic want to send someone on a Bolivian junket/ holiday please put my name forward.
So, freeztar are you doing this just to stir me?
Re: Fungus Puts the Heat in Chili Peppers, Study Says
