I am a practical man interested in functionality. I have gained some wisdom over the years. This one piece of wisdom I want to pass on to those in my family.
Don't cut hot peppers and then rub your eyes!
I like to eat hot peppers in my food. One thing that we have successfully done over the years is grow peppers in the garden. The oils on the inside of hot peppers are responsible for that burning sensation in your mouth. I have been bold enough to grow habanero peppers (some say they are the hottest commercially available pepper). In order to process these peppers it is necessary to remove them from the plant and to remove the stem (and maybe even the seeds) so as to allow the pepper to be cut into appropriate size pieces (very small). Soap does not seem to be able to take the oil off your skin. A nonchalant rub to the eye or nose when it itches and that trace of hot oil then transfers to the tender skin around your orifices.
The oils do not seem to break down in the digestive track either. As the oils from the peppers travel down through your digestive track they cause a warm feeling that can be felt with a knowledge of just how far through the process it has gone.
Eat icecream after eating hot peppers. The burning is reduced with the consumption, and then later when you have to dispose of those oils in the sanitation system you can have a hope of the icecream coming soon after.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Never Cut Hot Peppers and then Rub Your Eyes
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I also learned that you do not grind dry peppers in the blender inside the house. We had an arrastra of dry red peppers and I just couldn't see wasting them, so I removed the stems and seeds and dropped them into a blender to grind them into a powder. They ground quite nicely, but there was a fine powder released into the air. For days, when you walked into the front door of the house, our eyes and lips would burn.
ReplyDeleteI think it will be soon when we can again have our pepper garden. Elder Hutto probably wished that I had never known how to grow peppers. I took some to a ward social where he was foolish enough to take a dare and eat a jabanero that I had grown. He was infirmed with acute nausea and tried to imitate the scene from The Exorcist.
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