Did you know that a food could be so hot that it could potentially harm your body, maybe even cause death? Introducing, the Dragon’s Breath chili pepper. This bright red pepper could possible cause anaphylactic shock, burning one’s airways and closing them up. Mike Smith, who worked with several scientists from Nottingham University, stated, “I’ve tried it on the tip of my tongue and it just burned and burned.”

It turns out that the original development of this chili was supposedly created for medical treatment, in which it would be used as a numbing tool. To put into perspective how hot this pepper really is, take the jalapeno pepper. Now, people who are terrible with digesting spicy food may think this is really hot, but compared to the Dragon’s Breath, it is nothing.  The jalepeno pepper contains roughly 350,000 heat units, whereas the Dragon’s Breath is recorded to have about 2.48 million heat units. One may wonder what causes the spicy flavor. The answer to that question is capsaicin, a chemical found in peppers that releases the spicy heat from the food. Even the tiniest consumption of Dragon’s Breath can lead to one drowning in a pool full of water, overloaded by the spiciness.