All of the different stages have different flavors, properties, levels of heat, and amounts of vitamins. The hottest pepper in the world, the Bhut Jolokia will turn brown at its peak.

When peppers are young they will usually start out green. Many of them, such as jalapenos are harvested at this point. But, can be left on the plant longer, if left they will normally turn red. Red peppers are usually a little more expensive because they are more rare and less common, supply and demand.

The aging process of a pepper and the flavor have a lot to do with each other. Some peppers reach their peak heat quickly other must age for a little while it is really dependent on the individual pepper. The amount of water and the amount of heat that peppers are subjected to will also influence the heat. One thing is certain, the smaller the pepper the hotter. Habaneros are some of the hottest peppers in the grocery store and they are also some of the hottest.

As a pepper ages on the plant it will usually become sweeter and a little more mild. The vitamin content of the pepper will also rise as it is left on the plant, pulling more nutrients out of the ground.

Peppers are often used ornamentally and many growers have taken pepper growing to an art and experiment with ways to bring out different colors. Peppers are a great way to spice up your food, add some color to a kitchen, or make a great hot sauce.

First you have to gobble down some salsa with capsaicin, this is the irritant that is in the peppers that causes the burn. When the capsaicin hit your mouth, the burning sensation is caused by an irritation of a cell called the trigeminal cell. Didn’t realize there was actually science to this did you? These cells send the sensation of pain to your brain. This irritation causes them to release release a substance called P, science can be simple. This is what tells the brain, “Hott!” Regular exposure to capsaicin depletes the nerve ending of P, this will lead to desensitization, meaning that you can’t taste the rest of your food. Because your taste buds regenerate your taste sensation will return but tolerance to capsaicin will remain higher than before. It is possible to totally kill of taste buds despite their regenerative properties but it would be very difficult. We would be talking about eating industrial grade pepper spray, which is nothing more than capsaicin concentrate and something like a couple of hundred times hotter than a Habanero.

Now that you know how capsaicin works you probably don’t want to eat too much of it. It is good that most companies put warnings on salsa containers rating the hotness of a particular hot sauce. If you are a stranger to salsa I would suggest starting low and working your way up the Scoville scale to a point that is just above your pain threshold. As we mentioned above your taste buds will develop a tolerance to the heat and you may actually start to like the intense sensation of heat and the accompanied release of endorphins.

Salsa can be a great addition to cooking but it is important that you learn how to use hot sauce safely and effectively. Realize that not everyone shares your love for something that can cause so much pain.

So, how the heck do you increase your tolerance to hot sauce? Simple, just eat a bunch. Some people start out with a higher threshold for capsaicin resistance, which is largely formed by previous hot chili consumption. These high resistance folks can start moving to smaller hotter chilies consumed more frequently.

The best way to start eating more hot chilies is to simply determine your resistance level, that is what it is comfortable for you to eat, what taste good and does not cause you to drink too much water, and run for the hills. Take a step back from this and just increase the frequency of your consumption. After you have developed a good routine of eating spicy food regularly take it up a notch. Go hotter once and within reason. If you are used to cooked jalapenos try a fresh one for a change, if jalapenos have lost their bite try something spicier, like a quarter habanero. After the burn subsides go back to eating your normal not so spicy fare and see how it taste. Chances are that it will have lost its bite for good.

At this point slowly start to increase the amount of hot sauce you use and experiment with different kinds of chilies and hot sauce. There are millions of different kinds of sauce and thousands of different chilies, many have a very good flavor once you get past the heat and all have the great benefits of capsaicin.

Suggestions for cooking

Looking for ways to add a little spice to your life?

Add hot peppers to salad
Douse your omelet with hot sauce
Spice up a smoothie or juice for a good kick
Mix a cocktail with a little heat
Hot sauce is not just for chips and dip, it goes great with nearly any food and can take the place of less healthy condiments like salt or creamy salad dressing.

Experiment with all of the different varieties for the max health benefit and have fun raising eyebrows with your ability to down chocolate covered habanero peppers.

Luckily peppers are pretty easy to grow. I’m not going to pull your leg and tell you that they are as easy as fake house plants but they are not as tricky as orchids. I am going to skip over the seed germination part and move straight into the part where you put them in the ground or a decent sized pot. If you want to know how to germinate I will cover that in the future, so check back.

Planting in the Perfect Spot

Location is possibly the most important part of planting a pepper plant. You want it hot, sunny, and well drained. Some light shade in the peak of the day will be ok and help you avoid sunburn. If you are planing in the ground make sure that the soil is of good quality, full of nutrients and well drained. If you are planing in a pot any high quality soil will do the trick. Line the bottom of the pot with gravel, stones, broken pots, anything that will prevent the pot from clogging. A light organic fertilizer to help the roots with the transition will be good at this point.

Care and Cultivation

At this point, water 2 to 3 times per week, wetting the soil but not soaking. If you stick your finger in the soil and it feels damp skip another day, a little humidity is fine but you do not want the roots to rot. Once you start to see some good growth from the plant cut the first couple of inches off of the top to promote more growth below. Shortly after flowers will blossom die and turn into fruit. The peppers will start out green and slowly mature to red, orange, yellow, or some other color. You can harvest at any time even if they are green.

Perfection

This is where it gets interesting and where the finesse comes in, the longer you leave the fruit on the plant the hotter it gets. If this ripening happens to coincide with the hottest most humid time of the year because of blind luck or great experience, cheers to you. This will just make the chilies that much hotter. Off to the kitchen to brew the perfect spicy concoction

A touch of hot sauce can improve digestion in a few ways. First, capsicum, the stuff that makes chilies hot increases stomach acid secretions. Second, it also increases blood flow, yes this is due to the over stimulation because of the burn, but it also helps digest your food by literally turning up the temperature. And third, the mucous lining of your stomach is increases by the chillies. This mucous lining is also what protects your stomach from painful ulcers and, so contrary to popular belief, hot stuff should be eaten by people with weak stomaches, they should just start out light and work up to spicier food.

Spicy food also battles depression in a few simple ways. In the same way that running releases endorphins because of the small amount of stress that you are putting on the body hot food does the same. Sounds a little masochistic I know but people do stranger things for fun. Capsicum has also been found to be a good antiseptic and has been used for pain relief for centuries.

Hot sauce is also very effective at clearing respiratory passages during a cold or other infection. Try a spicy tea with honey and citrus for a very effective nasal congestion cleanser. Along with the previous benefits this can equal a powerful punch to a cold.

I am not going to go into depth here but recent studies have shown capsicum to be an effective agent in the fight against cancer. Look for more on this in the future.

Capsicum is also a natural antibacterial and in an age of super bugs and scrutiny of the medical establishment anything natural has a nice ring to it. Adding peppers to a salad could possibly ward of salmonella and other food born pathogens. This is certainly not a free for all to not wash your vegetables but every little bit counts.

Last but not least, spicy food can help you loose weight. It not only increases your natural metabolism by literally turning up the heat but it also suppresses your appetite. Combine these facts with the nutritionally dense qualities of different chillies and you have a great way to add some flavor to a healthy diet.

The main ingredient in hot sauce is usually chillies. This could be jalapenos, habaneros, cayenne, or something more exotic. It can also be some other type of filler like tomatoes or carrots. The chillies are usually cooked or infused with another ingredient like vinegar, oil, alcohol, fruit juice or any other array of unique ingredients. I would say that the only rule that needs to be followed to make hot sauce is that it needs to be spicy and hot but many varieties of chile sauce violate this rule.

In the United States we have a couple ethnic varieties of hot sauce. The two most famous being the Louisiana hot sauce and the Mexican variety of picante. Both of these can be broken down further into more regional varieties but for the most part this is were the line is drawn.

Jalapenos are by far the most popular chile in Mexican varieties of picante, the jalapenos are used fresh or smoked. Once smoked they are referred to as chipotles. Mexican hot sauce usually focuses on flavor but it is also famous for being extremely hot and they are not above using habanero peppers for some extra kick. Tomatoes, onions and other fillers are common and usually help round out the taste. The southern varieties of hot sauce are usually best fresh and often avoid vinegar which is often used as a preservative.

The Louisiana hot sauce also famous in the south most commonly uses cayenne pepper. These sauces also focus more on flavor than heat with many regional varieties that have been perfected over the years. Vinegar is common in the Louisiana variety and it makes these hot sauces thinner and longer lasting than Mexican varieties. As a whole Mexican hot sauce is normally used more liberally while the Louisiana variety is just an add on.

Hot sauce is certainly not an American invention, just sample of Thai or Indian food for confirmation that most American varieties don’t hold a candle to the heat that is savored in other countries.