Make Do Sew: I Love Chilli, Do You?

Wednesday, 13 March 2013

I Love Chilli, Do You?

My chilli plant has decided to go mad and is producing lovely fruit as well as going into flower. The flowers are really pretty, a simple star shape with white delicate petals. I've dried some of the pods and plan to use both fresh and dried to make a pepper sauce and chilli jam.

I love eating chilli, it makes me feel vitalised and seems to perk up my taste buds. With this in mind I decided to have a bit of a root around on the Internet for some chilli facts. So, did you know that.....

1. Chillies are packed full of vitamin A, a great antioxidant for giving a boost to the immune system.

2. Fresh chillies are packed with vitamin C, in fact twice the amount found in citrus fruits.

3. Adding some dried chilli pods to your bird seed will deter squirrels stealing from the bird table but will have no affect on birds as they have a different nervous system.

4. Capsaicin is the active irritant in chillies that causes the burning sensation in the mouth, this causes us no harm but tricks the body in to releasing endorphins which cause the body to feel pleasure leading some to believe chilli has addictive qualities.

5. As a general rule of thumb, the smaller and thinner the chilli the hotter it will be.

6. There were many different opinions on what is the hottest chilli, however the general consensus seems to be the Trinidad Scorpion 'Butch T', this measures a staggering 1,463,700 on the Scoville heat scale.