Sometimes, someone at home tries something extremely stupid and lives to tell about it. Then they decide to share their experience on social media or YouTube and let the whole world know about it. This is how viral "challenges" get started... or so I imagine.
I got the idea to try the Habanero Pepper Challenge from a YouTube video. Not being a lover of spicy food, I wanted to go out of my comfort zone and try something crazy. The girls in the video looked like they were in some serious pain. Naturally, I had to try it for myself.
When I say I don't like spicy foods, I mean it. I actually can't even handle them. One little taste of anything over mildly spicy has me downing seven glasses of water. According to the Scoville Scale, the Habanero pepper is one of the hotter peppers, but definitely not the spiciest.
Basically, you must take a bite of this tiny orange chili pepper, chew for 30 seconds, and wait one minute before taking a drink of anything.
I somehow convinced two other friends to do this insane challenge with me. We stocked up on milk, ice cream, and had ice cubes on hand. I was actually pretty excited to try it! How bad could it really be?
This. Was. Excruciating. I cannot stress this enough.
The first bite wasn't so bad, especially since we all took a small amount. That's all it took. After chewing for 5 seconds, I regretted everything. That's when the heat set in and we all looked at each other as if we wanted to go back in time to throw the peppers away. It seems kind of funny now, the fact that I thought this would be a good idea. But hey, it's a good story to tell.
We were supposed to swallow the pepper, but only one of the three of us did. We waited about forty-five seconds before taking huge drinks of milk and shoveling ice cream into our mouths. It wasn't a pretty sight.
Here's the thing: the Habanero pepper is so incredibly hot that there is absolutely no relief to the searing heat for at least 15 minutes. That is the worst part. It's not just hot for a minute or two and then fades away into a slight spicy flavor. The pain that came from this pepper was a type of pain I have never experienced, probably due to the unexpectedness. Of course, we knew it would be very, very spicy. But this was not expected.
The only time I was relieved of the intense heat was when I was eating ice cream. I wanted to bury my head in a snowbank. I was sweating, tearing up, and hating my life for a solid half an hour.
In the end, it was a great experience and a fun and interesting challenge to conquer. I'd recommend it to anyone!
In all seriousness, don't try this at home, kiddos. *cue 20 flame emojis*
