An autopsy of a Massachusetts teen who died after participating in a spicy tortilla chip challenge says his death was caused by eating a large quantity of chile pepper extract.
“Died of high chili consumption”? Is this actual English? Those words don’t seem to fit together that way. I feel like if this were a real thing, Thailand wouldn’t exist.
Capsaicin is a crystalline structure. Pure capsaicin is 16 million scoville units, and is a crystal. I highly doubt there’s any food that anyone is eating that is 14 million scoville units per bite. That would require 87.5% of the food to be crystalline.
You’re right, but scoville units are an absolute measurement of the concentration of capsaicin. In order to have something be 14 million scoville units it would have to be comprised of 87.5% capsaicin. 16 million scoville units is the measurement of pure capsaicin. It’s simple math.
Mexican food has nothing on Thai food when it comes to spice. I like spicy food, even Thai-spicy food, but I have only once made the mistake of asking them to make it as spicy as they could. I swear that little old lady was hiding a huge grin as she marched that order back to the kitchen. Then they only came out to refill my water once.
It was fucking delicious, but I think I started to hallucinate.
I knew Thai cuisine was hot, I guess the phrasing was confusing to me. That shit does get hot, along with some Indian dishes. There’s a couple of biryani places that have had me sweating like Michael Jackson at at 10th birthday party
There’s no empirical evidence that MJ sexually abused any children. He was also acquitted. Why does this rumor persist? Because some guy who has changed his story multiple times decided after MJ died that he was abused, despite previous evidence that he wasn’t abused and that his parents tried to blackmail MJ?
I mean it’s a little quip so you probably didn’t think much of it. But he suffered enough while alive, is it really necessary to continue to assassinate his character despite him being dead and acquitted?
I held that line for decades. I honestly thought he had a super fucked up childhood and just turned into a weird manchild with fucked up boundaries. But in the last few years since his death I feel like the balance of evidence is weighing heavily against him. Of course he’s not around to defend himself any more, either. I’m done sticking up for him. Either way it’s a tragic tale.
Ever had Tibetan food? Living in the Himalayas makes you pretty expert at spicy. Apparently they reduce the spiciness for Westerners. They didn’t reduce it enough.
I actually tried it first in a college town- Bloomington, Indiana. It has a Tibetan community because the brother of the Dalai Lama lived there (he’s dead now) along with his family and others came too because it’s a pretty friendly town for a large number of Buddhists to move to since it’s pretty hippie-friendly as it is.
That said, they sold the original Tibetan restaurant and the menu has been revised to the American palate. Originally, the hottest version of Thukpa Ngopa (a fried noodles with beef recipe) was something else. There was also another restaurant owned by a Tibetan immigrant that didn’t have any Tibetan food, but it had a Tibetan-style dish called Himalayan Potatoes that would make you cry like a baby.
I wish they’d do that for me. I’m a pasty white guy who is a spice fiend. I fucking love spicy food, and I have some sauces I regularly use that have Scorpion Peppers, Carolina Reapers, and Ghost Peppers.
Thai food is great, but when I go to thai restaraunts, they see me order the spicy option, I swear to god they give me a quarter of the spice that they’d give someone who doesn’t boil in sunlight.
There is another country that would not exist if high Chile consumption was a real thing.
This is real title gore, the sentence structure barely makes sense too. Unwinding the journalistic word order and even correcting for the missing word “report” and the chilli misspelling, it basically says
Autopsy was conducted on a teen who had a tortilla, and it[s report] says: “He died of high chil[li] consumption and had a heart defect.”
The logic is technically correct but the following bizzare statements are suggested (not implied):
If you are a teen and eat a tortilla, a doctor may decide you need an autopsy. Prevention first, amirite?
The cause of death of the teen in question was high chilli consumption, which caused a heart defect, and subsequently the autopsy, either of which alone would be enough to kill him.
So bad it’s good. Personally, I like the description text on the video that makes it seem like the teen who was autopsied is speaking:
An autopsy of a Massachusetts teen who died after participating in a spicy tortilla chip challenge says he died from eating a lot of chile pepper extract, and 14-old Harris Wolobah had a congenital heart defect.
Editorially, it’s a hilarious article. Though, respect to journalists out there. This might be a situation of, “Johnson, I need that tortilla chip death article on my desk in 5 minutes”.
edit: Per the correction in the article, I guess AP style guidelines dictate ‘chile’ instead of ‘chili’. It looks super weird to me!
“Died of high chili consumption”? Is this actual English? Those words don’t seem to fit together that way. I feel like if this were a real thing, Thailand wouldn’t exist.
It seems like a more accurate title would be “died of high capsaicin consumption due to a heart defect”.
That’s still misleading. He died of a heart defect exacerbated by high capsaicin consumption.
Any high stress event could have exacerbated the heart defect.
Ya but this headline gets the clicks and that’s all they care about
You have too much time on your hands.
Mhm, tasty anti intellectualism.
Wow. “Died of defect triggered by high capsaicin intake” vs “died of high capsaicin intake”
Feel better?
That’s an important distinction because an average person will not die from capsaicin intake.
Yes it is better because it doesn’t suggest that capsaicin itself is inherently dangerous.
There was an arstechnica article on this topic TLDR:
The newer 🌶️ pack so much 🥵 that we discovered too much capsaicin can cause feel bad effects in the body.
Thailand wasn’t built with ghost peppers and above. We never had 14million scovilles per bite before.
Edit: found it https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/09/teens-death-after-eating-a-single-chip-highlights-risks-of-ultra-spicy-foods/
Capsaicin is a crystalline structure. Pure capsaicin is 16 million scoville units, and is a crystal. I highly doubt there’s any food that anyone is eating that is 14 million scoville units per bite. That would require 87.5% of the food to be crystalline.
It’s a powder flavoring applied on top of a chip.
People don’t eat huge chunks of salt any more than they are eating chunks of capsaicin.
If we can salt chips, we can probably capsaicinize them too.
You’re right, but scoville units are an absolute measurement of the concentration of capsaicin. In order to have something be 14 million scoville units it would have to be comprised of 87.5% capsaicin. 16 million scoville units is the measurement of pure capsaicin. It’s simple math.
If I’m not mistaken, pure capsaicin isn’t even that spicy, it only becomes spicy when dissolved in something like alcohol and then taken.
What does Thailand have to do with anything?
Mexican food has nothing on Thai food when it comes to spice. I like spicy food, even Thai-spicy food, but I have only once made the mistake of asking them to make it as spicy as they could. I swear that little old lady was hiding a huge grin as she marched that order back to the kitchen. Then they only came out to refill my water once.
It was fucking delicious, but I think I started to hallucinate.
I’ve heard that Thai restaurants have extra spicy recipes for non-Thai people trying to act tough by ordering the spiciest thing.
It’s typically the other way around.
To be fair if I ran a restaurant, I’d probably do this
Kindred spirit, my friend.
I knew Thai cuisine was hot, I guess the phrasing was confusing to me. That shit does get hot, along with some Indian dishes. There’s a couple of biryani places that have had me sweating like Michael Jackson at at 10th birthday party
Oh my.
There’s no empirical evidence that MJ sexually abused any children. He was also acquitted. Why does this rumor persist? Because some guy who has changed his story multiple times decided after MJ died that he was abused, despite previous evidence that he wasn’t abused and that his parents tried to blackmail MJ?
I mean it’s a little quip so you probably didn’t think much of it. But he suffered enough while alive, is it really necessary to continue to assassinate his character despite him being dead and acquitted?
I held that line for decades. I honestly thought he had a super fucked up childhood and just turned into a weird manchild with fucked up boundaries. But in the last few years since his death I feel like the balance of evidence is weighing heavily against him. Of course he’s not around to defend himself any more, either. I’m done sticking up for him. Either way it’s a tragic tale.
There’s evidence he paid the kids off, yes
Ever had Tibetan food? Living in the Himalayas makes you pretty expert at spicy. Apparently they reduce the spiciness for Westerners. They didn’t reduce it enough.
Never tried it, but I’ll see if I can find any. Honestly never heard of it being a thing even in a college town, but I’ll look around Detroit.
I actually tried it first in a college town- Bloomington, Indiana. It has a Tibetan community because the brother of the Dalai Lama lived there (he’s dead now) along with his family and others came too because it’s a pretty friendly town for a large number of Buddhists to move to since it’s pretty hippie-friendly as it is.
That said, they sold the original Tibetan restaurant and the menu has been revised to the American palate. Originally, the hottest version of Thukpa Ngopa (a fried noodles with beef recipe) was something else. There was also another restaurant owned by a Tibetan immigrant that didn’t have any Tibetan food, but it had a Tibetan-style dish called Himalayan Potatoes that would make you cry like a baby.
I wish they’d do that for me. I’m a pasty white guy who is a spice fiend. I fucking love spicy food, and I have some sauces I regularly use that have Scorpion Peppers, Carolina Reapers, and Ghost Peppers.
Thai food is great, but when I go to thai restaraunts, they see me order the spicy option, I swear to god they give me a quarter of the spice that they’d give someone who doesn’t boil in sunlight.
They like 🌶️
I think every country likes emojis.
deleted by creator
There is another country that would not exist if high Chile consumption was a real thing.
This is real title gore, the sentence structure barely makes sense too. Unwinding the journalistic word order and even correcting for the missing word “report” and the chilli misspelling, it basically says
The logic is technically correct but the following bizzare statements are suggested (not implied):
So bad it’s good. Personally, I like the description text on the video that makes it seem like the teen who was autopsied is speaking:
Editorially, it’s a hilarious article. Though, respect to journalists out there. This might be a situation of, “Johnson, I need that tortilla chip death article on my desk in 5 minutes”.
edit: Per the correction in the article, I guess AP style guidelines dictate ‘chile’ instead of ‘chili’. It looks super weird to me!
You mean like “died of multiple mosquite bites” doesn’t make sense because people live in countries with a lot of mosquitos?
I’m not sure what part of my post indicated I might be serious, but I wasn’t. I was just commenting on the title gore with a funny.
The words make perfect sense though, the premise is the more ridiculous part
ty