The Dangers of Habanero Peppers
Current mood:hungry
This is a true, albeit emabarassing story, posted by request.
A lot of the blogs are serious. A lot give insight. Well, I am a firm believer in the old adage that you need to laugh at yourself. Fortunately, I give myself a lot of "ammo" to keep me in stitches.
I have a hobby (ok, this falls in the category of getting to know me better). I make hot sauce. More specifically, earlier this year, I learned how to make Belizian style habanero sauce. For those that do not know, habanero's are alleged to be the hottest pepper on Earth. They are so potent, that when you handle them, you should always, and I mean ALWAYS wear gloves! Even when I pick them up at the store, I grab one of the plastic bags and use that to insulate my hand - you may not feel it then, but if you were to scratch your nose or eyes, you would certainly feel it. Mucous membranes really absorb whatever it is in the peppers that make them hot, and trust me, it can burn!!!! Doubt it? What do you think the active ingredient in pepper spray is????
Getting back to the story, and yes, I am sad to say, that it is 100% true.
I was making a batch of sauce. As usual, I sliced the peppers open and cleaned the seeds out. But - and this is a big, tragic in a hindsight sort of way, but, I was out of gloves. "No worries" I thought. "As long as I wash my hands right away with soap and water, there should be no problem."
If you have ever cleaned habanero's (or any other small pepper), in order to get the seeds out, you pretty much have to get in there. And that's what I did. I flicked and picked with my finger tips. But hey, when all was said and done, I washed my hands and I was fine.
Fast forward. As noted, I had scrubbed my hands. With anti-bacterial soap, no less (this was before the Mexican Jalepeno scare). An hour or two later, well, nature called. As a lot of guys will tell you, sometimes when we are standing there, we do things - we "lift and separate". We scratch. No big deal. Unless you have been cleaning the seeds out of habanero of peppers with your fingernails (ok, in reality, I was going to "rub one out").
No for those of you who may not realize this, there are certain other places on the human body that are basically "mucous membranes" (note, that the "brane" portion is not spelled the same as "brain"). Mucous membranes tend to absorb certain things much faster or easier (again, hence the effectiveness of, oh, I don't know, PEPPER SPRAY???).
Shortly after I had this burning pain. I'll let your imagination figure out where. It started to get worse. WTF???? About this time, the skin under my fingernails was also starting to burn. Now I am no rocket scientist (obviously). So I jumped in the shower. Wrong move. Water spreads the stuff that makes the peppers burn! And boy did it spread! Well, eventually I remembered my first aid training from my days with the Black Forest, Colorado Fire Department eons ago. Milk!!!! That nuetralizes the acids in pepper spray!!! Should work here too!
Guess what. The Dr. told me to avoid real milk. I have soy milk. Still, its worth a shot, right? So here I am, sitting on the toilet, pouring soy milk over "little steve" and his friends. Life was a little better, but not good enough. Back into the memory, and I remembered starch!!!! Great. What was I supposed to do now? Wrap a piece of bread, or perhaps a tortilla around it?? Then I remembered when my kids had chicken pox and what the Dr. suggested - Niagra Spray Starch! Hobbling to the laundry room, I found it - lemon scented, no less. I sprayed. Fortunately, it worked. And there were no lasting side effects from the peppers. And the spray starch had a hidden benefit - I was wrinkle free for 6 weeks!
The moral of the story? Hell if I know. But I now have a bunch of rubber gloves under the kitchen sink.
Current mood:hungry
This is a true, albeit emabarassing story, posted by request.
A lot of the blogs are serious. A lot give insight. Well, I am a firm believer in the old adage that you need to laugh at yourself. Fortunately, I give myself a lot of "ammo" to keep me in stitches.
I have a hobby (ok, this falls in the category of getting to know me better). I make hot sauce. More specifically, earlier this year, I learned how to make Belizian style habanero sauce. For those that do not know, habanero's are alleged to be the hottest pepper on Earth. They are so potent, that when you handle them, you should always, and I mean ALWAYS wear gloves! Even when I pick them up at the store, I grab one of the plastic bags and use that to insulate my hand - you may not feel it then, but if you were to scratch your nose or eyes, you would certainly feel it. Mucous membranes really absorb whatever it is in the peppers that make them hot, and trust me, it can burn!!!! Doubt it? What do you think the active ingredient in pepper spray is????
Getting back to the story, and yes, I am sad to say, that it is 100% true.
I was making a batch of sauce. As usual, I sliced the peppers open and cleaned the seeds out. But - and this is a big, tragic in a hindsight sort of way, but, I was out of gloves. "No worries" I thought. "As long as I wash my hands right away with soap and water, there should be no problem."
If you have ever cleaned habanero's (or any other small pepper), in order to get the seeds out, you pretty much have to get in there. And that's what I did. I flicked and picked with my finger tips. But hey, when all was said and done, I washed my hands and I was fine.
Fast forward. As noted, I had scrubbed my hands. With anti-bacterial soap, no less (this was before the Mexican Jalepeno scare). An hour or two later, well, nature called. As a lot of guys will tell you, sometimes when we are standing there, we do things - we "lift and separate". We scratch. No big deal. Unless you have been cleaning the seeds out of habanero of peppers with your fingernails (ok, in reality, I was going to "rub one out").
No for those of you who may not realize this, there are certain other places on the human body that are basically "mucous membranes" (note, that the "brane" portion is not spelled the same as "brain"). Mucous membranes tend to absorb certain things much faster or easier (again, hence the effectiveness of, oh, I don't know, PEPPER SPRAY???).
Shortly after I had this burning pain. I'll let your imagination figure out where. It started to get worse. WTF???? About this time, the skin under my fingernails was also starting to burn. Now I am no rocket scientist (obviously). So I jumped in the shower. Wrong move. Water spreads the stuff that makes the peppers burn! And boy did it spread! Well, eventually I remembered my first aid training from my days with the Black Forest, Colorado Fire Department eons ago. Milk!!!! That nuetralizes the acids in pepper spray!!! Should work here too!
Guess what. The Dr. told me to avoid real milk. I have soy milk. Still, its worth a shot, right? So here I am, sitting on the toilet, pouring soy milk over "little steve" and his friends. Life was a little better, but not good enough. Back into the memory, and I remembered starch!!!! Great. What was I supposed to do now? Wrap a piece of bread, or perhaps a tortilla around it?? Then I remembered when my kids had chicken pox and what the Dr. suggested - Niagra Spray Starch! Hobbling to the laundry room, I found it - lemon scented, no less. I sprayed. Fortunately, it worked. And there were no lasting side effects from the peppers. And the spray starch had a hidden benefit - I was wrinkle free for 6 weeks!
The moral of the story? Hell if I know. But I now have a bunch of rubber gloves under the kitchen sink.
much appreciated