How to Spice Up Your Diet With Chili Peppers

Anna Delany, adapted from www.Fruits&VeggiesMatter.gov

Hot peppers (chilies) are often used to spice up dishes, and are especially popular in Mexican, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Arab and Spanish cooking. Chilies are also an excellent source of vitamin C - if you can withstand their powerful bite!

Read on and find out how to spice up your diet with chili peppers.

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Why is a chili pepper hot?

Blame the capsaicinoid! Capsaicinoids are flavorless, odorless substances that act on pain receptors in the mouth and throat. Capsaicinoids can be found throughout the flesh of chili peppers, though their concentration varies in different areas so that one part of a pepper may be hot and another part of the same pepper quite mild.

Contrary to popular belief, the hottest part of the chili pepper is not the seeds but the part where the seed attaches to the white membrane inside the pepper. This area has the highest concentration of capsaicinoids. However, the seeds are also often hot because they are in such close contact with the white membrane.

Varieties

There are several varieties of chili peppers and each differs in flavor and heat intensity. Even within each variety, one chili can be hotter than another. Typically, larger chilies are more mild because they contain less seeds and white membrane in proportion to their size. Most varieties can be found dried, canned, or fresh.

Variety	Spiciness	Description
Anaheim	Mild	One of the most commonly used varieties in the U.S., especially in stuffed chilies. This chili is long, slender and lobed, and green or red in color. They can be eaten when green or when they are their mature red color.
Ancho	Mild to moderate	Dried or fresh poblano pepper. Dried anchos are flat, wrinkled, and heart shaped. They range in color from very dark red to almost black. Anchos are often soaked and ground for use in sauces.
Cascabel	Moderately hot	Green or red, small and round, and typically available dried. When dried, their skin turns a translucent red-brown color and their seeds rattle inside.
Cayenne	Very hot	Red when fully mature, long (6 to 10 inches), thin and straight or curled at the tips. Cayenne can be found dried and ground into the cayenne, or "red" pepper found in the spice aisle.
Cherry	Mild to moderate	Round and red like a cherry. Sold fresh or pickled in jars.
Habanero (Scotch bonnet)	Hottest!	Typically yellow-orange but can be green, red, or orange. They are the hottest pepper grown commercially and have an intense fiery flavor, a unique floral taste, and an extremely intense heat that affects the nasal passages.
Hungarian	Moderately hot	These peppers start out yellow and ripen to orange or red.
Jalapeno	Very hot	Most often green when mature, but sometimes red, these peppers are about 2 inches in length with cracks around their stems. They have an immediate bite. Jalapenos are sold canned, sliced, and pickled and are added to many products during processing including sausage, cheese and jelly.
Poblano	Mild to hot	Ancho peppers that are green. Poblano peppers look like small bell peppers. They are often roasted and peeled prior to being used in soups, sauces, casseroles or even stuffed with meat and cheese for a dish called chilies rellenos.
Serrano	Moderate to very hot	Sold red or mature green and about 1 to 4 inches in length. Serrano chilies are often used in Thai cooking and they are also quite popular in Mexico and the southwestern United States.