[CH] Chili Powder as a weapon?
Terry Pogue (tpogue@comcast.net)
Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:59:00 -0400
I saw this on The Daily Beast's new food section called The Hungry
Beast and thought it might be of interest.
Chili Powder Added to Grenades
Move over pepper spray. India's security forces are planning to make
hand grenades that replace explosives with powder made from one of the
world's hottest chilies. The chili, bhut jolokia, is said to generate
1,000,000 heat units on the Scoville scale, which measures hotness or
piquancy of a pepper as defined by the amount of capsaicin in the
pepper. (A bell pepper registers as a 0 on the Scoville scale, with
almost no capsaicin; Habañero chilies and Scotch Bonnet peppers
registers between 100,000–350,000; pure capsaicin registers on the
scale at 15,000,000.) "We are working on a project on how to use the
hottest chili in different applications in defense forces," said R.B.
Srivastava, a senior scientist at the state-run Defense Research and
Development Organization. Another idea percolating in the DRDO: the
concept of using the hot chili as a food supplement as a means of
raising the body temperatures of soldiers stationed in cold locales.
Read it at Reuters
Posted at 10:34 PM, Jun 30, 2009
http://www.terryanddave.com/Terry
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