Want more articles like this one?
You're in luck! We've got a weekly newsletter that's filled with goodness!

Wrap up each week on a positive note with our Today in Goodness newsletter featuring our top content from the week, goodness on the horizon, and good news from around the world. 

Name
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Wrap up each week on a positive note with our Today in Goodness newsletter featuring our top content from the week, goodness on the horizon, and good news from around the world. 

Name
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
View Collection
Image: a plate of Carolina Reapers

Embracing the Spice of Life: Why Grow the World’s Hottest Pepper?

With a paintbrush and a whole lot of patience, the man we’re about to meet is pushing the definition of one vegetable to new extremes! You know his most famous creation by the name of Carolina Reaper—a mind-bendingly hot pepper. His story begs the question: what else is seen as impossible right now that our unique creativity and passions could make happen? 

“Smokin’ Ed” Currie has turned his passion for breeding the hottest peppers in the world into a celebration of challenge and joy for himself and others. Now, people from all over the world send him videos of their experience with something he’s created.  Perhaps this article will be just the thing to inspire you to dive in to what you love, too!

Image: a crate of Carolina Reapers
A crate of Carolina Reapers!
Source: PuckerButt Pepper Company // Facebook

For the blistery, warty love of peppers

When Ed discovered his obsession with spice and breeding peppers, he turned it into an experiment of just how hot he could go. Coming in at 1,641,300 SHU (Scoville Heat Units), the Carolina Reaper is about 300 times hotter than a jalapeño. That’s definitely too hot for me, but it’s floored the hot pepper world. It’s the one to beat, the show stopper, and eye-waterer—the one that people all over the globe have filmed themselves trying.

But why make something like this? The answer will sound more familiar than you’d think!

At first, you may think that Ed’s passion for spice stems from some sort of masochistic drive. And while it very well might, what really keeps him breeding the world’s hottest peppers is that it’s a creative outlet unlike any other.

What else can peppers do? How will the baby of “this” pepper and “that” pepper turn out? Can they get even hotter? What’s the limit?! 

In essence, Ed’s been combining traits of multiple peppers to get the hottest ones since the 1980s—it’s what he loves! So, let’s meet Ed and his peppers in this very spicy video, to see how adding spice to our lives can really pay off.

Via: Great Big Story 1

Want to plant a Carolina Reaper yourself? You can purchase seeds over at PuckerButt Pepper Company’s website! They also have great pepper-growing advice over there if you’d like to even try your hand at growing a pepper with a lower Scoville Heat Unit. Like, say, a bell pepper, that comes in at a whopping 0 SHU.

But if you do grow a Carolina Reaper, maybe don’t eat the whole thing like these folks did. Your body may find it difficult!

Big thanks to the late Great Big Story for creating such a wonderful short piece about Ed and his peppers. If you’d like to see more of their work, make sure you check them out on YouTube!

For more on exactly how Ed breeds the hottest of hot peppers, check out this awesome video from WIRED next!

Following that burning passion

What started as Ed’s attempt to home-grow healthier food over three decades ago has turned into hundreds of new varieties of a vegetable that we thought we knew so well. His pepper passion has entirely reframed the possibilities of spice, and it’s people like this—hyper focused on what they love—that help us all see untapped potential.

Is there something that you love to do? Something that others may see as a little strange or over the top? Keep doing it! The world needs your unique blend of knowledge, skill, and passion to keep moving forward in a positive direction, because the more people who are out there pursuing what they love, the more wonderful our world becomes. I mean, what’s a better world than one where everyone’s finding joy?

So, get out there! See where your burning passion can take you.

Playing with our food!

Now, let’s talk a little more about this whole changing food idea. Humans have been designing our food for as long as we’ve been around, combining traits from this and that to create plants that produce more, survive diseases better, or more popularly: just for their appearance.

Take carrots, for example. The humble orange carrot that we all know was actually never orange to begin with—it changed color because of politics of all things! Originally sporting vibrant colors of white, purple, and yellow, carrots changed their look in the 17th century when Dutch growers wanted to pay tribute to William of Orange, who led the struggle for Dutch independence. 2(What an honor!)

Or you can look at watermelons—yep!

According to a very interesting study combining some of the earliest art we have and genetic analysis of plant material from the same time, it was discovered that the sweet, juicy, summer staple we love has been tracked to have tasted like cucumber when the ancient Egyptians munched on it. Still sounds tasty, but how did it get to where it is today?

We’ve always been playing with our food, and people like Ed who continue this tradition are helping connect us all back to our roots just a bit more. Fruits and vegetables come in all shapes and sizes—varieties that you never would have thought existed! We’ve all become so used to thinking that “this is how a tomato looks” or “this is how a cucumber needs to look” that a lot of us haven’t discovered the phenomenal opportunities we have for creative exploration within each plant family.

The world’s always open to new possibilities, and as always, my friend, I hope you do the same.

If you’d like to discover some other fun ways people are testing what plants can really do, make sure you check out these articles from our archive next!

How to Grow Your Own Bowls, Lamps, and Baskets!

Can we seriously grow everything we need in our backyard? To explore this question, on this edition of Saturday’s Around the World we’re traveling to an enchanting land to meet a woman who can transform plants into almost any object you desire!

Read Article Watch Video Listen to Podcast
Guerrilla Gardener Takes on South Central LA

Meet Ron Finley; an amazing fellow who’s come up with a better idea than battling over turf. How about using “turf” in a very old way! Take a look!

Read Article Watch Video Listen to Podcast
Tasting Peru: from Sea to Summit, the Andes to the Amazon

Our foods and their traditions tell the stories of who we are. And even when we can’t seem to find common ground with someone on anything else, we can find common ground around the dinner table! Food is powerful. So we’re traveling to one of the most diverse foodscapes in the world to see how they’re preserving the legacy of their remarkable culinary culture! 

Read Article Watch Video Listen to Podcast
  • Sam

Notes:

  1. Great Big Story. “Breeding the World’s Hottest Pepper.” YouTube, 17 July 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrF3jVppfr4. Accessed 29 Mar. 2021.
  2. Khimm, Suzy, “Are Carrots Orange for Political Reasons?” Washington Post, The Washington Post, 9 Sept. 2011, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/carrots-are-orange-for-an-entirely-political-reason/2011/09/09/gIQAfayiFK_blog.html. Accessed 29 Mar. 2021.
Image: Samantha Burns

Sam Burns

Former Editor-In-Chief

Sam wrote and edited hundreds of articles during her time on the Goodness Exchange team from 2016-2021. She wrote about topics from the wonders of nature to the organizations changing the world and the simple joys in life! Outside of the Goodness Exchange, she’s a part-time printmaker, collector of knick-knacks, and procurer of cheeses.

Join for as little as $5 per month

As a Member, you get instant access to unlimited good news, fresh ideas, and positive perspectives. Don't miss out on full access to articles, podcasts, videos, and curated playlists of our content, as well as our weekly newsletter, and access to our mobile app!

Become a Member

Follow Us

Positive news for curious people.

There is a wave of goodness and progress well underway, all around the world.