Pepper Spray: Just How Hot Is It?

Pepper spray is made from the same family of plants as chile peppers. Anyone who has ever bitten down on a mouthful of jalapeno peppers can attest to the kind of heat that follows immediately. The amount of heat is measured on a Scoville scale, which was developed in 1912 and is named after its inventor, Wilbur Scoville. He figured out how to test and then rate just how hot peppers are. The amount of heat is expressed in terms of Scoville Heat Units (SHUs).

What that means in layman’s terms is that a regular bell pepper is rated at zero. .At the other end of the scale is a little baby called the Red Savina pepper. At 580,000 SHUs it is one of the hottest chile peppers around. There is only one pepper that is hotter: the Naga Jolokia. Its rating is 580,000.

Pepper spray weighs in at between two million and five million SHUs!

Whew!