Guinness Record for eating the world’s hottest chili was broken as Gregory Foster became the fastest person to eat three Carolina Reaper chilies in a matter of 8.72 seconds. Carolina Reaper is considered the world’s hottest pepper. He broke Mike Jack’s (Canada) previous best time of 9.72 seconds in his second attempt after the first was disqualified.
According to the Guinness website, he was disqualified because there was pepper matter in his mouth that had not been swallowed by the end of the first attempt.
He tried again for the record. Guinness reported that by the end of the qualification process at the Seaport Shopping Center in Downtown San Diego in December 2021, he had eaten six Carolina Reapers.
Many onlookers stopped to watch the stunt. According to the records site, the independent witnesses needed for this attempt were locals who were approached at random and asked to participate.
According to Winthrop University in South Carolina, USA, the Carolina Reaper pepper has an average of 1,641,183 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). According to Guinness, a Jalapeno pepper has between 2,500 and 8,000 SHU.
“In practicing for an attempt like this it is more about mechanics and muscle memory, so I time myself eating small sweet peppers to get the chewing and swallowing down to automatic responses,” he said.
How he broke the Guinness Record:
Gregory, who owns a hot sauce company, had “tonnes of hot sauce and lots of super-hot chilli peppers” on hand for the attempt. “I spent nearly 30 years professionally working in restaurants developing my flavour awareness,” Gregory explained, adding, “I’ve always loved spicy food and have constantly tried to push my tolerance to the limit.”
