Paqui, the maker of extremely spicy tortilla chips marketed as the “One Chip Challenge,” is voluntarily pulling the product from shelves after a woman said her teenage son died of complications from consuming a single chip.
The chips were sold individually, and their seasoning included two of the hottest peppers in the world: the Carolina Reaper and the Naga Viper.
Each chip was packaged in a coffin-shaped container with a skull on the front.
Lois Wolobah told NBC Boston that her 14-year-old son, Harris Wolobah, ate the chip Friday, then went to the school nurse with a stomachache. Wolobah said Harris — a sophomore at Doherty Memorial High School in Worcester, Massachusetts — passed out at home that afternoon. He was pronounced dead at the hospital later that day, she said.
Until sales of the product were suspended, Paqui’s marketing dared people to participate in the challenge by eating a chip, posting pictures of their tongues on social media after the chip turned it blue and then waiting as long as possible to relieve the burn with water or other food.
The challenge has existed in some form since 2016.
Any idea how many scovilles these things are?
It wasn’t too long ago that I had a habit of using 600,000 scoville unit hot sauce on things. Now I’m wondering if I was taking my life in my hands every time I had that sauce.
Likely more than 2 million.
The kid likely had a preexisting condition or maybe some genetic disposition as hundreds if not thousands of people eat food at that heat level each day without incident.
Or it had nothing to do with the chip at all. The article says that the cause of death hasn’t been determined yet.
It was obviously a contributing factor.
If you built up to it and you don’t get a negative reaction youll be fine. Spouse eats super spicy, to me, just fine. I’ll occassionally put a little of it and I’m get a runny nose, flop sweat and a bowel movement with half an hour after eating. These people probably dont eat a lot of spicy food. Its like running a marathon straight from being a couch potato. Your body is not ready for that.
The article says:
I’ve had dried naga pepper in food a few times, it’s not nice. It burns all the way through, I could feel it burning in my stomach. I ended up throwing up rather than dealing with it. I’ll gladly stick to the much tastier scotch bonnets (100-350k SHU).
A fresh Carolina Reaper ranks somewhere around 1.6 million scoville. I grew a bush of em last year, they’re evil little things. I ended up just composting them.