Have you ever seen the YouTube show Hot Ones? The moment celebs sink their teeth into a spicy wing or a vegan alternative, you can see their senses immediately assaulted when the heat kicks in. You can tell the spice reddening their face with a slow and creeping burn that continues to intensify as the capsaicin – the thing that generates heat in chillies – floods their palate, crawling to the back of their throat, while every breath they take fans the flames that dominate their being. At that moment, they, probably, wished they had stuck to an anodyne Fallon. But, maybe, in 2025, things would be different.
Maybe, the chicken wings won’t be as spicy as hot. The heat of chillies may be dwindling. How come? What’s up? It’s climate change that’s being cited again, isn’t it? If climate change is making our food blander, we can finally conclude that it may be a bad thing. If this is true, maybe climate change isn’t just about rising sea levels, melting ice caps and homeless polar bears.
Erratic weather patterns may be disrupting supply, pushing up prices and diluting the very thing that makes chillies so special. That special thing is also the name of the De Niro and Pacino flick: Heat. Interestingly, it may be extreme heat that may make these chillies less hot or maybe, too much rain, which may affect how these peppers grow. How come? Because extreme moisture may dilute the capsaicin. And if there’s too much heat or drought, the chillies may not fully develop. And these fluctuant patterns may be reducing the intensity of heat in peppers.
Have you tried sriracha sauce? In 2024, a maker of the sauce called Huy Fong Foods announced it was halting production of all its products for a while. It was said that the red jalapeño chillies were too green to proceed with production and even the colour of the product was being affected. And India’s Bhut Jolokia, also known as Naga Mirch, was said to be losing its sting due to factors, like climate change, soil quality, overuse of fertilizers and more.
Think of your favourite Kashmiri chilli powder, too. India is said to be one of the top producers, contributing close to 45% of world chilli production. Could weather conditions make Kashmiri chillies deteriorate? Could those peppers become milder, leading to their flavour profile getting compromised? Could the bright red colour dull over time? Could that lead to some opportunistic chilli makers using red dye to compensate? RFK Jr wouldn’t approve. Or maybe, people may resort to blending different chilli varieties to compensate for weakened heat. Or maybe, different chilli varieties would have to be cross-bred, if that works. But, will this new breed of chillies pack the same punch or will they lose their fire?
And could this be a great time for Indian AgriTech companies to do something about this? Could one of these AI- and IoT-leveraging AgriTech companies figure out ways to predict weather changes or optimizer irrigation to help out? Or are those predictions meaningless if the loss of heat is inevitable?
So, are you losing the fire within you? Are you going to let that fire be extinguished? What are you going to do to keep the heat alive?
