A 47-year-old man learned why eating a ghost pepper can be a frightful experience. The man had gobbled a hamburger laden with ghost peppers during a contest at San Francisco restaurant. The pepper didn’t cause the hole in the man’s esophagus — but his reaction to it did, Smollin said. Also known as bhut jolokia, ghost peppers are more than twice the strength of habañero peppers. The scorching ghost pepper measures more than 1,000,000 units on the Scoville scale, which gauges a pepper’s heat.

Source: Los Angeles Times October 19, 2016 22:30 UTC