A Canadian man who broke his own world record for the fastest time to eat 50 of the world’s hottest chilli pepper went on to eat 85 more.
On Tuesday, Guinness World Records announced that Mike Jack of Canada consumed 50 Carolina reapers, the world’s hottest pepper with 1.64m Scoville heat units, in 6 minutes and 49.2 seconds. For comparison, a jalapeño has between 2,500 and 8,000 SHUs.
Video posted online by Guinness World Records showed Jack donning a red bandana and gloves as he scarfed down the peppers in front of a blowing fan, at times closing his eyes tightly and breathing heavily. Onlookers could be heard cheering him on and yelling: “Go, Mike!”
Once Jack was done eating the 50 peppers – an average of one every eight seconds – he went on to eat 85 more.
In total, Jack consumed 135 Carolina reapers. The stunt helped propel him to second place on the League of Fire’s reaper challenger leaderboard, which tracks the highest number of Carolina reapers eaten in a single sitting.
Speaking about his experiences to Guinness World Records, Jack said: “The first pepper is the worst.”
“The initial shock of spiciness is intense. The second one doesn’t seem as bad, but each one after that gets hotter and hotter as the peppers touch new places in your mouth.”
Despite building a spice tolerance over the last two decades, Jack said he still feels discomfort in his stomach.
“I get bad cramps. It feels like someone is squeezing and twisting my guts … Your mind is telling you to stop but you have to convince yourself to keep pushing through,” he said.
Jack is the holder of several other records, with one being the fastest time to drink a bottle of hot sauce at 8.56 seconds and the other being the fastest time to drink 1 litre (about a quarter gallon) of tomato sauce at 1 minute and 5.56 seconds.
Earlier this year, he also broke the world record for the longest habanero pepper kiss after both he and his wife ate a habanero pepper and kissed for 15 minutes and 6.5 seconds.
