Quote:[It] turns out that jalapeños really aren’t as spicy as they once were. According to a recently resurfaced article in D Magazine, it’s not a coincidence that this is happening, either. Instead, it all comes down to selective breeding and—of course—the pressures of the commercial market. Because although we think of jalapeños as something we’d find in the produce aisle, the reality is that most of the world’s jalapeños are destined to end up in some sort of packaged product, not in a fresh homemade salsa.
The problem is that these packaged products have to maintain some sort of consistency when it comes to heat levels. Jalapeños traditionally offered varying degrees of spiciness depending on each individual pepper, so it would be very difficult to tell just how hot any specific pepper was going to be. As you can imagine, this would make labeling “mild,” “medium,” and “hot” salsas and other products quite difficult. So, through a selective breeding process, scientists at Texas A&M University developed the TAM II, a low-heat jalapeño variety that still offered the fresh, green flavor the pepper is known for without packing quite as intense a punch. Then, if food producers want to make a product spicier, they just add oleoresin capsicum, a pepper extract that adds spiciness.
https://www.pastemagazine.com/food/jalap...their-heat
![[Image: extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/zf86M5L7/extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg)
