[CH] not groundhogs

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I thought that you might find this interesting.

 Source: American Chemical Society (http://www.acs.org/)


            Date: Posted 5/22/98

      When To Pick A Peck Of Pungent Peppers? When The Peck's At Its Peak
      If you like your peppers hot, don't pick them before or after their
time.
      A new chemistry analysis confirms that the amount of hot flavor in the
      pepper is determined by how long the pepper has been growing before it
is
      harvested, according to a report in the May 20 Web edition of the
Journal
      of Agricultural & Food Chemistry, published by the American Chemical
      Society, the world's largest scientific society. And waiting too long
may
      be as bad as picking them too soon, the researcher says, since the
peak of
      flavor is short-lived and precisely timed. For Piquin peppers, the
      critical growing time to insure peak flavor is 40 days, and for De
árbol
      and Habañero peppers it's 50 days, says Elhadi M. Yahia of the
Universidad
      Autónoma de Querétaro in Querétaro, Mexico.
      The hot flavor of chile peppers is caused by the presence of a group
of
      seven closely-related compounds called capsaicinoids. Although these
      compounds are present throughout the life of the pepper, the amount
      increases as the pepper matures until a maximum is reached, and then
      decreases rapidly, according to Yahia. The degradation of the
      capsaicinoids is caused by naturally-occurring compounds called
      peroxidases. Yahia and Margarita Conteras-Padilla measured the
      concentrations of both capsaicinoids and peroxidases as different
pepper
      plants aged. "If we can understand how capsaicinoids break down, this
      could be a first step in reducing these losses for those cultures
where
      chile peppers are of great importance," Yahia says.
      A nonprofit organization with a membership of more than 155,000
chemists
      and chemical engineers, the American Chemical Society publishes
scientific
      journals, convenes major research conferences, and provides
educational
      and career programs in chemistry. Its main offices are in Washington,
      D.C., and Columbus Ohio.

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