pain plant

I dunno, seems to have worked out for the chillis - there’s more of them now than ever before

That's because evolution is a results-driven process. All that matters is making viable offspring. Doesn't matter how it gets done.

meanwhile chinese cooking: i'll have all 3 at once please
- And it's so. Damn. Delicious.
- And Indian cooking! Curries are love. Especially with an immersion blender.

Life wouldn't be the same without Tabasco. How could I ever eat my cotton candy or cereals without copious amounts of it?

I’m actually surprised that I’ve never found cotton candy coated with tajin, now that you mention it.
This is a low shenanigan..
- Are you calling shenanigans?
Tabazco is for kids, try this weapon grade sauce (9 millon SHU)

https://hot-headz.com/sauces/hot-chilli-sauces/hell-unleashed-the-hottest-sauce-in-the-world/
- It's not about quantity, it's about quality. Tabasco's refined taste all the way.
- Oh, your sauce is mild at best, you wanna try this instead… (13 million SHU)

How fortunate then that the same species resistant to their defense actually goes on to cultivate it

Oh, we’re not resistant, we’re just crazy enough to like the pain. Birds are resistant and don’t feel it at all, they can eat chilis like fruits.
- It's just relative. Most mammals don't pay rent, taxes, or have to deal with the TSA. Once you do those things, spicy plant chemicals become a frivolous game.
- Well, given that it's supposed to be toxic rather than just painful, I'd say we're resistant in that it takes a high dose to kill us.
There's a book called The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan, which is about this. Looking from the plants eye view of things, they have manipulated us into growing them in a huge variety of environments. The book focuses on tulips, cannabis, apples, and potatoes, iirc. Fascinating book.

Two quick examples from the book:

Pot gets us high, now we grow it in closets, warehouses, yards, basements, attics, etc.

Apples don't reproduce true from seed, so Johnny Appleseed brought readily available cider to the Americas. (You need a cutting of an apple tree to grow that type of apple.)

Tobacco plants: produce nicotine, a toxic alkaloid

Humans: imma smoke that shiiiiit

Humans: I will now cultivate you, export you, protect you and make sure you're growing well so I can keep smoking you despite a 50% chance of dying from it.

Tobacco clearly has the last laugh in this story.
- Tobacco clearly has the last laugh in this story.
  
  Well, it's not like we're immortal if we abstain.
- Tobacco clearly has the last laugh in this story.
  
  One or two particular strains out of the entire vast diversity of tobacco plants is having the last laugh.
We like our poisons in just the rights amounts.

It's funny if you think about it: Plant makes chemical (capsaicin) to help it thrive > humans love the painful spice, start growing and propagating peppers > Peppers spread grow like crazy. Evolution working exactly as it should

Is it ironic that those two sauces aren't really that hot? 😂

Delicious, yes! But very low on the Scoville scale for hot sauce.

Sriracha is now completely random from bottle to bottle. It goes from Tabasco to Carolina Reaper with no visual indicator. Turns out fucking over your loyal farmers and having to constantly scrounge has negative consequences…
Is Tabasco delicious? I find the Sriracha from couple of years ago delicious (the current one is much worse), but Tabasco always tasted like a white vinegar mixed with capsaicin.
- Valentina is my favorite. Both the black and yellow labels are good, but I like drenching shit with the yellow (milder one).
- the only hot sauce i've yet to actually find appealing is sambal olek, somehow the heat in that just makes me salivate and kinda feels more like sourness, as opposed to everything else where it's just pain and like.. no real flavour? with sambal olek i can actually taste the flavour in it.
- Yeah, Tabasco is the weakest link when it comes to hotsauce. Sriracha definitely is a step up, but even that has to move aside for the Buldak Sauce.
  
  Buldak has become my go-to hotsauce. It's so damned good.
- Yeah, Tabasco is overrated. Get Louisiana Hot Sauce instead. A little less heat, but tastes waaaay better.
- Tabasco always tasted like a white vinegar mixed with capsaicin.
  
  Exactly! Delicious.

Does anyone have an explanation for why they would evolve to prevent being eaten by mammals? I would think having mammals help spread their seeds would be beneficial?

Found the answer myself. Protects against fungal attacks. Also birds don't have the same receptors to capsaicin.
Birds eat them without feeling the heat. And they can spread seeds more effectively as you can imagine.
Adding to the other responses, birds have simple digestion systems and the seed makes it into the poop, which birds do in flight so the seed will spread. Mammals digestive systems would destroy the seeds before they can spread

If not delicious then why delicious shaped?

It's sort of what happens though. A plant gets a defense mechanism, it becomes more abundant, something will target that abundant food source.

If no eat, why so delicious?

Butt also go Brrr after eating to much spicy

You get to enjoy spicy food twice.
Nope, pretty much just the mouth, over here, no butt or tummy brrr-ing.
Feature

HUMANS: Hey peppers, we like what you're doing, a-

PEPPERS: HOW‽‽ IT'S SUPPOSED TO HURT Y-

HUMANS: -nd we wanted to produce as many of you as we can in a controlled environment.

PEPPERS: ... Blinks in disbelief Go on...?

Well, not all of you. We'll massacre and purge your more moderate siblings and cousins, but we really like YOU, so we're gonna clone you as much as we can.

You're welcome.

What’s the sauce on the right?

Huy Fong branded Sriracha. It’s the worst option because they fucked over their pepper suppliers so the quality is terrible now. Get any other kind of Sriracha and it’ll be better.
Sriracha sauce, it’s really good
- Very good though neither of those are very hot.

Plant: "I will let you feel pain". Humans: "Jokes on you, I'm into that shit"

Sometimes it also makes your ass go brrrrrr...

Why is the chili wearing a cape? Or is that... hair?

In the meantime, birds be like: "ultrahot? nom nom fruity"

I will never understand the attraction. I sometimes find Ketchup too spicy.

Some people just like the pain. I don’t mind it spicy, but the flavor is more important to me.

Not brrrrr, more like kssss