Here Sleeps A Brave Heart
"He ate many chillies and paid the price
His heart stopped resulting in sad demise.
He tried to look macho and a strong man
He became,instead dead meat packed in can. "
-By Naga Jolokia Addict
A promising young cook died due to overdose of chili peppers that he took to prove a point about being a Macho Man....probably.
Read the whole story as under.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article4842531.ece
From The TimesSeptember 29, 2008
Keen cook died after eating red-hot chilli sauce as a dare
Steve Bird An aspiring chef died after eating a super-hot chilli sauce as part of an endurance competition with a friend.
Andrew Lee, 33, challenged his girlfriend’s brother to a contest to see who could eat the spiciest sauce that he could create.
The fork-lift truck driver, who wanted to cook for a living, prepared a tomato sauce made with red chillies grown on his father’s allotment. After eating it, however, he suffered intense discomfort and itching. The following morning he was found dead, possibly after suffering a heart attack.
Toxicology tests are being conducted to try to establish if he suffered a reaction to the food.
An inquest was told that Mr Lee, from Edlington, West Yorkshire, was in perfect health and had just passed a medical examination at work. He was a keen cook and would often prepare meals for his parents. It is believed that Mr Lee had never prepared a dish as hot as the one he made the night before his death.
Mr Lee’s sister, Claire Chadbourne, 29, said that he took a jar of the sauce to the home of his girlfriend, Samantha Bailey, and challenged her brother Michael, 29, to see who could eat it. “Andrew just ate the chillies with a plate of Dolmio sauce,” she added. “It was not a proper meal because he had already eaten lamb chops and potato mash after work.
“He apparently got into bed at 2.30am and started scratching all over. His girlfriend scratched his back until he fell asleep. She woke up and he had gone. It is incredible. Who would have thought he could have died from eating chilli sauce? We don’t know of anything else that could have caused his death. The postmortem showed no heart problems.
“He loved cooking for his friends. He always said he wanted to be a chef but didn’t want to start at the bottom.”
An inquest was opened and adjourned in Doncaster last week.
End Report...
Was this avoidable?
What led to his death which was so untimely?
Why he died?
Are chili peppers the cause of death?
I want to discuss these questions in my next posting.
RIP Picture taken from www with thanks to the unknown original poster.
14 comments:
I'm not certain, but according to Occam's razor, this fellow's unfortunate demise was probably the result of a food allergy. I hate seeing the spin that 'this was caused by eating capsaicin'.
I've seen this story several times now, and have yet to see the results of said 'inquest'. Anybody else?
charles,
I agree 100% with you. Please read the last lines where I have expressed my desire to explore this more.
I am going to take up the issue of maligning Capsaicin and chili peppers as death causing reasons.
Please wait for my next posting.
I hear you Hemant. I didn't mean to imply that you were on the side of the media, far from it.
I'm against main-stream media. The blogosphere rules!
Anxiously awaiting your next posting! (I'm Tombolian, BTW... Didn't mean to post under my Charles alias)
tombolian,
Thanx buddy for explanation.
I am dead against Hyper selling "Death sauces"
These ads attract young green horns to try out and show macho images. I think the shock or hyper ventilation may be causing death .
I want to launch a campaign against branding and selling chilli sauces with extra capsaicin and calling them "Death,"Certain Death" names etc.
What's your take on this?
NJA
I have never been a fan of the so-called 'death sauces'. Dave's insanity sauce tastes like earwax to me.
Having never heard of anybody dying by overdosing on peppers (or capsaicin) until this article began circulating, I'm not sure what I think of others buying these sauces, or how they may be used in rituals of machoism.
I suppose I'm neutral in that I believe in the free market, and also believe in people's freedom to do what they want, as long as it doesn't hurt others. If a person takes a dare and dies as a result from it, I think it strengthen's the gene-pool by removing those foolish characteristics from future generations.
Remember the gal that recently died from a water overdose? Should we make 'water drinking competitions' illegal or is the story in the media enough warning for future contestants?
I just don't know...and am not ashamed to admit it.
I WOULD like to know the results of that inquiry though. Can't seem to find anything further... I guess the truth is not as interesting as the story.
I mean, c'mon, can you imagine a story like 'Man dies eating potatoes'? Just doesn't have the same flair.
Tombolian,
I agree with you again cent percent. What I am against is branding pepper sauces as something of MACHO thing.
Many people die in Japan eating FUGU.
But it is not a thing that we should encourage. I have seen hundreds ov videos showing people trying to devour Naga/Bhut Jolokias. Overall picture that emerges out of all these videos on net is, that more and more youngsters want to defy the logic and try to eat Naga . Their condition as seen on videos sends a wrong message that this is a thing to "Try' and win over. It does more of dis service than service.
Naga has aquired Notority because of that.
I do devour Naga in fairly good quantity but I enjoy it in a way fashioned by me.It is a thing to be loved and not abused.
I too am waiting for the inquest report.
I had also read about another death while in process of eating Naga. I will try and get the clipping and post.
NJA
I have also been waiting for the inquest report. Sadly, this whole situation has resulted in the following statement: "British dietitians advise against eating chillies on their own". One incident, that may not even be related to the chiles, and panic ensues.
I, for one, loathe the media and will continue to "eat chillies on their own".
storm,
Yes. We all know that the death was due to other reasons and not chillies.
Sadly media does not believe in followup of such stories .
We, however, will continue to wait and while we are waiting, devour more chilli peppers. LOL
nagajolokiaaddict
Hi, My name is Jamie. I have been eating Dave's Insanity Sauce since 1995 and I use it on everything that I eat. I guess you can say it's some kind of addiction. Can that be true? If I don't have it, seems like my body goes through with draws and I get in a bad mood. I even take it to expensive restraunts. It's kinda wierd and sorry if I offend anyone but I don't eat it because I think I am macho and cool and not to mention that is what people would say stereo typing. I eat because I enjoy it and love it. I go through a bottle in a week 1/2. I have never tried the jolokia peppers but I am planning on buying some to try.
jamie,
Nothing wrong in carrying your own poison even to the expensive eateries.
I carry my own Naga Chutney whereever I travel. Can't think of eating without that.
No, chili peppers are actually not addictive like Tobacco.
There are no withdrawal symptoms if you stop eating hot peppers.
Try Bhut jolokia/Naga Jolokia once.
You will be forever in love with them.
Enjoy
Hemant Trivedi
Sad to see someone die, but people need to use more caution with peppers. Especially people who have never eaten many before, least of who should be testdriving an intense sauce. I am split on whether people should use peppers for their own amusements though. As eating peppers for the sake of beating the heat for some people is a rite of passage I would not take away from them. For some people it is indeed their step into the world of hot peppers. Were it not for the perceptions of a challenge being in the air, and thus a desire to best it, some might never find anything hotter than a jalapeño, let alone finding a naga. They will thus continue believing habs are the best thing for heat and erroneously state they are the hottest peppers in the world.
However, that said, I think people challenge themselves far too often without properly knowing the potential health risks, their own personal limits, and such. This is the danger is contests of might. The media is off on so many things, there is no wonder people will strive to man up someone else. You shouldn't need to man up anyone, and I think that is an indication of a deeper societal problem. Yes, I was a Sociology major. ;) I show off some not to man up but to illustrate the awesomeness of my home-grown nagas. Awesome as in the biblical usage of course. Have to read this blog more, you all seem to be my kind of people. :D
LRP,
Welcome to this blog.
I am always against any type of excesses.
Would love to hear more from you.
Hemant
I would not believe it totally the guy hav a bad itching reaction. In the case of ingested allergens like nut allergy anaphalctic shock probably took over during unconciousness and suffocated him causing him to have a heart attack.
Even if that aint %100 correct i doubt that such a minor dose of capsiacin would have been lethal.
Amy more updates on this?
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