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Certain products require customers to be over a certain age to buy them, like cigarettes, alcohol, guns, dirty magazines and more, but you don't often get carded when trying to get food. However, if you want to buy some recently-released ready-to-eat meals, you'll need to bring your ID. That's because the meals have been prepared with the world's hottest chili pepper.
The meals are Chili Mac & Cheese and Chicken Tikka Masala that are so spicy, there is an age restriction on who can buy them. One of the ingredients in them is Pepper X, which has 2.69 million heat units on the Scoville scale, which means it is 53,760% hotter than a jalapeño. In 2023, Guinness World Records crowned it the hottest chili pepper in the world.
For now, the adults-only meals are exclusively available overseas at the British supermarket chain Iceland Foods. Their head of development chef explained why they offer the scorching snacks stating, "Our customers love spice, and they are always pushing us to turn up the heat! So, this time we have developed a range that will not disappoint. Our Pepper X range is unlike anything we’ve ever offered to our customers before. It's intense, it's fiery and it's certainly not for the faint-hearted."
He went on to justify the age restriction, noting, "With intense heat comes great responsibility, so to ensure only the most experienced spice enthusiasts can take on the challenge, we've decided to limit sales to customers aged 18 and over."
No word yet on if the meals will be coming stateside and, if so, if they will only be available to adults.