Take the Heat Out of Peppers

The seeds and placenta contain capsaicinoids that give hot peppers their mouth-searing pungency. Use hot peppers with extreme caution and treat them with respect. Don’t rub your eyes after handling them or inhale too deeply around them – you’ll be sorry! If you’ve eaten a pepper that’s too hot for you, do not drink water, which actually increases the heat. Drink milk, or eat dairy products or starchy foods such as bread or rice.

Saving seeds of open-pollinated peppers is easy – all you have to do is strip the seeds off the pepper’s membrane and lay them out to dry. The best part is that you get to eat all the pepper afterwards, and there are so many delicious things to make with them.