The pepper is a term often used to characterize varieties of sweet peppers of the species Capsicum annuum with very large fruits (sometimes called chili in Quebec).
It is an annual plant of the Solanaceae family native to Mexico, Central America and South America. The plant is cultivated as a vegetable for its consumed fruits, raw or cooked, as vegetables. The term refers to both the fruit and the plant.
Peppers are an essential ingredient in a number of dishes, such as piperade or ratatouille, but they can also be used as a side dish.
Pepper seeds were brought to Spain for the first time in 1493, and spread to Europe and Asia. The name pepper is derived from the word pepper, and appeared in writing in 1785.
Description
It is an annual plant, in temperate climate because it does not resist frost, but can live for several years in tropical climate. Upright habit, almost shrubby, very branched. The stems of the base tend to lignify. The plant generally reaches 40 to 50 cm in height following a germination lasting 7 to 15 days.
The leaves, alternate, lanceolate, ending in a point, are of a brilliant green. The flowers, numerous and small, are white, with welded and pointed petals, 6 to 8. The fruit is a berry of a particular type, the pulp, relatively thin and forming a kind of capsule surrounding a placenta more or less bulky with many seeds. Externally, the skin is smooth and shiny, shiny green in color before maturity, it takes on a bright color, usually red, but also yellow, orange, purple, brown, black…
The seeds are small, flat, kidney-shaped, cream-colored.
Peppers are distinguished from peppers by larger and fleshier fruits, and especially devoid of spicy substance (capsaicin).
Allergies to bell pepper pollenA growing quantity of bell peppers is grown in a greenhouse (it is the first greenhouse vegetable in the Netherlands where around 8,000 agricultural workers cultivate it on 10,000 hectares of greenhouse). Its flowers produce an irritating pollen to which greenhouse workers are exposed when picking peppers. A third of these workers end up becoming allergic (with itching, stuffy or runny nose and sometimes worsening until the asthma attack). It was shown in the early 2000s that introducing a honey bee colony (hive) into the greenhouse considerably reduces this risk. In the greenhouses where the bees were present, the pollen was collected by the bees from the anthers as it was produced and the symptoms of allergies decreased or disappeared among the workers. The study did not go so far as to calculate the minimum or optimal number of bees per greenhouse.
Medicinal properties
The pepper is good for memory. It contains a substance, luteolin, a flavone that works by activating the neural circuits involved in learning5. The pepper is also a source of anticancer: capsiates are chemicals in the pepper that can cause the death of tumor cells and thus prevent the development of cancerous tumors6. The capsiates are very close to the capsinoids contained in the pepper and they have the same effect.
Pesticides
According to a 2001 DG Sanco study, endosulfan was found in 31.7% of the peppers tested. Namely that endosulfan is now banned from use in Europe because it is too polluting for the environment and too dangerous for human and animal health.
And methamidofos in 20.7% of cases, the Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) being exceeded in 18.7% of these samples.