If your extra hot sauce is not good enough, there is a new chili sauce in town that mimics the effect of a spider bite.
Scientific Venom Chilli Sauce has been made to mimic spider bites, the venom of which leaves its victims with burning pain and muscle spasms.
The powerful sauce was engineered by Steven Trim, the founder and managing director of Kent-based Venomtech.
“It was about two years ago when we had that first light bulb moment,” he said. “I laughed it off at the time and said it was hilarious to do. Nobody has been foolish enough to try the venom.
“But we kept bringing it up when we bumped into each other over the year. We finally hit on the idea of doing a synthetic inspired sauce.”
The venom belongs to the Trinidad Chevron tarantula, a huge spider that can grow up to 14cm.
But before you start worrying, there is actually no real venom in the powerful sauce. The Food Standards Agency told the creators that testing its safety would cost £20,000.
As a workaround, the company decided to create a synthetic version in the lab.
“It’s as best as we can manage without actually tasting the venom. It’s a similar heat component that the venom would cause,” Trim said.
The creators explained how their research led them to learn that the venom of the Trinidad Chevron spider activates the same receptors as chili peppers.
“We focus on studying venoms and how they work in biology for drug discovery and through this research we became aware that the Trinidad Chevron venom actually works on the same receptors as Capsicum.”
Trim told the New York Post that there are around 300 spiders in their lab, adding: “It’s not there as a scare factor, it’s there because it’s the essence of the science of what we’ve made here.”
What’s your take on this? Would you like to try the Venom Chilli Sauce? Let us know in the comments section and SHARE this with your family and friends!