Eating Flamin' Hot Cheetos is fine in moderation, but overconsumption can lead to gastric pain, vomiting, and even gallbladder failure; Dr. Martha Rivera adds the acidity in the chips is partly responsible for an increase in gastritis among youth. You may wonder where these Cheetos fall on the Scoville scale, which measures the spiciness of foods.

Flamin' Hot Cheetos use a top-secret formula, so it's hard to determine their true Scoville rating. Crave claims that the chips contain around 50,000 Scoville units, which is comparable to a cayenne pepper; for perspective, a Carolina Reaper, the hottest chili pepper in the world, can contain anywhere from 1.5 million to over 2 million units.

It’s important to understand that "spiciness" is a sensation that is more or less perceptible to different people; Scoville units simply represent the point of dilution at which spice is no longer perceptible by a taster. We may never know how many units are in a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, but we do know that they should be consumed sparingly.