Jamie Oliver disciplines with hot peppers

This has been all over the Internet since yesterday. It seems our fave adorable British TV chef Jamie Oliver, 39,  feeds his kidlets super hot chili peppers when they're naughty—as an alternative to spanking, he says, because that's not "popular" anymore.

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Yes, the dad of four has confessed to burning his kids' mouths with hot Scotch Bonnet peppers as punishment for misbehaving. “I give them chillies for punishment," he told the BBC Good Food Show (according to The Daily Mail).

“It is not very popular beating kids anymore," he explains. "It’s not very fashionable, and you are not allowed to do it, and if you are a celebrity chef like me it does not look very good in the paper. So you need a few options.”

As an example, Jamie shared the story of how, when his oldest child, Poppy, 12, was being what he described as "quite disrespectful and rude," he spread a Scotch Bonnet pepper onto an apple slice and served it to her.

Scotch Bonnet peppers are apparently 140 times hotter than your average jalapeno, by the way. Yikes!

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Looks like Jamie was having a little fun with his tween—but wife Jools wouldn't have it. “[Poppy] ran up to mum and said, ‘This is peppery,'" he says. "I was in the corner laughing. [Jools] said to me, ‘Don’t you ever do that again.’”

Everyone's up in arms about Jamie's culinary discipline—the Victoria, Australia's children's commissioner, Bernie Geary, called him a "d***head" and labeled his action a form of "child abuse." Though this isn't a disciplinary method I personally would choose, I don't think I'd be so quick to call it abuse. Besides, all we have is Jamie's lighthearted account to go on. What do you think?

Love!
xo Haley-O
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