A red bell pepper is just a green one left to ripen
Green, yellow and red peppers in a stoplight pack are often the same plant at different ages; reds are simply ripened greens. The bell pepper is botanically a berry, borrowed a spice's name by mistake, and in parts of the American Midwest people still call it a mango.
Bell peppers are fruits of the Grossum Group of Capsicum annuum, the same species that yields cayenne, jalapeño and tabasco. They come in many colours, from green, yellow, orange and red to white, lavender and dark purple. Unripe fruit is usually green, and the Permagreen variety stays green even when fully ripe. Unlike chili cultivars grown for heat, bells are prized for mildness.
The genus Capsicum began in Bolivia and Brazil and travelled to Mesoamerica and the Caribbean before Europeans arrived. Cave finds in Mexico, Peru and Ecuador suggest people were using the species around 7,000 years ago, making it one of the oldest domesticated crops. Seeds arrived in Spain in 1493, then in the East Indies around 1540 and in India two years after that. Spain brought peppers to Europe, but Portuguese traders did most to carry them to Africa, India and Southeast Asia.
The naming is a historical muddle. Pepper descends from Sanskrit pippali, long pepper, passing through Greek péperi and Latin piper into Old English. Europeans applied the word to any hot, pungent spice, so it was attached to Capsicum once the American plant arrived. Capsicum itself may come from Greek kapto, to bite, or Latin capsa, box. The term bell pepper appears as early as 1683.
Nutritionally, a raw red bell pepper is 92 percent water and supplies about 26 calories per 100 grams, along with 158 percent of the daily value for vitamin C. Cooks slice it into salads, scatter it on pizza, hollow it for stuffing, and turn C. annuum cultivars into the spice paprika. The plants like warm, moist soil between 21 and 29 degrees Celsius.
Source: Bell pepper
