Why do we find sour candy so insanely delicious?
I have a serious addiction: sour Cadillacs. Blushing with embarrassment, I admit that I can easily polish off an entire box. I just find those things so insanely delicious! I take the fact that my tongue is practically covered in burns afterwards for granted. How is it that we love sour candy so much?
Not all that long ago, the Toxic Waste challenge went viral. Toxic Waste is the world’s sourest candy. The aim of the game: keep the extremely sour candy in your mouth for as long as possible. That was it. Piece of cake, right? Maybe I’ll start a sour Cadillacs challenge myself. I’d definitely win that one.
Confused
Why are we so crazy about sour candy? On some level, we actually enjoy the physical reaction that comes with it. The scrunching up of our faces, the tingling, sometimes even slightly painful feeling on our tongues—we relish it intensely. What’s interesting is that we humans are actually naturally inclined to ward ourselves off from flavors such as sour, spicy and bitter. In the past, we were only looking for sweetness. If you found a tree with fruit on it, you were the winner of the day. We quickly considered flavors beyond sweet harmful to us.
Countless years later, things are different. Our defense system now gets thoroughly confused when sweetness is suddenly combined with sourness, as is the case with sour candy. Our bodies suddenly no longer understand whether they’re supposed to like it or not. So we get those physical reactions—the scrunched-up face and the tingling on the tongue—but can then enjoy them. That’s why we now collectively toss sour candy into our shopping baskets. We’re all just a little sadistic!
A trip to the dentist
The sour flavors in candy usually come from organic acids such as citric acid and malic acid. In principle, that’s not terribly bad for us, but these acids can eventually damage your tooth enamel. But hey… That’s not exactly news, considering we’re talking about candy here.
Also read:
- 19 apples in a row: from intensely sweet to refreshingly sour
- Wow: this is what McDonald’s sweet-and-sour sauce is made from
- This is the most popular candy right now: manufacturer can barely keep up with demand
Source: Daily Meal
