In an acidulated episode of PBS Eons, host Kallie Moore explains how sour taste, which may be the oldest taste of them all, evolved over many years. The original purpose of the taste was to warn of danger, living creatures have overcome that alarm to enjoy the flavor.
While sour taste’s original purpose was to warn vertebrates of danger, in a few animal groups, including us, its role has reversed. The taste of danger became something it was dangerous for us to avoid.
In fact, the inability of humans and other vertebrates to make their own vitamin C led to the search for foods rich in that resource, many of them sour.
See, our branch of the primate family tree is pretty odd among vertebrates because we can’t make our own vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid. We lost this ability around 61 million years ago… Ever since then, we’ve needed to get vitamin C from our food instead, mostly by foraging for fruit.
Further enhancing the collective taste for sour foods is generations of fermentation.
During fermentation, specific microbes – like lactic acid bacteria – produce acids that prevent the growth of disease-causing microbes. Plus, fermentation can even increase the nutritional value of food, making it easier to digest. So our preference for sour taste might have also been driven, or at least reinforced, by the advantages of eating fermented fruits – a valuable resource that we otherwise wouldn’t have been inclined to seek out.
In a rapacious report for PBS Eons, host Kallie Moore explains how and why certain plants became carnivorous. Moore points out that these plants, through evolution, learned how to get the nutrients they needed from insects and other small animals, attracting them some very tricky traps. Each carnivorous plant uses…
In an episode of the SciShow series Quick Questions, host Hank Green explains the chemical reason why toothpaste makes everything taste terrible. The cause of the bad taste is the compound sodium lauryl sulfate and similar compounds in toothpaste. They interfere with the ability to taste sweet things and heighten sensitivity…
Using phenomenal paleoartwork by Nobumichi Tamura, host Hank Green of the PBS series Eons explains exactly why Tyrannosaurus Rex had such tiny arms and how they evolved to the point where they really didn't need arms at all. The characteristics we think of as defining T-Rex namely a huge head…
Educator Rose Eveleth explains what makes certain foods spicy, how the body reacts to that spice and why certain people enjoy the burn of spicy foods more than others in "The Science of Spiciness", a Ted-Ed animated lesson. Even though we say something is spicy, spicy is not a taste…
A curious pitbull puppy refused to take a second lick of a Warhead sour candy that was offered to him by his human MrJdm365. The sour taste from the first lick so confused the dog that he physically shook his head in rejection of any further tastings. According to MrJdm365,…
Lori Dorn
Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.