We eat a lemon and make a face: it's safe. Unintentional reaction, almost impossible to control. But why?
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerousWe eat a lemon and make a face: it's safe. Unintentional reaction, almost impossible to control. But why? There is a lot of research on the subject, and all of them seem to focus on three factors: vitamin C, protons, and the feasting of tropical fruits that our ancestors made.
It is so "natural" that we do not notice it: if our palate perceives acidity (a lemon, for example) our facial muscles distort in an unnatural but automatic way. And it is anything but a coincidence.
Everything we eat and which seems sour to our taste has an acid chemical composition, i.e. rich in hydrogen ions, also called protons because hydrogen has only one proton and one electron and when it loses this becoming an ion, in fact it remains only one proton.
A 2010 research showed how our bodies have evolved by interpreting the presence of many hydrogen ions as something acid (beyond the chemical definition), prompting us to react with expressions of "refusal", which perhaps, ancestral, was also a signal for our fellow men.
But it doesn't stop there. Some fruits, such as apples and oranges, but also lemons, contain the all-important Vitamin C, without which humans undergo a serious disease called scurvy (the chemical name of vitamin C is in fact ascorbic acid).
Very important but that we cannot self-produce: unfortunately (or fortunately) in the course of evolution humans have lost the ability to biosynthesize vitamin C, probably because our ancestors feasted on fruit and therefore did not actually exploit their ancient ability to "fend for themselves".
In this way we become dependent on the consumption of food that contains it, such as citrus fruits, but also apples, in general tasty food, and this is precisely the mechanism by which we are driven to ingest the molecule.
Lemons also contain a lot of vitamin C, but their acid taste can indicate fermentation, which prompts us to show rejection, to ourselves but above all to those around us.
Can't we really help but twist our facial muscles for some lemon? Seeing is believing.
Read also:
- Lemon water: what happens to the body by taking it every day
- Water and lemon: 10 health benefits
Roberta de carolis
