Why is acid so important in balancing taste? Our bodies do not crave it like sugar, and we are not nutritionally inclided to include it like fat or salt. Is there anything to it besides just improving taste?

Question

My only guess is that it helps with digestion. Do feel welcome to correct me 🙂

In: 4

Answer 1

Do you mean why did we evolve the ability to taste acids?

It’s an indicator of fruit ripeness, for one thing. our ancestors probably ate a lot of fruit. Many fruits are at their optimum nutritional value (vitamin content and sugar content) when they are a combination of sweet and sour. So that also explains why we can taste sugar.

As others have mentioned, many vitamins are acidic, and so are fatty acids, but that’s generally not the main source of sourness in most foods. It’s usually either citric acid, malic acid, lactic acid, or acetic acid.

As far as digestion, we produce all the acid we need right in our own stomachs, and we can digest foods just fine whether or not they are acidic.