I can tell you why I have been eating a lot more sour foods lately: it's because after going low-carb, you find yourself longing for "legal" snacks. A lot of low-carb snacks are sour foods, including pickles, olives, and non-fat Greek yogurt. Plus, a healthy dose of lemon juice adds a lot of flavor to foods that can - lacking sugar - sometimes be on the bland side.
Of course, I have long been a fan of sour foods. One of the snack foods I miss most is my beloved Salt & Vinegar potato chips, which I have been eating regularly for at least two decades. For the longest time, I was the only one. But as Slate points out, a lot of top chefs and culinary forecasters are saying that these days, sour is hot. From pickles to kombucha, people love tartness.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has gone low-carb and picked up a sour habit as a result. But I also think that a lot of people are frankly just getting tired of things that taste either sweet or salty. There is a whole world of flavor out there, but in America, about 98% of our food is either sweet or salty or both. We put colossal amounts of sugar and salt into everything. For most Americans, literally everything they eat in the course of a day has been sweetened. After all that, your palate would eventually start craving something different, if only as a reprieve.
Besides, who doesn't like things that are lemon flavored? Lemon is delicious! Have you ever roasted a head of cauliflower with garlic and salt, then served it with a big squeeze of lemon? It's amazing!
Sour foods also tend to be lower in calories than sweet foods, and are often low-fat as well. Pickles, for example, are probably one of the healthiest treats you can eat, regardless of what sort of diet you follow.
Image courtesy Flickr/eddie.welker
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