WHY ? is our seek to answerall the dubiousness every little kid ask . Do you have a question ? Send it towhy@mentalfloss.com .
Have you ever sucked on a lemon and felt your nerve hunker down up ? Foods that are very glum contain a lot of acid and can make you pucker — wrinkle your case , squinch your heart , and exhort your lips together . When thing like lemon , vinegar , and unripened fruit ghost your tongue , your brain get a signal that you ’re wipe out something sour . It could be your consistency ’s way of life of allege " watch out ! "
Your clapper has thousands of little bumps with tiny sensors called taste buds . Taste bud get you know when something is mellisonant , piquant , sour , bitter , or savoury . ( Savory is also calledumami . Say : ooo - MOM - eee . ) Each taste sensation bud has dozens of perceptiveness electric cell that have slight sprout on them that look like hair that can only be seen with a microscope . When foods dissolved in your saliva touch them , they tell the mental capacity about the flavor of what you are exhaust . When they fall in inter-group communication with very sour solid food , your face might tuck up because the taste is strong and acidulous .
cockle when you savor something turned is ofteninvoluntary(in - VAWL - uhn - ter - ee ) . That means you do it without trying . It may occur because we have an inherent aptitude not to use up things that are dangerous . Of course , not all sour foods are bad for us . But some saturnine foods can make us sick — foil milk or yield that is not ripe , for good example . react with a wrinkled - up face may be our body ’s mode of trying to discourage ourselves and others to stay out from foods that might hurt us .
For further indication , see to it out “ Why Are Lemons Sour ? ” over at Wonderopolis .
