CONFECTIONERY companies that make sour treats are onto something. Kids really do like the sour-tasting sweets more than adults do.
Julie Mennella from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia asked 60 children between the ages of 5 and 9, and their mothers, to taste jello spiked with various concentrations of citric acid. More than a third of the children, but none of the adults, liked the sourest samples best (Chemical Senses, vol 28, p 173).