I don’t know if it’s out of habit or memory, but I’m also one of those people who puts vinegar on lentils. It is an automatic gesture, inherited from my grandmother, who said that “they rested better this way.” For years I thought it was just another hobby from another era, one of those routines that survived more out of nostalgia than science. But it turns out no: vinegar is back, and not just in salads.
Networks recover tradition. In both viral videos and cooking shows, vinegar has gone from being a forgotten ingredient to becoming a protagonist. In tiktok either YouTube There are plenty of clips in which users teach the “drip trick” on fried eggs or lentils. Some well-known chefs they have turned it to become fashionable for its ability to balance flavors, just as our grandparents did: to “kill the flavor” of what they didn’t like and enhance what they did.
In French cuisine there is a classic dish, oeufs à l’assassin, in which cooks add a splash of vinegar when frying the eggs to intensify the flavor and give creaminess to the yolk. And if we look towards home, in Castilla it was common to add vinegar to both the lentils and the fried egg, a custom that, according to researchers from the Río Hortega Hospital in Valladolidcan even reduce the allergic response to these foods. Acetic acid modifies gastric pH, improves digestion and transforms the allergenicity of certain compounds.
So were our grandparents right? What was previously done by intuition — to “kill the flavor” or “settle the stomach” — today has a scientific explanation. Nutritionist Luis Zamora has explained “A splash of vinegar on lentils or having an orange for dessert helps absorb vegetable iron.” The reason is in vitamin C and acidity: both protect non-heme iron—that of plant origin—and facilitate its assimilation.
Along the same lines, dietitian Diego Ojeda has assured: “Your grandmother was absolutely right: to help the body understand vegetable iron, you must add vitamin C, like that provided by vinegar or lemon.” In addition, this acidity helps break down antinutrients such as phytic acid, present in legumes and responsible for some of the iron being lost during cooking.
In fact, scientific publications match: adding a source of acidity to a meal rich in legumes can multiply up to three the amount of iron absorbed. In studies carried out with cellular and animal modelsvinegar or lemon juice showed similar effects when added to dishes rich in vegetable iron.
But nowadays it has become abused. From a minimal splash to a shot. On social networks, thousands of people began to drink “shots of apple cider vinegar” on an empty stomach with the promise of losing weight or “detoxifying” the body. However, the study that popularized that practice It was retracted due to statistical errors, and science has found no solid evidence that vinegar causes weight loss.
Experts also warn that excessive consumption of vinegar on an empty stomach can irritate the stomach, damage tooth enamel and cause digestive discomfort. It is not, therefore, about drinking it as if it were a miraculous elixir, but about using it with common sense, as grandparents did: a few drops to enhance flavors, balance dishes and help digestion.
The gesture that never left. Perhaps our elders did not talk about antinutrients or bioavailability, but they sensed the essential thing: that vinegar, in addition to giving flavor, helped the body feel better. Today science confirm They weren’t so wrong. That acidic touch that gave character to the lentils or softness to the fried egg has a chemical explanation, a nutritional basis and, above all, an enormous cultural load.
Because in the end, between the laboratory and the kitchen, there is the same principle: good traditions do not go out of style, they just needed a good explanation. And every time the vinegar sparkles in the pan or perfumes a stew, we are not only cooking: we are also honoring a way of understanding food, time, and memory.
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