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I don't know about you, but I heard this one day. It was because I was sucking lemons, and someone was like, "Why do you suck lemons, isn't it soooo sour?". I said it was very sour, but I liked sour. He said, "Ooo, don't you know, you'll have like girls for kids next time."

After that, I discovered he was serious. He said he'd read it off the newspapers or somewhere. He also said it doesn't seem to apply to sweet things, only to sour.

I don't mind having girls, but I'd just like to make sure I have at least one son as well.:)

My question is, Is this seriously true? Has any study been done to confirm/refute this? Would it be due to the acids having some effects on my male chromosomes?

P.S. I just remembered my Mom telling me this as well when I was a little kid, cause I liked sour things even back then.

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    I have not found anything reputable that would lend any credence to this claim. I think it's like the claim that if a woman eats strawberries during pregnancy, the child will be a redhead. A totally unrealistic idea. Also, it wouldn't be an effect of acid on your chromosomes, but rather (IF there were any mechanism that was viable) an effect on your sperm. I did find some articles about women affecting their ph levels through diet and favouring one sex over the other, but nothing from an EDU site yet.
    – Larian LeQuella
    Jul 23, 2011 at 1:35
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    If there were proven methods to ensure or avoid the gender of children, countries in which daughters are generally valued considerably less than sons would have a huge gender disparity. (India and large parts of the Middle east). This does not seem to be the case, so either they have never heard of this sour-thing either, or it just doesn't work that way. (Not actually a researched answer, but rather a reductio ad absurdum)
    – Lagerbaer
    Jul 23, 2011 at 2:23
  • I like sucking lemons and sour foods in general and I have 4 boys (and 0 daughters) so from personal experience I would say no :)
    – Ardesco
    Jul 26, 2011 at 11:11
  • Are we talking about prospective mothers or fathers? I think the question should be more specific, since the mechanisms involved would be radically different.
    – adam.r
    Nov 23, 2013 at 0:35

1 Answer 1

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There are studies that has shown a link between what you eat and how likely you are to get a girl or a boy. The difference is very small though, and "sour" doesn't seem to be relevant. The only food item they studied that had an effect seemed to have been cereal.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/homo-consumericus/201006/women-s-preconception-diets-and-their-likelihood-have-boy

Another study looked at the amount of calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium ingested, and the authors advise that a woman who wants to conceive a boy should eat foods high in sodium and potassium for a girl, she should eat foods high in calcium and magnesium:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6111483

However, they seem to have been claiming this since the early 80's without anyone else corroborating this.

(When scanning the net, I also encountered claims that making the body more alkaline, including eating a lot of lemons would produce a boy. :-) )

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    How does eating (acidic) lemons make the body more alkaline?
    – Henry
    Jul 23, 2011 at 13:34
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    @Henry: Don't ask me, I added that as an example that people claim all sort of things.
    – Lennart Regebro
    Jul 23, 2011 at 16:47

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