Pick a Pack of Pickles for a Picker Upper, But It’s the Vinegar That Counts

If eating pickles peps you up, a small but intriguing study at Arizona State University suggested that what’s doing the job isn’t the veggies but the vinegar that pickled them.

The data, published in the Journal Nutrients in the summer of ‘24 showed that daily doses of vinegar reduced symptoms of depression in 28 overweight but otherwise healthy adults who were had been split into two groups: One taking two tablespoons of red wine vinegar twice daily and the other taking a daily pill with a very small amount of vinegar in it.

The mechanism appears to have been vinegar’s ability to produce an 86 percent boost in the levels of nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3 that triggered a reported average drop of 42 percent in depressive symptoms for the high vinegar level group compared with 18 percent for the control folks taking the vinegar pill.

As study leader Arizona State University dietician Haley Barrong and colleagues wrote in their published paper, “This provides additional support that daily vinegar ingestion over four weeks can improve self-reported depression symptomology in generally healthy adults and that alterations in [vitamin B3] metabolism may factor into this improvement.”

While there were cautions due to the size of the study, the fact that the patients had only mild depression to start, and the unmentioned possibility that simply knowing they were getting the vinegar each day may have influenced some patients’ outcomes, Barrong and her team say the findings warrant a closer look: “The commonly prescribed antidepressant medications can have serious side effects, and their efficacy varies widely. Thus, simple, effective adjunct therapies are needed.”

While you could whip up your own vinegar by letting a bottle of wine sit around open until the local bacteria turn it sour, store-bought is a better bet. Commercial vinegars are made from acetic acid produced in controlled environments that create standard flavors not to mention bacteria free liquids.

Vinegar is not terrifically nutritious. One tablespoon of the common distilled white vinegar has 3.2 calories plus a smidgen of sodium and sugar. One tablespoon of balsamic vinegar made from aged red grapes has a few more calories (14.4) plus 4 mg sodium and 2 mg sugar. The Big Guy, cider vinegar made from apple cider has 25 calories per tablespoon, plus 0.9 mg carbs, a1 mg calcium and maybe 0.1 mg iron. The numbers are so low that the American Dietetic Association considers them nutritionally safe ways to dress up your food.

For example, vinegar is an effective meat tenderizer. A teaspoon of white vinegar in the cooking water keeps cauliflower firm when cooked and white vinegar is also a perfect pretender that can substitute for lemon juice. Add a drop to sweetened tea or sprinkle some over the fruit in a fruit pie to tart up the flavor. Next, a splash of balsamic lends zip to tomatoes garnished with fresh basil. And all smart cooks know that a dip in a white vinegar and water bath prevent the natural chemical reaction that would otherwise turn sliced fresh apples and potatoes dark.

But vinegar does have its down sides. It is mildly irritating to your innards and may cause you to urinate more frequently or cause a slight burning or itching in the urinary tract. And for people using monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAO) drugs, commonly prescribed as antidepressants, some vinegars are positively hazardous. Finally, wine and malt-based vinegars may be high in tyramine, a natural compound that constricts blood vessels and raises blood pressure. MAO inhibitors inhibit you body’s ability to eliminate tyramine, perhaps leading to sustained high blood pressure. Check with your doctor to be sure.