Fruit is a great snack when you get the midday munchies — or any time of day, for that matter. I love fruit personally, and always keep my kitchen stocked with apples, bananas, berries, and pears. They’re great when I’m craving something sweet but don’t want to have an actual dessert, and they’re easy to take on the go. But while I do love fruit, I can’t say I can envision myself eating a whole lemon. (I mean, can you?!)
Look, lemons are great additions to food and drink recipes — but to me, they’re way too sour to eat on their own, and I don’t think I would find the experience of casually snacking on one enjoyable. However, thanks to TikTok, eating whole lemons is an ongoing trend. Creators on the app are going about the process of eating their lemons in different ways — some TikTokers are biting into the lemon straight, some are eating bite-sized chunks, and some are carving off pieces in order to simply get the fruit down. But don’t worry, there’s a twist to this trend: The type of lemon most of these creators are eating is actually called a snack lemon, and it isn’t exactly the same as just eating any random lemon you’d find at the grocery store.
But what is a snack lemon, exactly? Unlike a typical lemon, the snack lemon, or the Lemon Snack (which is the name of the brand that widely sells this variety of lemon), is designed so that you can eat the whole thing, including the typically unappetizing peel. It’s also supposedly way sweeter than a typical lemon. This trend has thrown a lot of people off, as they assume the lemons being eaten in the videos are just typical lemons. I know that’s what I thought when I first saw these videos, and it kind of freaked me out, TBH. Some TikTokers have taken to the app to share, only to find out they were eating the wrong lemon all along.
Even with other add-ons like Tajin seasoning and a drizzle of honey, it still can’t make a regular lemon taste good enough to justify, as seen in creator @aaashleyk’s video of herself thinking she was trying the trend, but doing it all wrong. @lalaleluua, the creator who posted a pretty viral video about the Lemon Snacks, has had to clarify in countless comment sections that she wasn’t eating a typical lemon, but some people are still learning the hard way.