Miracle fruit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| miracle fruit | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Binomial name | ||||||||||||
| Synsepalum dulcificum A.DC. |
The Miracle Fruit Plant, sometimes known as Miracle Berry, Magic Berry, or Flavor Berry (Sideroxylon dulcificum/Synsepalum dulcificum)[1] is a plant first documented by an explorer during a 1725 excursion to its native West Africa. Marchais noticed that local tribes picked the berry from shrubs and chewed it before meals. The plant grows in bushes up to 20-feet high in its native habitat, but does not usually grow higher than ten feet in cultivation, and it produces two crops per year, after the end of the rainy season. It is an evergreen plant that produces small red berries, with flowers that are white and which are produced for many months of the year. The seeds are about the size of coffee beans.
The berry is sweet, and contains an active glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin.[2] When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue's taste buds, causing bitter and sour foods (such as lemons and limes) consumed later to taste sweet. This effect lasts between thirty minutes and two hours. It is not a sweetener, as its effects depend on what is eaten afterwards, but has been used to cause bitter medicine to taste sweet.
Contents |
[edit] History
An attempt was made in the 1970s to commercialize the ability of the fruit to turn non-sweet foods into sweet foods without a caloric penalty, but ended in failure in controversial circumstances with accusations that the project was sabotaged and the research burgled by the sugar industry to prevent loss of business caused by a drop in the need for sugar [3]. The FDA has always denied that pressure was put on it by the sugar industry, but refused to release any files on the subject.[4] Similar arguments are noted for FDA's regulation on stevia now labeled as a "dietary supplement" instead of a "sweetener".
Recently, the fruit has become popular in Bacchanalian-like food tasting events, referred to as "flavor tripping parties" by some.[1] The tasters consume sour and bitter foods, such as lemons, radishes, and beer, to experience the taste changes that occur. A blog dedicated to the phenomena of "flavor tripping" describes the miracle fruit "like a candy Willy Wonka would have invented." [5]
| ... after eating [miracle fruit] stout beers taste like chocolate milkshakes, grapefruits taste like pixie sticks, cheeses taste like frosting, it will make even the crappiest tequila taste like lemonade (and strangely enough, it will make all wine taste like Manischewitz). - Flavor Tripping blog, entry "mad flavor science".[5] |
[edit] General information and cultivation
The plant grows best at a pH as low as 4.5 to 5.8, in an environment free from frost and in partial shade with high humidity. Without the use of plant hormones the seeds have a 24 % sprouting success rate. [6] The plants take between eight and ten years to bear fruit, but treatments for commercial crops can reduce gestation to less than four years.[citation needed]
Attempts have been made to create an artificial sweetener from the fruit, with an idea of developing this for diabetics.[7] At present at least one company is pursuing the development of a purified version of the protein with the hopes of gaining approval.
Fruit cultivators also report a small demand from cancer patients since the fruit allegedly counteracts a metallic taste in the mouth that may be one of the many side effects of chemotherapy.[7] However, there has been no scientific research conducted to support this claim.[7]
[edit] Freeze-dried form
Miracle fruit is available as freeze dried granules or in tablets - this form has a longer shelf life than fresh fruit. Tablets are made from compressed freeze dried fruit which causes the texture to be clearly visible even in tablet form.
The effect of Miracle fruit is made possible by contact with the tongue, not through digestion. For this reason, tablets must be allowed to dissolve in the mouth. The most pronounced effect can be achieved by coating the entire tongue in a paste of Miracle fruit for up to 30 seconds.
The tablets are currently very difficult to get outside of Asia. However, in many countries they can be purchased on the Internet.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Farrell, Patrick; Bracken, Kassie. A Tiny Fruit That Tricks the Tongue. The New York Times. 2008-05-28. Retrieved 2008-05-28.
- ^ "Miracle berry lets Japanese dieters get sweet from sour", The Guardian. Retrieved on 2008-05-28. "The berries contain miraculin, a rogue glycoprotein that tricks the tongue's taste-bud receptors into believing a sour food is actually sweet. People in parts of west Africa have been using the berries to sweeten sour food and drink for centuries, but it is only recently that the global food industry has cottoned on."
- ^ "Sweet and sour tale of the miracle berry", The First Post, 2008-04-28. Retrieved on 2008-05-31.
- ^ "The miracle berry", BBC. Retrieved on 2008-05-28. ""I honestly believe that we were done in by some industrial interest that did not want to see us survive because we were a threat. Somebody influenced somebody in the FDA to cause the regulatory action that was taken against us.""
- ^ a b "mad flavor science << Flavor Tripping", 2008-01-17. Retrieved on 2008-05-30.
- ^ ASNAPP, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, Annual Report 2002, p. 10
- ^ a b c "To Make Lemons Into Lemonade, Try 'Miracle Fruit'", Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 2008-05-28. "Two American entrepreneurs, Robert Harvey and Don Emery, tried this route back in the 1970s but the venture ended in heartbreak. Their initial focus was on products for diabetics, but some of their financial backers, which included Reynolds Metals Co. and Barclays Bank PLC, had a loftier goal"
