Miracle Fruit(Miracle Berry)

News --The New York Times

2009-05-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

引用： The New York Times By PATRICK FARRELL and KASSIE BRACKEN

標題： A Tiny Fruit That Tricks the Tongue

網址： http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/dining/28flavor.html?_r=1

Introduction

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Mysterious fruit, also known as the "miracle fruit", belongs to Sapotaceae family. Its academic name is Synsepalm dulcificum (Schum.&.Thonn.) Daniell. In Europe and America, it is also called the 'Miraculous Berry' or the 'Miracle Fruit'. Mysterious fruit was originally produced in Western Africa and was introduced in Taiwan ten years ago. In recent years, Taiwan has ameliorated the original Mysterious fruit and marketed it successfully. The Western African aboriginal people eat Mysterious fruit while eating distasteful food, and also use Mysterious fruit to turn palm alcohol's sour flavour into sweet flavour. After having Mysterious fruit before drinking alcohol, Mysterious fruit can turn the taste sweet. The reason is that Mysterious fruit contains a special sugar protein ( Miraculin ) that can make fruit with high levels of sour flavor have a sweet flavor.

Functions

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1. Replacing sugar; preventing over-consumption of sugar
The 'Mysterious fruit' tablet, which is the concentration extracted from a large amount of fresh fruit, can be carried more convenient and can be preserved for long periods of time (its effect is the same as fresh fruits). This tablet of Miraculin can replace artificial sugar, a possible carcinogen. Miraculin tablets, like the fruit itself, can turn other fruits that are sour in taste into fruits with a sweet and smooth flavor. Thus, the introduction of this 'miracle fruit' is a good news for people who need to control their sugar intake. The Mysterious fruit is surely a healthy alternative of sugar and artificial sugars.

2. Enhancing the quality of alcohol and reducing its ill effects the day after
Reports have stated that one of a legislators in Kaohsiung, who first tasted Mysterious fruit, and then asked police and journalists to serve as witnesses after consuming alcohol the figure of measured blood alcohol level was 1 but after taking Mysterious fruit the figure of measured blood alcohol level was only 0.2(0.25 is the standard figure). If Mysterious fruit is consumed before alcohol, Mysterious fruit can turn the taste of sourness and bitterness into sweet and smooth taste, and reduc the effect of consumed alcohol. It also reduces the feeling of a hangover, allowing the person who consumed the alcohol to be energetic in the next day.

3. Fruit treatment consumption of tartaric acid can improve health
Mysterious fruit can accompany food such as non-sweetened cake, ice cream, yogurt, plum, kiwi, grapefruit, and any food with high levels of sourness. In this way, the benefits of the acids and other nutrients from those sour flavor foods can keep the healthiness of the body while reducing sugar intake.Now there are even some restaurants that serve a dish of the 'miracle fruit' in order to enable the customers to enjoy a variety of fruit which contain high level of sourness. In this way, customers' appetites can be satisfied while also helping them to be healthy and fit.

4. Accompanying the use of either Chinese or Western medicine
For the people who dislike taking any Chinese or Western medicine due to their bitterness, Miraculin is the right choice for them. This is because if Miraculin is taken before the medicine, the taste of the medicine can be improved.

Process

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The eminent researchers

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(Above) The known Japanese researcher-Mitsuharu Shimamura, on the right-hand side, and Taiwanese known researcher-Mei-ling Lin, on the left-hand side.

(Above) The known Japanese researcher-Mitsuharu Shimamura (far left), College of Medicine National Cheng Kung University's professor (in the middle), and Taiwanese known researcher-Mei-ling Lin (on the right).

SEN YUH FARM SCIENCE Co., LTD.

2009-05-18T04:47:00.001-07:00

SEN YUH FARM SCIENCE Co., LTD.

have planted and modified Miraculin for many years and asked academic medical institutions to do experiments on the 'Mysterious Fruit', and have thereby successfully introduced the 'mysterious fruit tablet' and many related products of high quality and without any artificial pigment and preservative elements to the market.

1. 'Mysterious fruit' is an unprecedented sugar-replacing product. Users will not only satisfy their appetite for sweet food but also prevent an over-consumption of sugar that can cause harm to the consumer's health.

2. Children’s health starts from their digesting system the mysterious fruit tablet can stimulate the development of saliva and enhance the child's appetite, digestion, health and taste.

3. Public speakers the mysterious fruit tablet can be used to soothe their throats, and can be used as a good throat protection product after a long day of lectures.

4. Consumption of alcohol since mysterious fruit tablet contains high levels of sugar protein, which can change the way taste buds react; it can enhance the taste and smoothness of alcohol. Even if the drinker is drunk, he/she can still be energetic the next day.

5. Mysterious fruit' tablets contain many types of vitamins and tartaric acid, which can be used for women's beauty products.

6. The PH level of mysterious fruit tablet is 11.9; therefore it is beneficial for the stomach's balance, health and fitness.

Our foreign countries agent or wholesaler

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You can buy our product at other countries. Please contact the link below:
These contries agents:

USA
USA office : My M Fruit, LLC.681 W. Wildhorse DrChandler AZ 85286
Tel:+1-480-248-9962
Fax:+1-480-248-8343
Mr. Charles Lee：charlesnl7@gmail.com
Web : http://www.mymfruit.com/

Britain
UK Importer : Freeworld Trading21 Annandale Street EdinburghEH7 4AW
Tel : +44 131 557 5600
Fax : +44 131 557 5665
Miss Yuyin Hsiao : yuyin@freeworld-trading.co.uk
Web :http://www.freeworld-trading.co.uk/

Wholesalers:

New Zealand
http://www.miraclefruit.co.nz/index.htm

Thomas Tropical Inc.
http://www.miraclefruittab.com/

Firebox.com
http://www.firebox.com/product/2167/Miracle-Fruit-Tablets

Our Farm

2009-05-18T04:37:00.000-07:00

Our Farm is at Mei Nung Twon,Kaohsiung Hsien Taiwan.

◎ Our website: http://www.miracle-fruit-senyuh.com.tw/

News from Japan

2009-05-18T04:13:00.000-07:00

TMCnet News

January 16, 2006

Tablets of taste-modifying 'miracle fruit' go on sale+

(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) TOKYO, Jan. 16_(Kyodo) _ Tablets made from miracle fruit, which makes sour things taste sweet, went on sale Sunday online, the developer of the tablet technology said.

Mitsuharu Shimamura (websit:http://www.taste-m.com/), a 31-year-old horticulturist based in Chita, Aichi Prefecture, said that after a joint study with a Taiwan agricultural firm, he established the world's first technology to make tablets out of the tropical fruit, native to West Africa, which contains a sweet-inducing protein called miraculin.

One pink-colored tablet is made of three miracle fruit berries, Shimamura said.

When people eat or lick the miracle fruit's red berries, any sour thing they eat or drink a minute later tastes sweet for about two hours. This is because the protein miraculin firmly binds to sweet receptor cells in a person's tongue when sour substances are present.

The protein then transmits a false message to the brain, resulting in a strong, sweet taste in the mouth. The tablets will cause exactly the same effect, he said.Shimamura, a researcher at NGK Insulators Ltd., expects diabetics will use the tablets to enjoy a sweet taste by artificially sweetening food or drinks with them.

The researcher is the first grower of miracle fruit in Japan to succeed in having the plant regularly bear fruit. To grow the tropical fruit, the temperature must be kept at over 20 C and high humidity should be maintained.

It is easier to grow the fruit in Taiwan than in Japan, he said.Shimamura said he will present the miracle fruit tablet mass production technology at an academic conference of the Japanese Association for the Study of Taste and Smell, which is to be held at Kyushu University in July.

In Tokyo and Osaka, there are restaurants called Miracle Fruit Cafe which offer sweets using the fruit.

A Tiny Fruit That Tricks the Tongue

2009-05-18T04:08:00.000-07:00

CARRIE DASHOW dropped a large dollop of lemon sorbet into a glass of Guinness, stirred, drank and proclaimed that it tasted like a “chocolate shake.”

Nearby, Yuka Yoneda tilted her head back as her boyfriend, Albert Yuen, drizzled Tabasco sauce onto her tongue. She swallowed and considered the flavor: “Doughnut glaze, hot doughnut glaze!”

They were among 40 or so people who were tasting under the influence of a small red berry called miracle fruit at a rooftop party in Long Island City, Queens, last Friday night. The berry rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors for an hour or so, rendering lemons as sweet as candy.

The host was Franz Aliquo, 32, a lawyer who styles himself Supreme Commander (Supreme for short) when he’s presiding over what he calls “flavor tripping parties.” Mr. Aliquo greeted new arrivals and took their $15 entrance fees. In return, he handed each one a single berry from his jacket pocket.

“You pop it in your mouth and scrape the pulp off the seed, swirl it around and hold it in your mouth for about a minute,” he said. “Then you’re ready to go.” He ushered his guests to a table piled with citrus wedges, cheeses, Brussels sprouts, mustard, vinegars, pickles, dark beers, strawberries and cheap tequila, which Mr. Aliquo promised would now taste like top-shelf Patrón.

The miracle fruit, Synsepalum dulcificum, is native to West Africa and has been known to Westerners since the 18th century. The cause of the reaction is a protein called miraculin, which binds with the taste buds and acts as a sweetness inducer when it comes in contact with acids, according to a scientist who has studied the fruit, Linda Bartoshuk at the University of Florida’s Center for Smell and Taste. Dr. Bartoshuk said she did not know of any dangers associated with eating miracle fruit.

During the 1970s, a ruling by the Food and Drug Administration dashed hopes that an extract of miraculin could be sold as a sugar substitute. In the absence of any plausible commercial application, the miracle fruit has acquired a bit of a cult following.

Sina Najafi, editor in chief of the art magazine Cabinet, has featured miracle fruits at some of the publication’s events. At a party in London last October, the fruit, he said, “had people testifying like some baptismal thing.”

The berries were passed out last week at a reading of “The Fruit Hunters,” a new book by Adam Leith Gollner with a chapter about miracle fruit.

Bartenders have been experimenting with the fruit as well. Don Lee, a beverage director at the East Village bar Please Don’t Tell, has been making miracle fruit cocktails on his own time, but the bar probably won’t offer them anytime soon. The fruit is highly perishable and expensive — a single berry goes for $2 or more.

Lance J. Mayhew developed a series of drink recipes with miracle fruit foams and extracts for a recent issue of the cocktail magazine Imbibe and may create others for Beaker & Flask, a restaurant opening later this year in Portland, Ore.

He cautioned that not everyone enjoys the berry’s long-lasting effects. Despite warnings, he said, one woman became irate after drinking one of his cocktails. He said, “She was, like, ‘What did you do to my mouth?’ ”

Mr. Aliquo issues his own warnings. “It will make all wine taste like Manischewitz,” he said. And already sweet foods like candy can become cloying.

He said that he had learned about miracle fruit while searching ethnobotany Web sites for foods he could make for a diabetic friend.

The party last week was his sixth “flavor tripping” event. He hopes to put on a much larger, more expensive affair in June. Although he does sell the berries on his blog, http://www.flavortripping.wordpress.com/, Mr. Aliquo maintains that he isn’t in it for the money. (He said he made about $100 on Friday.) Rather, he said, he does it to “turn on a bunch of people’s taste buds.”

He believes that the best way to encounter the fruit is in a group. “You need other people to benchmark the experience,” he said. At his first party, a small gathering at his apartment in January, guests murmured with delight as they tasted citrus wedges and goat cheese. Then things got trippy.

“You kept hearing ‘oh, oh, oh,’ ” he said, and then the guests became “literally like wild animals, tearing apart everything on the table.”

“It was like no holds barred in terms of what people would try to eat, so they opened my fridge and started downing Tabasco and maple syrup,” he said.

Many of the guests last week found the party through a posting at http://www.thrillist.com/. Mr. Aliquo sent invitations to a list of contacts he has been gathering since he and a friend began organizing StreetWars, a popular urban assassination game using water guns.

One woman wanted to see Mr. Aliquo eat a berry before she tried one. “What, you don’t trust me?” he said.

She replied, “Well, I just met you.”

Another guest said, “But you met him on the Internet, so it’s safe.”

The fruits are available by special order from specialty suppliers in New York, including Baldor Specialty Foods and S. Katzman Produce. Katzman sells the berries for about $2.50 a piece, and has been offering them to chefs.

Mr. Aliquo gets his miracle fruit from Curtis Mozie, 64, a Florida grower who sells thousands of the berries each year through his Web site, http://www.miraclefruitman.com/. (A freezer pack of 30 berries costs about $90 with overnight shipping.) Mr. Mozie, who was in New York for Mr. Gollner’s reading, stopped by the flavor-tripping party.

Mr. Mozie listed his favorite miracle fruit pairings, which included green mangoes and raw aloe. “I like oysters with some lemon juice,” he said. “Usually you just swallow them, but I just chew like it was chewing gum.”

A large group of guests reached its own consensus: limes were candied, vinegar resembled apple juice, goat cheese tasted like cheesecake on the tongue and goat cheese on the throat. Bananas were just bananas.

For all the excitement it inspires, the miracle fruit does not make much of an impression on its own. It has a mildly sweet tang, with firm pulp surrounding an edible, but bitter, seed. Mr. Aliquo said it reminded him of a less flavorful cranberry. “It’s not something I’d just want to eat,” he said.

Reference:The New York Times By PATRICK FARRELL and KASSIE BRACKEN
Topic-A Tiny Fruit That Tricks the Tongue
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/dining/28flavor.html?_r=1

The miracle berry By Adam Fowler

2009-05-18T04:03:00.000-07:00

Imagine an extract from a berry that would make sour things taste sweet and help you lose weight. Then imagine not being allowed to take it.

The world is getting fatter. One billion people are overweight, and 300 million of those are clinically obese.

The search is always on for replacements for those things that, eaten in excess, make us obese - fatty and sugary foods. There is no miracle pill that can replace either. Nearly four decades ago one man came close to providing a tablet that could reduce our love of sugar. In the 1960s, Robert Harvey, a biomedical postgraduate student, encountered the miracle berry, a fruit from west Africa which turns sour tastes to sweet.

"You can eat a berry and then bite into a lemon," says Harvey. "It becomes not only sweeter, but it will be the best lemon you've tasted in your life."

More importantly, this "miracle" can be used to manufacture sweet tasting foods without sugar or sweeteners, which have always been plagued by an after-taste.

Spotting the potential health benefits, and the healthy profits, that the miracle berry promised, Harvey founded the Miralin Company to grow the berry in Jamaica and Puerto Rico, extract its active ingredient in laboratories in Hudson, Massachusetts, and market it across the United States. At first, Harvey aimed his products at diabetics.

"In market testing, diabetics thought our product, as the name implies, was a miracle."

But Harvey's sweet dream of making the world healthier came to an abrupt end. On the eve of the launch in 1974, the US Food and Drugs Administration unexpectedly turned against the product.

Legal advice and contact with the FDA had led Harvey to believe that the extract from the berry would be allowed under the classification "generally recognised as safe". Having been eaten before meals for centuries in west Africa, without anecdotal reports of problems, it could be assumed not to be harmful.

But the FDA decided it would be considered as an additive which required several years more testing. In the poor economic climate of 1974, this could not be funded and the company folded.

"I was in shock," says Harvey. "We were on very good terms with the FDA and enjoyed their full support. There was no sign of any problem. Without any opportunity to know what the concern was and who raised it, and to respond to it - they just banned the product."

He remembers a number of strange events leading up to the FDA's decision, beginning immediately after one particular market research test.

His investors, including Reynolds Metals, Barclays and Prudential, had put up big money. They were looking for big returns.

"From the beginning my interest was in the diabetic market but my backers wanted to put double zeros after the numbers we were projecting."

So, in the summer of 1974, miracle berry ice lollies, in four different flavours, were compared to similar, sugar-sweetened versions by schoolchildren in Boston. The berry won every time.

Don Emery, then vice president of the Miralin company, recalls the excitement.

"If we had got beyond the diabetic market we could have been a multi-billion dollar company. We'd have displaced maybe millions of tons of sugar and lots of artificial sweeteners as well."

A few weeks later, things turned sour. A car was spotted driving back and forwards past Miralin's offices, slowing down as someone took photographs of the building. Then, late one night, Harvey was followed as he drove home.

"I sped up, then he sped up. I pulled into this dirt access road and turned off my lights and the other car went past the end of the road at a very high speed. Clearly I was being monitored."

Sugar denial

Finally, at the end of that summer, Harvey and Emery arrived back at the office after dinner to find they were being burgled. The burglars escaped and were never found, but the main FDA file was left lying open on the floor.

A few weeks later the FDA, which had previously been very supportive, wrote to Miralin, effectively banning its product. No co-incidence, according to Don Emery.

"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."

The Sugar Association, the trade body representing "Big Sugar" in the US, declined to be interviewed on the subject but flatly denied that the industry had exerted any influence over the FDA.

The Calorie Control Council, which represents artificial sweetener manufacturers in the US, has failed to respond to questions on the issue.

The Food and Drugs Administration also refused to be interviewed and has indicated that a Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation request to look at the relevant FDA files will not be considered for a year. Robert Harvey had requested the same files over 30 years ago.

"We got back the most redacted information I've ever seen from FOI. Everything was blacked out. There would have been material in the file that would have embarrassed the FDA, I believe."

Faced with this silence, it's virtually impossible to assess what actually happened to prevent the miracle berry's progress to a sugar-free market.

But one thing is certain, it never got the chance to prove whether it really would have provided a miracle in our ever fattening world. And for Robert Harvey, that's the biggest shame of all.

"It was a big loss not only for my employees and shareholders but, even more importantly, for diabetics and other people with special dietary needs. It was tragic."

But all hope is not lost for the berry's champions.

Today a firm called BioResources International is trying to produce freeze-dried miracle berry at a plant in New Jersey. Dieters will watch the outcome closely.

Reference：BBC News by By Adam Fowler
Topic-The miracle berry
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7367548.stm

Wikipedia Article

2009-05-18T03:54:00.000-07:00

Reference: From Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_fruit

Strange but trueRSS Email Print

2009-05-18T03:45:00.000-07:00

10:12AM Tuesday Jun 03, 2008 Jerome Taylor

At first glance, it looks and tastes much like an ordinary red berry. Native to West Africa the synsepalum dulcificum is not much bigger than a grape and, other than an attractive red skin, is rather unassuming.

But now the "miracle fruit", as it is being called, has become the toast of the culinary elite for its miraculous ability to change the way your mouth works - making sour things taste magically sweet.

The berry contains a glycoprotein that temporarily masks your mouth's ability to taste sour and bitter notes.

Once the pulp is swilled around the mouth and the large stone spat out, lemons suddenly taste like sugary lemonade, vinegar takes on a peculiar treacly tang and Irish stout tastes frighteningly similar to chocolate milkshake.

In New York and San Francisco, the latest fashionable night out is to attend an evening "fruit dropping".

Partygoers chew berries or pop (perfectly legal) pills of dried pulp before wolfing down enormous quantities of seemingly metamorphosed foodstuffs.

In Britain, meanwhile, demand for the fruit has grown to the extent that the country's two main suppliers have warned customers they may have to wait weeks before getting any.

Chas Barr, a former IT specialist from south London, began selling berries through his website miraclefruit.co.uk after reading about them eight months ago on a botanical blog.

He says demand has soared.

"If I was lucky, I might have made, say, £5 a day," he said

"But in the past couple of weeks it has gone nuts. I'm selling thousands of pounds worth in a week, literally kilos every day."

Jonathan Hobbs, who ships fresh and freeze-dried berries using the site, says "fruit dropping" is becoming popular.

"An amazing thing about miracle fruit is the range of people who want to try it," he says.

"It does seem to be a bit of an internet phenomenon."

Although the effect has yet to be backed up by scientific evidence, fruit growers say miracle berries are popular with chemotherapy patients because they help diminish the unpleasant metallic after taste that comes with treatment.

Others say the fruit could one day produce a natural alternative to sugar that would be suitable for diabetics.

- INDEPENDENT

Reference: The New Zealand Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/strange-but-true/news/article.cfm?c_id=500835&objectid=10514067

Miracle berry lets Japanese dieters get sweet from sour

2009-05-18T03:43:00.000-07:00

· West African fruit offers low-calorie sugar option· Taste buds tricked into liking blandest desserts

Justin McCurry in Tokyo The Guardian, Friday 25 November 2005 Article historyIt is a common complaint among long-suffering dieters: if only low-calorie foods weren't so bland. A new cafe in Tokyo appears to have the answer in the form of a little red berry from Africa, appropriately named the miracle fruit.

Most people would turn their noses up at the food on offer at the Miracle Fruits cafe in the city's Ikebukuro district. Not one item has more than 100 calories - a fifth of the average dessert - not even the cakes and ice-cream. They are all unbearably sour, palatable only with help from the miracle fruit. All that calorie-conscious sweet-toothed diners have to do is chew the flesh of a berry, taken from the Synsepalum dulcificum plant, for about two minutes, discard the pip, and tuck in. In an instant, the lemons and limes taste as good as an ordinary sugar-laden dessert.

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.

The berries have barely registered outside their native habitat because they rot quickly, making them near-impossible to export, according to Namco, the firm behind the Tokyo cafe. The breakthrough came when a Japanese food importer said it had found a way to freeze-dry the berries while retaining their sweetness-inducing properties. The effects of a single berry are said to last between 30 minutes and an hour, more than enough time to sample the cafe's fare, which includes lemon gelato and miniature plums in syrup. The cafe is hoping to attract working women who would normally make a beeline for the more conventional all-you-can-manage cake and tea deals found all over Tokyo. "We find that young women are more concerned about their calorie intake than any other group," said Namco's Shintaro Kiya.

Yesterday the Guardian braced its taste buds for an acidic onslaught to see if the berries really do the trick. The waiter mischievously suggested samplingthe food and drink - a lemon cake, assorted fruit and a glass of rosehip tea - before trying the miracle berry. The slice of cake, bright yellow and embellished by dollops of lemon jelly, was nondescript, but with a definite bitterness. The miracle berry came in a small white dish. Eaten alone it tasted remotely sweet, but a few minutes later the rest of the food had undergone a dramatic transformation. The cake had taken on a new flavour and the tea had lost its bitterness. The fruit - oranges, grapefruits, lemons and several different berries - were much kinder on the palate, though thankfully the berry had not completely removed their refreshing tartness.

But this particular gastronomic miracle does not come cheap. The two desserts and tea, along with the berry and a coffee to rinse away its residual effects, came to about £12. Still, for a serious weight-watcher it would be money well spent: the meal contained fewer than 300 calories.

Mariko Noguchi had barely started on her premium lemon gelato but confirmed she had been touched by the miracle. "I tried a bit beforehand but it just tasted like bitter ice," the 46-year-old said. And her verdict, post-berry: "I can now honestly say it's delicious."

Reference:Guardian News and Media
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/nov/25/japan.foodanddrink

'Miracle fruit' turns sour things sweet'

2009-05-18T03:36:00.001-07:00

(CNN) -- The small fruit has the color of a cranberry, the shape of an almond and tastes like a flavorless gummy.But after chewing the fruit and rubbing the pulp against the tongue, the berry, known by a promising name -- "miracle fruit" or Synsepalum dulcificum -- releases a sweetening potency that alters the taste buds.

For about 15 to 30 minutes, everything sour is sweet.

Lemons lose their zing and taste like candy. Oranges become sickeningly sweet. Hot sauce that usually burns the tongue tastes like honey barbecue sauce that scorches as it trickles down the throat.

Through word of mouth, these miracle fruits have inspired "taste tripping" parties, where foodies and curious eaters pay $10 to $35 to try the berries, which are native to West Africa.

About five months ago, a Miami, Florida, hospital began studying whether the fruit's sweetening effects can restore the appetite of cancer patients whose chemotherapy treatments have left them with dulled taste buds.

"What happens in patients is the food tastes so metallic and bland, it becomes repulsive," said Dr. Mike Cusnir, a lead researcher on the project and oncologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center. "Most of the patients undergoing chemotherapy have weight loss. Then they cut further into their diet and then this furthers the weight loss. It causes malnutrition, decreased function of the body and electrolyte imbalance."

One of Cusnir's patients, Don Blechman, told him about the fruit after discovering it while he and his wife volunteered at a tropical fruit garden in Coral Gables, Florida.

"We didn't need it, but we thought it's wonderful and told a lot of people," said his wife, Terry Blechman. "If you can't eat because everything tastes bitter, and one berry gives you back your taste for a meal, what is it worth? It's worth everything."

Cusnir filed for an investigational new drug application, which is required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use an unapproved product in a new patient population. His study seeks 40 cancer patients.

"The majority have given good feedback that it did improve taste," Cusnir said. "A few patients felt there wasn't much change. The feedback is mixed as it usually is in any situation. It's been encouraging, but we haven't analyzed the data so far."

If the results show promise of helping cancer patients to maintain a healthy body weight and appetite, there will be bigger studies, Cusnir said. The process is expected to take several years.

"If this doesn't work, we move on and spend resources on something else instead," he said.

It's not only cancer patients and foodies turning to the miracle fruit. Carmen Duporte, a Fort Lauderdale,Florida, resident, integrated the miracle fruit into her routine drinks of aloe vera juice. Duporte drinks the juice to cleanse her digestive system, but hates its thick and long-lasting taste.

"It's really bitter," she said. "If I don't take [the miracle fruit], I'd be having that taste for a long time. When I drink it with the fruit, there's no taste in my mouth."

Duporte told her friends about the berries, because "it's such a friendly fruit." Through word of mouth, the miracle fruit has picked up buzz.

"This new resurgence of interest is fascinating," said Linda Bartoshuk, a professor at the University of Florida's Center for Smell and Taste. "It popped on the scene and people are having fun with it. It motivated us to go back and do research."

Bartoshuk seeks to better understand how the berry works. In the 1970s, she studied the fruit while working for the U.S. Navy and Army labs.

The miracle fruit contains a natural protein, called miraculin, which has sugar molecules that bind to the tongue, she said. When acid enters the mouth, the sugar molecules press into the sweet receptors.

Some of her colleagues are looking into how the berries could help people with diabetes and obesity, because they sweeten the taste of food. Unlike sugar, the miracle fruit has very few calories and unlike artificial sweeteners, the berries are natural.

Bartoshuk said she hasn't seen any reports of dangers from eating the berries, but warned against premature health benefit claims.

"Everyone's immediate response is it's an artificial sweetener, it'll help you lose weight," she said. "But the bad side is artificial sweeteners don't help you lose weight. Any real claims for health benefits are going to have to be supported by good research."

After the FDA in 1974 declared that miraculin was a food additive, the miracle fruit grew in obscurity in South Florida and remained a local treat.

Individual farmers, like Curtis Mozie, a retired post office employee, raised the berries and began shipping them to customers who found him on the Internet.

"I felt like everyone else needs to be aware of this fruit," said Mozie of Fort Lauderdale. "Why was it kept hush-hush? I wanted people to enjoy the fruit and enjoy the experience and any edible item that doesn't taste good with the help of the miracle fruit."

Curiosity about the fruit began to circulate among exotic fruit seekers. After a few media reports, other small farms cropped up and companies started selling the miracle fruit and tablets.

"No offense meant to people who want to pay money to eat miracle fruit and weird things. We used to do that every Friday," said Richard Campbell, who oversees the tropical fruits at the Fairchild Tropical Fruit Garden. "We grew up with miracle fruit. People came over, ate miracle fruit and sat around eating limes. I feel stupid I didn't think of charging anyone."

Reference:CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/25/miracle.berries.weightloss/index.html

Sweet and sour tale of the miracle berry

2009-05-18T02:45:00.000-07:00

Lemons that taste like sugared meringues? Vinegar that tastes like cool-aid? Sweet cheese? It's true - I've tasted them all.
It just needed a small berry popped into my mouth, rolled around for about a minute, and my taste buds went into reverse. Anything sour tasted sweet. No wonder they call it the Miracle Berry. And believe me, it's much much more than a party trick.

The story begins thirty years ago with Robert Harvey, an American entrepreneur who rediscovered Synsepalum dulcificum, a wild berry grown in West Africa, which, when properly processed, turns sour food and drink sweet, and, even more significantly, high-calorie sweetened junk foods into zero-calorie tasty treats.

It was Harvey, working away in his New England laboratories in the early Seventies, who first realised that here was something which had the potential to be a safe non-fattening sugar substitute and an alternative to the (then) new artificial sweeteners, those chemical mixes just beginning to make their mark on the food and drink industry.

Harvey and his colleagues were able to process the berry's 'miracle' ingredient to make it marketable. So his company conducted their first practical miracle berry trial. They coated some sugarless ice lollies with the berry process. Then they took sugar-coated ice lollies, mixed the two brands up and handed them out to schoolchildren in a Boston playground. Result ? All the kids preferred the Miracle Berry lollies to the sugared ones, not only making the key marketing point but also showing that the berry is a taste enhancer.

Harvey was ecstatic: "The kids licked the outside of the lolly thus making the unsugared inside taste sweet. It didn't rot the teeth and there were no calories. It was junk food without the junk."

Harvey was sitting on a billion dollar project - one that could have had profound implications not only for the epidemic of obesity in the US, but the pandemic throughout the developed Western world.

Reynolds Metal (who make the aluminium wrappings for lollies and ice creams) came on board, Barclays Bank came on board, so did the mighty Prudential. Harvey had hundreds of thousands of miracle berry plants growing in Jamaica. The American Federal Drugs Administration took a benign view of the product.

And then it got nasty. In the autumn of 1973 Harvey's offices were burgled and the precious files ransacked.

"This was a professional job." Harvey recalls. "When the police arrived we discovered that none of the building's locks had been smashed or broken."

Then the real bombshell. In 1974, the FDA changed its mind about the Miracle Berry product on the very eve of the product launch in drug stores across the whole of the Eastern seaboard. In the most brutal way, the FDA ordered all the products to be withdrawn at once. In a complete headstand, the FDA, which had indicated it would clear the product for use, now reclassified the berry as an additive, and like any artificial ingredient, it would now have to submit to years of testing for safety and efficacy.

Who was behind all that? We may never know, but suspicions abound. Harvey's project ended in near bankruptcy. And today, the Miracle Berry remains a mere party trick for those who can buy it mail order.

Tom Mangold presents The Miracle Berry on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 28 April at 9pm FIRST POSTED APRIL 28, 2008

Reference: The First Post
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/31585,features,sweet-and-sour-tale-of-the-miracle-berry