It is said that Miracle Fruits (Miracle Berries) make sour and bitter foods extremely sweet. “The berry contains an active glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin. When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue’s taste buds, causing sour foods to taste sweet. While the exact cause for this change is unknown, one hypothesis is that the effect may be caused if miraculin works by distorting the shape of sweetness receptors “so that they become responsive to acids, instead of sugar and other sweet things”. This effect lasts 15-60 minutes.” (1)
It looks like miracle fruit is a good (but also quite expensive) alternative for people that can’t or don’t want to consume sugar and still want to enjoy some sweet meals.
Miracle fruit is available as fresh fruits, freeze-dried granules or in tablets.
I’ve been reading about miracle fruits for a while now and always wanted to try them… Finally I found them in tablet form on internet and I could not resist. I ordered box of 10 tablets (for £9)… and waited impatiently.
Couple of friends came over and we tried it with all advertised foods that should taste incredibly.
Unfortunately tablets did not work as expected… sour things like lemon, grapefruit, strawberries in balsamic vinegar, raspberries, blueberries and cherry tomatoes tasted great, sweeter, delicious! But chocolate was tasteless, beer tasted without any change, same Marmite… sour cabbage still the same, generally they only worked on fruits, and all other things tasted either the same or worse – for instance cheese. One of my friends even complained about horrible taste or her tongue after taking the tablet.
I don’t know if this is because I got tablets from wrong place or because they whole miracle fruit tablet thing is a little bit over rated…
I tried them once, but didn’t like them:P
That’s too bad! We’ve never tried them, but they seem to work for the folks we’ve seen test them out. Maybe you can give it another go.
When we lived in Hawaii, a friend of ours had an actual miracle berry bush (shrub?) in their yard so we got to try them. We used limes with them and it was the sweetest lime ever, like candy! After a couple slices though your mouth, while fooled, just couldn’t take the acidity anymore. I wasn’t aware there were tablets, but it does seem to me like the reproduction wouldn’t quite be the same. Cheers on your miracle berry expedition.
Those look like Acai berries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A7a%C3%AD_Palm) to me. They are sometimes marketed as “miracle fruit” for their alleged medicinal properties. But it’s not the same thing.
never tried it b4.. thnx for sharing this story margot. this is very effective :)
Well i don’t know about you but the Miracle Frooties I order are not expensive at all and they work great! =)
I’ve been dying to try these and was lucky to find them at an outdoor food bizarre in Australia! They are so expensive here in the states but I scored 7 for less then $2 usd in australia!
Well, I need to get out of my cave more often, because I’ve never heard of this. But thanks Margot for posting about your own experience. I think I’ll stick with fresh fruits :-)
Sorry to hear the tablets did not work for you. I’ve seen tablets that work and some that don’t. For those interested in the fresh fruit, you can order on my website at great prices. Thanks!
Ooh gosh i just wrote a long comment and as soon as i submitted it it came up blank! Please please tell me it worked properly? I dont want to write it again if i dont have to! Either the blog glitced out or i am an idiot, the latter doesnt surprise me lol.
Hello just thought i would let you know i also had a problem with this blog appearing blank also. Might be gremlins in the system.
Hi, what blog platform is this? Is it working for you or..? I would really appreciate it if you could answer this question! Thanks in advance!
Miracle berries are super, I love them, recently bought some on Amazon
They sound as if they worked exactly as they should. The protein blocks the “sweet” receptors but stimulates them under a low pH (acidity). This would explain why lemon and lime taste great but chocolate was almost tasteless.
That doesn’t sound right, but I guess it differs from person to person and it’s also important to ensure the whole tablet is dissolved on the tongue.