If you want to enjoy a guilt-free slice of cake or obtain the antioxidant benefits of lemons without experiencing their sour taste, miracle fruit may provide the answer. The bean-shaped tropical fruit provides negligible nutritional value on its own, but could help you stick to a weight loss plan and eat healthier desserts.
Origins
Miracle fruit, also known as miracle berry and by the scientific name synsepalum dulcificum, looks like a jelly bean. It is bright red, approximately an inch long and contains a single seed. The fruit, native to Africa and highly perishable, remained largely unavailable for export until it was subjected to the freeze-drying process. The fruit is slightly sweet but bland, and rarely eaten for its own flavor. The nutritional value of miracle fruit stems from its ability to trick your palate into believing a sour taste is sweet.
Nutrition
Miracle fruit contains a glycoprotein called miraculin, which interacts with your taste buds to make sour foods taste sweet, according to research led by Florida State University biophysics professor Lloyd Beidler in the Sept. 1968 volume of "Science." When the glycoprotein is activated by acids, it forms a giant macro-molecule that tricks your taste buds into not perceiving sourness or bitterness for an hour or more. You need only eat a single piece of miracle fruit to obtain its benefits. The glycoprotein in miracle fruit is not toxic and easily metabolized.
Miracle Fruit and Lemons
Miracle fruit could help you enjoy the nutritional benefits of lemons. Lemons contain vitamin C and healthy antioxidants. Lemon pectin may also help you better digest your food and control your appetite, according to Theresa Cheung, author of "The Lemon Juice Diet." Pectin in lemons, limes, oranges and other citric fruit may help suppress your appetite. Orange-juice pectin helped army recruits feel full for four hours after eating meals in a study conducted by C.M. Tiwary and others at the Brooke Army Medical Center. Recruits whose meals did not include pectin felt full for only one hour after eating, according to the study in the 2007 "Journal of the American College of Nutrition."
Research
The tastebud-deceiving properties of miracle fruit have intrigued researchers. Several studies are underway, including one by Mount Sinai's Comprehensive Cancer Center in the United States to test whether miracle fruit can alleviate one of the side effects of chemotherapy, alteration in taste sensation that can make food taste metallic or lack flavor. In Africa, the Public Health Ministry is studying whether miracle fruit can be used as a sugar substitute that would make it possible for diabetics to enjoy the taste of traditional desserts such as cakes, pies, cookies and ice cream without the use of artificial sweeteners, though such a use was discredited by the United States Food and Drug Administration in the 1970s.
Weight Loss
In Japan, dieters can go to restaurants where they eat a single miracle berry before indulging in 100-calorie desserts that taste as if they contained 500 calories. Diners chew on a berry for about two minutes to allow the inside of their mouths to become coated with residue from the pulp and the miraculin it contains. The effects of the miracle berry last about 30 minutes to an hour.
References
- CRFG: Miracle Fruit
- Miracle Fruit USA
- Nation; 'Miracle Fruit' May Be Sugar Substitute; Feb. 4 2003
- The Miami Herald; Sweet Fruit May Help Chemotherapy Patients; Georgia Tasker; March 13 2009
- Guardian.co.uk; Miracle Berry Lets Japanese Dieters Get Sweet From Sour; Justin McCurry; Nov. 25 2005
- The New York Times; "A Tiny Fruit That Tricks the Tongue"; Patrick Farrell and Kassie Bracken; May 28 2008
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