Miracle Fruit or Magic Fruit

Our nature is blessed with plenty of fruits. We have consumed variety of fruits such as Grapes, Orange, Strawberry, Watermelon etc. Many of us may be unaware of a special fruit named "Miracle Fruit". From the name itself we understand this fruit is a special one.

The miracle fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum) or miracle berry, when eaten, cause sour foods (such as lemons and limes) subsequently consumed to taste sweet. The berry itself has a low sugar content and a mildly sweet tang. It 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. The effect will last from 15 minutes to 2 hours, depending mostly on what you eat. When the effect wears off, everything tastes as before . This fruit was first documented by explorer Chevalier des Marchais.

Miracle berry plant 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 plant grows in bushes up to 20 feet high in its native habitat, but does not usually grow higher than ten feet in cultivation. It usually produces two crops per year.

There are no known side effects from consuming Miracle Fruit other than the effect lasting approximately 2 hours on average. Miracle Fruit has many benefits and attempts have been made to commercialize the product in the United States. Recently “Miracle Fruit Tabs” or Miracle Fruit Tab are being sold internationally in convenient freeze dried tablets. The consumption process of the Miracle Fruit Tabs are the same; swirling the tab around the tongue until dissolved.