Miracle Fruit

The Miracle fruit is an evergreen shrub that grows in West Africa.  I am so thankful to my sister Grace who introduced this to me. She tasted this miracle berry fruit in Angola, Africa where they lived that time. One time when we had a chance to roam around Shoe Mart Cebu City, she found this in one of the stalls for sale which happened to be on the plant exhibits in SM.  She was amazed because she was aware that this plant will grow only in areas with a temperature like those in Africa. And Ohhhhh! it costs 3,500 for a 9 months old plant which was not yet bearing fruit but she dared to buy it.
It grows amazingly nice like a live Christmas tree. Everyone was too impatient to wait and see its fruit  but it took 3 years after it bore fruit. Everybody is eager to taste but as per instruction of my sis who happened to have left the Philippines to go back to Angola with her husband Bruno on that year, we had to wait it until the fruit turns Red and ripe.
When we saw dozens of fruits, full of curiosity,  I personally tasted it right away with unripe, green mango .  I took a small bite of the ripe mango and swallowed it. Then I ate  one (1) piece of the miracle berry fruit, eating it like candy playing it with my tongue including the peeling, spitting out the seed. Then I ate the remaining sliced unripe mango again and was surprised . It tasted very sweet as sweet as table sugar.  My curiosity triggered me to taste other food items around the kitchen and found out that everything that tastes sour turns sweet. Even vinegar, lemons, lime, tomatoes, green gardensalad sprinkled with italian dressing turns so sweet. 

The 'Miracle' Berry That Could Replace Sugar **

Miracle fruit contains a protein called miraculin  that tastes sweet enough to replicate the effect of sugar. A chemical that affects taste receptors in the  tongue . This chemical makes the tongue register sour tastes as sweet tastes. The chemical itself has no taste at all. 

Until then, It became the best entertainment for our visitors to have it tested. My brother Chee Dee decided to propagate it since a lot of people is asking for seedlings but I found it hard to propagate that only my brother knows the technique based on his experience.  So if you wish to have one like this, just let me know :-)

My curiosity brings me to research about its amazing characteristics and found out that it can be used to treat DIABETES. Being a Trained Diabetes Educator, I come to realized featuring this here in my blog to share the goodness of this fruit which can be grown locally here in our place in Dumaguete City.  

How does it work?

The berry of the miracle fruit plant is used as medicine.* 

> In foods, miracle fruit is used as a low-calorie sugar-free sweetener.  ***

> People take miracle fruit to treat DIABETES and correct CHEMOTHERAPY-related taste disturbances.

 Why isn't it widely used as a healthy sweetener?

Eat The miraculin berry and for the next hour, enjoy a "flavor-tripping" experience as sour turns to sweet in their mouths.

The surface of your tongue is covered by a multitude of different receptors to detect tastes from sweet to umami. Just like sugar and artificial sweeteners like aspartame, the miraculin in the berry binds to your sweet taste receptors, but far more strongly. ****

The acid present in sour foods sparks a chemical reaction that causes miraculin to temporarily distort the shape of these taste receptors, enhancing them and making them so sensitive that the powerful sweet signals they are sending to your brain completely drown out the sour ones. ***

Other Names: 

Bakeriella dulcifica, Bumelia dulcifica, Fruit Miracle, Fruit Miraculeux, Fruta Milagrosa, Miracle Berry, Miraculin, Miraculous Berry, Richadellla dulcifica, Sideroxylon dulcificum, Synsepalum dulcificum. *1

*1 http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-1171-miracle%20fruit.aspx?activeingredientid=1171&activeingredientname=miracle%20fruit

**https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/can-miraculin-solve-the-global-obesity-epidemic/371657/

***https://www.google.com.ph/search?q=low+calorie+sugar+free+sweeteners&oq=low+calorie+sugar+free+sweeteners&aqs=chrome..69i57.10697j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

****https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/can-miraculin-solve-the-global-obesity-epidemic/371657/