Interesting Facts About The Miracle Fruit
The miracle fruit or miracle berry – and is often called the Magic berry – is a type of fruit that grows on bushes. It’s called the Miracle fruit because it has the function of taste modifying. It turns every sour or acid food into sweet. It was recognized by the French traveler and cartographer Chevalier des Marchais. He traveled mostly in the west coast of South America and West Africa where he found out about these miracle berries.
The bushes that carry the berries grow for up to 18 feet long. It’s an evergreen type of tree and it yields crops two times a year. It gives small berries with white flowers. The flowers are produced many times in the year. The seeds are kind of like the coffee beans. The berries are red in color, and have a white juicy substance inside.
The native people in West Africa used to eat these berries before their meals. When these berries are eaten, they give a bitter and sour taste at first but then it turns to sweet. The substance that causes us to feel the bitter taste at first is called Miraculin. This substance is not sweet, but when we taste it, it leaves a sour taste that later turns to be sweet.
In West Africa, they used this fruit to make the taste of acidic food a little bit sweeter. The fruit itself doesn’t have any taste.
In the 1970s there was an attempt to use this fruit as sweetener – because of its low calorie value. Nowadays, it’s considered more of dietary supplement rather than a sweetener.
The only disadvantage that this fruit has is that the substance that is contained in the fruit – Miraculin – is a type of protein and it would be preferable not to cook it because protein loses its effectiveness when cooked.
This fruit nowadays is made available in the form of miracle berry tablets or dried granules. Since the effect of this fruit is felt when it’s tasted, it should be dissolved in the mouth. These tablets are a little bit hard to find though in Asia you can easily find it because it’s used by diabetics and dieters. Many people though all over the world, find these tablets on the internet. So it can be purchased online.
These berries are being used in many things these days but it’s not widely available because if it’s high price. The single berry costs about two dollars or more. So it’s used in limited amounts.
They say that this fruit is perfect for Valentine’s Day! Not because it’s red and all, but because of its ability to turn everything sweet. And also they say that if you eat a berry before drinking beer, it would take off that bitter taste and tastes sweet. It wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot!
With all these benefits and uses for this rare fruit, a lot of people don’t know about it and don’t know how this taste changing fruit could change the quality of our life style.
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