Get to know the Miracle Fruit

 

This magical fruit from West Africa is red in color and has an amazing taste.

Miracle berry ( Richadella dulcifica ) is also known as miracle fruit. If you find one, try to feel the taste in your mouth. This red fruit has a sweet taste that is slightly sharp, slightly like the taste of cranberries. However, this is not the taste of the fruit itself. To find out why this fruit is given such a name, you have to eat something sour. This fruit is able to make the sour taste of food into a delicious sweet taste. Oh, more than that, you can drink vinegar like a glass of milkshake. Or you can chew a lemon without frowning like eating candy.

The secret to this miracle is a protein called miraculin . Now, researcher Ayako Koizumi from the University of Tokyo has discovered how the protein works on our tongue.

This is what a magic fruit looks like that has been split open, each fruit has one seed inside.

People in West Africa have been chewing the magic fruit before eating for centuries. This is to get an unusual sweet taste before eating sour foods. Europeans were already concerned about this fruit in 1725, when the French adventurer, Chevalier des Marchais, described the benefits of this magical fruit.

The bottom line is that miraculin changes the shape of proteins on our tongue called sweet taste receptors. These proteins are usually made up of sugars, but when miraculin can't find them, they respond to acids as well. Suddenly, the sour taste turned into a sweet taste.

After eating this fruit, then followed by eating citrus fruits that taste sour, then the sensation received by the tongue is a sweet taste.

Based on Koizumi's experiments, that explanation was incorrect. He showed that miraculin pierces sweet taste receptors and that miraculin attaches more strongly than other sweeteners such as aspartame or saccaine. If the conditions are acidic, then what happens is the opposite. Miraculin fills the sweet taste receptors. This converts it to its active form, while making it extra sensitive to sweeteners like aspartame.

Miraculin occupies the sweet taste receptors for about an hour. Most of that time is used to silence the receptor. That is the reason why the taste of this fruit is not too pronounced. Then when you bite or gulp something sour, miraculin immediately adds an extra proton and changes its shape. Meanwhile, miraculin also replaces the shape of the sweet taste receptor.

Koizumi also saw that there was another protein that could change the taste, namely neoculin . The protein comes from the lumbah plant from Malaysia which can change the sour taste to sweet taste. Neoculin also stimulates sweet receptors, but it also stops there.

Miraculously, miraculin and neoculin are completely unrelated. The shape and size are also different. Both are made of different amino acids. They also touch different parts of the sweet taste receptors. Unlike miraculin, neoculin has its own sweet taste. Neoculin changes the sour taste even to a much sweeter taste. The magic aspect of these two proteins doesn't actually turn sour taste into sweet, but they both drive the same thing in two very different ways.

That's the information about the miracle berry which is called the magic fruit. Are you interested in trying it? If yes, we also provide miracle fruit plant seeds for you to plant at home. Please click here to get the plants and click here to get other fruit plants. I hope this information is helpful