Sour foods are definitely not many people’s favourite. But there is a miracle that makes sour foods taste sweet. Strange!
Synsepalum dulciferum, commonly known as the miracle berry or sweet berry, if consumed alters your taste buds and makes things taste differently for some time. The berry has a low sugar content but has a glycoprotein present in it with trailing carbohydrate chains. That molecule is called miraculin. This miraculin binds with the taste buds and gives the altered taste. The change will last for around 30 minutes until the molecule is washed away by the saliva.
These berries are shrubs that grows 6 to 15 feet in height. They are mostly found in Western African areas.
So are you ready to have the ecstatic experience? Today the berries are made into tablets and is sold in the market!! Interesting isn’t it? The berry tablets are sold in Japan commercially.
But the reason why miraculin is not used as a natural sweetener is because of the cost expenses. It takes around four years for the berry to grow and only one in four berries will fruit. So if the berries are grown on a large scale, it would be economically not feasible.
Today by bioengineering technologies, scientists are trying to genetically insert miraculin into tomatoes and bring out its ability and lower its cost.
What the nature gives us is enormous. But how we procure the gifts is something to be thought of. Let us look at how science, nature and technology links and how we benefit from it.