If Miracle Fruit Makes Lemons Taste Sweet, Why Don't We Eat It?

Miracle fruit is a tiny red berry that makes lemons taste like sweet lemonade, with no sugar at all. So why don't we eat it, or use it to replace sugar? The answer involves a taste-bending protein called miraculin, a 1970s sweetener startup, men in parked cars, and one letter from the FDA. In this video we follow the miracle berry (Synsepalum dulcificum) from West African kitchens and 1725 explorer journals to flavor tripping parties in New York. We look at how miraculin hijacks the sweet receptors on your tongue, why the company Miralin went bankrupt in 1974, why the FDA never actually banned the berry, and why fresh miracle fruit is so hard to sell: it spoils in days, dies in heat, and sweetens everything you eat for the next hour. 0:00 The lemon that tastes like lemonade 0:49 Is miracle fruit a drug? 1:50 Miraculin: how the berry tricks your tongue 2:43 Miralin and the plan to replace sugar 3:44 Car chases, break-ins and the FDA letter 5:42 Why fresh miracle fruit never caught on 7:35 The real reasons we don't eat it References: Cabinet Magazine, interview with Adam Gollner (author of The Fruit Hunters) on the history of miracle fruit and Miralin: https://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/23/naja... Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/1974, authorising dried miracle berries as a novel food: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/202... Miracle fruit and miraculin background, including UF/IFAS notes and the FDA's 1977 position: https://growables.com/information/Tropical... KSL, "South Florida: Miracle fruit helps cancer patients manage chemo taste changes": https://www.ksl.com/article/51456614/south...