The berry itself is not the thing. It’s the effect of miraculin contained within the berry that affects your taste buds temporarily to make sour things taste sweet. Eating a lemon like an orange was like tasting the sweetest lemonade you’ll have. It was really wild.
I learned about it in the book The Fruit Hunters by Adam L Gollner.
I have heard of miracle berries but I hear the taste of the berry is not the best. I have never had it myself but it is supposed to make things like lemon taste sweet.
I’ve had the pleasure of trying the fresh berries at Fruit and Spice Park and the Mberry tablets.
It’s really quite a trip.
It’s been about 10 years though. I don’t remember how long the effect lasted.
Definitely do not recall any side effects.
Apple cider vinegar could be fun. Cranberries. Pomegranate juice. Meyer lemon.
Growing inside comes with other sets of concerns though. Bugs coming inside where there is no predators to eat them and lighting issues has always been a problem here for everything but snake plants and philodendron.
Ditto here. After eating miracle fruit and the compulsory lemon, I wandered over to the little block of huge mulberries- pakistan, himalayan, shangri-La, and a few others, and ate myself silly. They were good beforehand but damn they were good afterwards.
I think it might last about an hr. I’d say beyond making sour into sweet, it also alters the way you taste good on the whole, making it seem more pleasurable and delicious. I understand it’s been given to or suggested for chemo patients for whom food and eating tends to be devoid of its former pleasures
Chemo affects different people different. Lots of people lose weight during chemo but I did not lose my taste buds and I actually gained weight. My issue was with the steroids they give you. Before giving chemo they give steroids so you can breath. My mother noticed more aggravation and that I ate a lot more. They tried giving me less but I stopped breathing during chemo. She later tried to get them to lower it and when the doctor asked if there was any side affects the last time they lowered it she said no. I think she was just out of it during that time. The other side affect was every time I got it a day or 2 later I would pee out blood. This would only happen once and the doctors tested for blood in the sample but could not find any in later samples. They doctors claimed that was not a side affect too but it was consistent with me. Like I said everyone reacts different to chemo.
I should note one of the things the doctor worried about was swallowing with radiation so they wondered if I would need a feeding tube. I never needed it but in that situation taste would not even have mattered I believe. My cancer doctors would have boost coupons in the back for patients as they did worry about people losing weight.
I’ve been growing miracle berries for around 7-8 years now and I’m on my 5th plant. Yep, I killed the first 4 although I kept one of them alive long enough to get several harvests from it. The berries are fun and the effect lasts for about an hour and sometimes lingers a bit longer than that. The berries themselves have a pleasant sweetish taste, but I’ve been told that this can vary from plant to plant. It was always fun wowing family and friends and having a tasting party.
They are a true tropical plant and do not really care for temperatures that dip below 60F. They also prefer acidic soil, do not like wet feet and will only tolerate very light fertilizer, like 1/4 strength. ← That’s a list of pretty much how I managed to kill the first 4 plants.
My current plant is doing ok, it had a stubborn scale infestation for a long time, but still gave me 2 berries last year. This year the new growth has a bunch of ‘flowers’ growing. The flowers do not need insects to pollinate, the branches swaying in the wind should be enough (I shook the branches in the fall when I brought them inside.)
Sounds like blueberries in a tropical zone. A very finicky plant indeed. That means not only do you get to worry about temperature you get to worry about lime deposit in the water and over fertilizing. I used to buy lime and still had the bag of lime. Something I learned is our plumbing with the hoses gets lime deposits in it from our water alone. With that much lime coming through our water system it is a challenge if not impossible to get low ph even with peat moss. You claim zone 10 CA so I would imagine being it being really tricky here in colder climates.
Yes, it’s the one plant I do the winter shuffle with. It’s early May and it is still too cold to leave outside. I collect rain water each winter and save it up to water this plant. I’m hoping that I finally get this plant figured out so that it grows nicely.
