Just tried Miracle Fruit...very cool

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

As a result of reading this thread http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=453534&highlight=miracle+fruit
I ordered some freeze dried Miracle Fruit from the UK and thought I’d share our experience.

If you’ve never heard of miracle Fruit here is wikipedias take:

My S.O. Beth made the transaction using PayPal. The price was 2 British Pounds or right about ten good old American dollars.

Five days later:
We received in the mail, a padded envelope containing a letter of instruction and 2 grams of freeze dried Miracle Fruit crystals in a glassine bag. The color of the crystals is somewhat pinkish. Beth and her son called it salmon colored but I insist on pinkish… bah!

As per the instructions we kept the product in the fridge till the needed supplies were gathered and the time was right.

Last night, Beth her son Chris(22) and I decided the time was right.

We sliced up a lemon, a lime, a pink Florida grapefruit, an orange and chilled a few assorted beverages to sample. Ie. Guinness Stout, Sam Adams White Ale, Hornsbys hard apple cider and various others.

I split the 2 gram envelope in half and put it on a plate. The “crystals” were pretty well flattened and mashed together .

I divided the 1gram of Miracle Fruit crystals into 3 lines…er…uh… piles.

We each took our pile and dissolved it on our respective tongues. The taste was somewhat berryish but not overly sweet by any stretch of the imagination.
Not unpleasant, just kind of meh. As advertised.
Beth and Chris thought the taste was a tad sour and a bit like raspberry.

It took about a minute and a half or so for the crystals to dissolve.

I grabbed a wedge of lemon and bit right in.
The taste was like sweet lemonade with little to no bitterness. I tried the lime wedge next and although it was a little more acidic tasting, it was very sweet and good.
The pink Florida grapefruit was incredible. Like a Jolly Rancher candy I swear.

We were all amazed at this Miracle Fruit.

The Guinness Stout was next on the menu.
Guinness Stout is the one thing that we were told is a must try while tripping on the Miracle Fruit.
We watched the beautiful cascading action as the nectar of the gods worked its magic up the side of the pint glass.

The Guinness was supposed to taste sweet and chocolatey.
While it did eliminate the typical bitterness, we did not enjoy the chocolate flavor everyone else seems too.
It definitely changed the taste, and was good, but the results were overrated in our opinions.

The Sam Adams White Ale witch is an unfitlered wheat ale tasted like fruit punch.
Very fruity. In a good way though.

The Hornsbys Hard cider tasted like very sweet apple juice even at 8% abv.

All in all, the experience was good fun and well worth the 10 bucks.
Not something I’d need to try again soon, but turning friends onto the experience will be a hoot.
I have 1 gram left, so about 5 bucks worth. That’s enough to let 3 or 4 friends check it out.
Thanks for reading.

I’ve got a link for the place I bought mine. PM if interested

Cheers

2

Ooh, man, I REALLY NEED to score half a gram man! I’m hurtin’. Who do I have to sleep with?

3

JimBob,
You go ahead and sleep with anyone that’ll have ya, but send me a pm if you need the hook up. I hate to see you hurtin’

4

I have got to find myself some plants and try to grow this stuff. I’ve never heard of anything so culinarily (!) fascinating. Living in South Africa, maybe I’d stand a better chance of successfully cultivating the stuff - for my own use and enjoyment, of course :wink:

5

I definately have to try some of this.

Since I work in a MegaMart and rub elbows with the Produce Manager, I’ll show him this and see if he can get it.

6

Someone ripped you off! The exchange rate is roughly $1.98:£1 so it should have been less than 4 bucks.

Or did the final figure include postage?

7

:smack:
I’m an idiot and meant to type 5 British Pounds, ten dollars including postage.

8

That aside, can you see any practical use for this stuff, other than as a novelty?

9

I’m thinking it be a great way to cut the sugar out of my coffee, as I like it sweet, but hate all those calories (especially since I tend to drink a lot of coffee). If I could make lemonade with less sugar, and still have it taste great, that’s also a bonus. Obviously, I haven’t tried it myself (yet) but the ability to make some of my favorite drinks without all the sugar seems great to me.

10

Wouldn’t it be considerably cheaper to just use one of the widely available sugar substitutes instead?

11

I heard the first taste was free. Second one’s gonna cost ya.

12

I have yet to find an artificial sweetener that I like. Sweet and Lo, Equal, Canderel, etc, can’t take the taste of them.

13

Here is an interesting bit from the FAQ page of Miraclefruit.co.uk

Can it help with Chemotherapy?

When we first began researching Miracle Fruit we found occasional references to its use by Chemotherapy patients to alleviate the unpleasant effects the treatment can have on the gustatory system. Many patients find they develop a metallic taste in their mouths and that normal food can taste foul - apparently this effect is temporarily helped by consuming some Miracle Fruit. We are in discussions with a major Cancer organisation who are looking into creating a tailor made solution for chemotherapy patients and whilst we wouldn’t want to make any unsubstantiated medical claims we can at least give you the following testimonial we recieved recently -

"Dear Miracle Fruit UK, It works! I’m so thankful I found out about this, because as you might know, in the past chemotherapy patients have gotten severely dehydrated and malnourished due to the combined effects of nausea and familiar foods and drinks (even water) tasting horrible. Anyway, I was looking for ways to help my mother, and thought we should try some miracle fruit. She just tried it today, and while things don’t taste sweet to her, they are back to tasting normal. Last night, for instance, she tried a raspberry popsicle, and it tasted like codliver oil-- absolutely horrible, and she couldn’t choke it down. But after she tried some miracle fruit, the popcicle was back to tasting normal. I’m very thankful, because chemotherapy is hard enough, and she’s going through a very severe regimen of it. So it’s great that we found something that can relieve a bit of the suffering. I’m off to your website to order some more, and please feel free to advertise this for other chemotherapy patients – I haven’t heard of this use for it before or from any of the doctors, and I would love for more people to be able to take advantage of it. Please let people know! With warm and thankful regards,
Tait Chamberlain, Michigan, United States.

14

You’d want to be certain that there was no interaction between the miracle fruit and the medication before you recommended it to people on chemotherapy. Chemo patients are often warned to avoid certain foods (grapefruit is good example) whilst on treatment because they can have either unpleasant side effects or they can interfere with the uptake or action of the drug.

15

I was just trying to answer jjimms question with something I’d read.
I was in no wayreccommending it to anyone.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear on that point.

16

Sorry, I didn’t intend to imply that you did.

17

Can this be purchased in the US, say NYC or Boston?

18

I have to get some - can I find it in Canada?

19

Can it be snorted or injected?

20

One thing to try is a selection of very dry wines. By eliminating the sour alcohol overtones you can enjoy all those “notes” the super tasters go on about.