The small, red berries of the _Richadella dulcifica_ plant are not very sweet. In fact, miraculin, the main chemical found in the berry’s flesh tastes like, well, nothing. But after eating these berries, people’s taste buds embark on an hour-long wild ride, so that any sour foods they eat — even lemons — will taste sweeter than candy. Quite trippy.
A new paper published in PNAS describes how this process works: miraculin binds to receptors in the tongue, partially blocking the taste buds that identify sweet foods under normal conditions. But if something acidic, like the juice from a sour lemon, interacts with miraculin, the molecule shape-shifts, and suddenly, the sweet taste receptors are kicked into high gear. Although the same lemons would taste sour to anyone else, miraculin makes them taste sweet.
As interesting as the finding may be, the backstory is even better.
In the 1960s, biomedical scientist Robert Harvey first reported these miracle berries, as they’re called, which locals in west Africa had eaten for centuries. Quickly realizing the potential these fruits might have for making bad-tasting, good-for-you foods more palatable, as well as the role this type of artificial sweetener might play on diseases like diabetes, Harvey organized a new venture, the Miralin Company, to bring the additive to market, complete with the financial backing of heavy-hitter investors like Reynolds Metals, Barclays and Prudential.
Initial talks with the FDA went well, Harvey reported. But the night before the company’s launch in 1974, the FDA got cold feet. The food was an additive, the government agency now decried, and in order to sell their product, Harvey would have to run the miracle berries through many more years of expensive testing. The new directives proved too extensive for the fledgling company to bear.
But as Harvey prepared to shelve his idea, he realized he was not the only one watching Miralin’s door’s close. As he told the BBC:
A few weeks later, things turned sour. A car was spotted driving back and forwards past Miralin’s offices, slowing down as someone took photographs of the building. Then, late one night, Harvey was followed as he drove home.
“I sped up, then he sped up. I pulled into this dirt access road and turned off my lights and the other car went past the end of the road at a very high speed. Clearly I was being monitored.
I honestly believe that we were done in by some industrial interest that did not want to see us survive because we were a threat. Somebody influenced somebody in the FDA to cause the regulatory action that was taken against us.
Whether Harvey was in fact being tailed by Big Sugar, or just a disgruntled ex-lab mate — who knows. But I’m willing to bet the farm that these new findings have tickled the sweet tooth of a commercial entity somewhere out there, in one way or another.
Photo via Flickr / adaduitokla
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Sign in now[...] Read post 1 here: So long, raw milk cheese [...]
Perhaps they should irradiate the cheese or use another sterilization method that does not change the taste. Irradiation is so underused!
In my book, people should be free to buy whatever they want so long as their is a disclaimer and it is well above the market price.
Irradiation isn’t the answer. Raw dairy products is more complex issue than taste. For some people it is taste, for others it’s about health. When you irradiate something it doesn’t differentiate between harmful and helpful bacteria. It might sound gross in this day in age of over-sanitizing everything we can, but there are healthy helpful bacteria that are useful to our bodies and if we irradiate our food we’re altering it nutritionally. Same goes for pasteurization. Some people argue that cooking does too (though I think there are things that are meant to be cooked … though not overcooked or burnt.)
Basically I want to be able to continue to choose to eat what I want how I want it. I would NOT buy raw milk from a farmer I didn’t trust. Raw milk cheese on the other hand is a little less likely to be a problem than plain raw milk. No chemical additives, no flash heat treatments, no irradiation, no genetically altered seeds.
I want to retain that choice of what food I put in my body without having to buy a farm out in Timbuktu to grow it all myself. Where does it end?
And the reason I’m a raw milk advocate is that it has helped me with my allergies when traditional drugs and shots did nothing. I’m not saying it was a cure all, just saying it’s one of several things I started doing and when I remove it my allergies do start coming back.
I was excited to see the Wired piece too, although I was would have liked some mention of feedback as part of larger more complete social systems. It seemed to focus on how on individual can minimize risk; i.e. negative feedback. What about positive feed back (hypcercycles or catalytic cycles)? Scientists have talked about feedback loops’ role in evolution, and I think that feedback loops are incredibly important for major social change. I wrote a blog on it:
http://thefeedbackloop.org/2011/06/22/feedback-loops-stir-shit-up/
Lovely reflection on climate and infectious disease. I will share this with the JIDC FB users.
I find this to be a fascinating relationship.
As I was doing some research a couple of weeks ago I became aware of this paper
published in the JIDC. Not trying to plug the journal, but I highly recommend this article reviewing Cholera in the marine environment. Entitled: Influence of environmental factors
on the presence of Vibrio cholerae in the marine environment: a climate link
http://www.jidc.org/index.php/journal/article/view/19734600/207
Before reading this paper I had not thought about this environmental relationship deeply. Of course Cholera would be connected to the marine environment (mainly I had thought of sewage), but I had not thought about the connection with weather patterns.
Thanks,
Alyson
Thanks, Alyson. I thought people might like this PNAS study. For all the talk on climate change, I’m surprised that there isn’t more effort directed to understanding how this could impact public health and infectious disease. Thanks for sharing the links.
Does not storms play an important role in the dissemination of Infectious diseases agents from one continent to other or to the neighboring countries?
Hi there. Thanks again. Everyone really liked your write-up. It was shared many times by JIDC members.
[...] a podcast of the introduction to Goetz’s book The Decision Tree: Navigating the Future of [...]
[...] a podcast of the introduction to Goetz’s book The Decision Tree: Navigating the Future of [...]
Well that’s an interesting story. I can only imagine the possibilities of these “miracle berries” and what kinds of recipes would be created.