A colleague offered me some mangoes and I took a piece. It was rather sour and then, she offered me a red berry. Then, she asked me to take another slice of mango and lo, it was sweet! The berry of this plant, Synsepalum dulcificum is appropriately called a miracle fruit. It contains miraculin, a glycoprotein molecule with some trailing carbohydrate chains capable of binding to the tongue's taste buds, activating the sweet receptors, thereby causing sour foods to taste sweet. It puzzles me that the United States FDA has imposed a ban on importing Synsepalum dulcificum from Taiwan, declaring it as an illegal undeclared sweetener. It doesn't cause any harm, I suppose.
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