'Miracle Fruit' Yields Sweets for Dieters
By Associated Press
Tue Nov 22, 2:40 PMUPDATED 21 HOURS 53 MINUTES AGO
TOKYO - A Japanese cafe started serving up berries that make sour desserts
sweet Tuesday, offering dieters the chance to indulge in snacks without
piling on the calories.
The desserts at the Miracle Fruits Cafe in Tokyo contain almost no sugar and
are unbearably sour, but come with a berry from the Synsepalum dulcificum
plant _ also known as miracle fruit _ which make the sour desserts sweet to
the taste, according to Namco Ltd., who runs the cafe.
"You could eat a whole lemon and it would taste sweet," Namco spokesman Yuko
Tsukui said of the berries, which accompany desserts on the cafe's menu _
all of which have less than 100 calories, or one-fifth that of normal cakes
and puddings.
The berry's juices affect the tongue for about 30 minutes to an hour and can
be washed away with hot tea or water, Tsukui said.
Found in Western Africa, miracle berries contain the protein miraculin,
which stimulates the tongue's taste buds and makes sour food and drinks
taste sweet.
Though discovered centuries ago, miracle berries have not been widely
marketed because they are easily perishable. But a Japanese supplier
recently developed a way to freeze-dry the fruit, allowing for a stable
supply of the berries, Tsukui said.
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