The Story of Miracle Fruit

I’ve previously discussed the perils of too much sugar and the maddening lack of ethics by the sugar industry. You can read all about it here. Now for more sugar industry skullduggery – another example of sugar industry blindness to everything but their bottom line!

I’ve written about miracle fruit before. This small berry from West Africa has an amazing effect on our taste buds.


It transforms any tart taste into sweetness. It can make a lime taste sweeter than an orange without calories! What incredible repercussions on for the estimated 1 billion people worldwide who are obese. How about all those sweet children's cereals suddenly healthy? How about medicines for children that don't taste awful? But The sugar industry will have none of it!

Our story begins In the 1960s, when a biochemist, RobertHarvey began to study the taste transforming property of miracle fruit and isolated the active compound which he named ‘miraculin.’ He found that it can make foods taste sweet without sugar or sweeteners. Not only that, it had no after-taste, a problem with even our current artificial sweeteners and natural sugar substitutes. Plus in market testing, everyone preferred foods and beverages sweetened with miracle fruit, even kids!

With such healthy benefits and the promise of even healthier profits, Harvey started the Miralin Company with financial backing from some of the largest food producers.

He planned to grow the berry in Jamaica and Puerto Rico, manufacture it in Massachusetts, and market it for diabetics.

What Went Wrong

But all of a sudden, sweet dreams turned sour. The US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) which had all along supported miraculin, unexpectedly and at the last minute banned it without any indication what the concern was or who raised it. Worse, there was no opportunity to respond.

The investigative reporter for the BBC Adam Fowler reported that no one representing ‘Big Sugar” would agree to an interview, but all were quick to deny any influence on the FDA decision. Those he approached include the Sugar Association which represents the sugar industry, the Calorie Control Council which represents the artificial sweetener industry, and even the FDA.

So Fowler requested the relevant FDA files under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI). It took a year for his request to be answered. Fowler reported that he received “the most redacted information I've ever seen from FOI. Everything was blacked out. There would have been material in the file that would have embarrassed the FDA, I believe."

To this day no one is sure what happened to miracle fruit, but a a few things are clear. You can’t grow miracle fruit if you live in Florida due to legislation pushed by the sugar industry, and miracle fruit has not yet had a chance to prove if it can be a miracle in our increasingly overweight world!

But let’s end with some good news! With our ever-growing network of overnight shipping, anyone can get fresh miracle fruit delivered from http://www.miraclefruitman.com. Plus it’s safe for diabetics and a real boon for people undergoing chemotherapy when food tastes metallic and rubbery. Miracle fruit allows them to taste food again.