On a balmy Wednesday evening, a huge crowd of excited berry tasters convened at BU Central to attend at an event hosted by Boston University’s Mind and Brain Society (MBS). The berries, which scientists have dubbed “Miracle Berries” originate from West Africa and have the ability to make bitter and sour foods taste sweet. Gregory Guitchounts, CAS ’11 and a member of MBS, explains that the berries have a “glycoprotein called miraculin which binds to the sweet receptors and activates them when [you’re eating] bitter or sour [foods]”.
Sounds like quite the miracle, doesn’t it? To see if it lives up to its name, I decided to put it to the test. Following the instructions given to me by the MBS, I put the berry into my mouth and proceeded to chew on the fruit. The Miracle Berry was a strange mix between a sour strawberry with the texture of a mushy raspberry – in other words, it wasn’t exactly the best thing I’ve eaten in my life.
After keeping it in my mouth for over well over the suggested time of two minutes (I wanted to make sure it worked), I spat out the seed and swallowed the fruit. Could I say that a magical feeling overwhelmed my taste buds? No, not at all, but that didn’t diminish my excitement to sample the foods that had been put out to see if the berry can perform its miracle.
A large array of food was put out for us to try, including lemons, limes, Swedish Fish, hot sauce, grapefruit juice, cream cheese, sour cream, wasabi beans, cranberries, vinegar and olives. I started out with cream cheese. As soon as I put the spoonful of cream cheese into my mouth, I was disappointed. There was no astonished “It works!” moment, no magic, and no miracle. It tasted like cream cheese. Although, to give the berry credit, it did taste sweeter than usual.
No matter, that was just the first thing I tried and I promptly moved onto the Swedish Fish. I was surprised that they put candy out, since it was already sweet, but who am I to question? And yes, the Swedish Fish did taste a lot sweeter than usual (surprise, surprise). I then turned my attention to the grapefruit juice. BIG MISTAKE. I don’t know what it was, but the grapefruit juice seemed ten times more bitter than it usually is. I threw my cup away and decided to try my hand at the hot sauce. BIGGER MISTAKE. Not only was it not sweet, my tongue was on fire and I was still disappointed.
When asked if the berry worked for them, the general consensus was that it seemed to work wonders on the lemons and the limes. Out of all the people I asked at the event that night, almost everyone pointed me in the direction of the lemons. Adam Hen (CAS ’12) said that it tasted like lemonade that was “too sweet”, while Jennifer Gao (SAR ’12) agreed, saying that “the lemon tasted the best”. I immediately went to grab a lemon and try it for myself – and they were right, the lemon did have an enhanced sweetness, and it did indeed taste like lemonade!
The response to the miracle berry itself was mixed, with some people saying that they felt the effect wearing off too quickly and that it worked with some foods and not others. Guitchounts says that the effects last from “thirty minutes to two hours, depending on the person or how long you hold [the berry] in your mouth”. I held it in my mouth longer than two minutes but it didn’t seem to work for me. Perhaps it comes down to mind over matter – maybe for some people (like me), their mind overrides the effects of the berry. Maybe some foods are just stronger than the effects of the miraculin. No one really knows, and even “the science behind it hasn’t really been worked out yet,” says Macayla Donegan, CAS ’12 and a member of MBS. However, the event was a great way to attract attention to neuroscience, and as Shea Gillet, CAS ’12 and also a member of MBS put it, “people take neuroscience for granted, they don’t know anything about it when it really has to do with everything we experience. This is a fun way to introduce people to it.”
If you’re looking for a miracle however, I’m going to tell you to keep searching – because you probably won’t be finding one here with the “Miracle Berry”.
