Record Harvest Opens New Doors for Miracle Fruit

MIAMI - July 31, 2013 - PRLog -- Miracle Fruit (Synsepalum Dulcificum) has long been known to be a slow growing, hard to find plant.  This resulted in rendering the mysterious plant in a state of obscurity to mainstream markets.  A berry that only grows in tropical environments and subject to a limited shelf life never stood a chance of sitting in the produce aisle of your neighborhood market.  That all may be changing starting with a new farm in Miami.  “We were expecting a big crop, but the amount of berries we picked over the past 2 days still amazes me" remarked grower Erik Tietig.  You would be amazed too if your typical harvest of a few hundred berries suddenly became a few thousand and not stopping until you hit an estimated 24,000 berries!

Starting on Saturday, July 19th, Erik and 3 others began picking berries at the Miracle Fruit Farm located just south of Miami.  The farm is unique in that it specializes in Miracle Fruit plants.  Their 2 acre shade house at this location wasn't quite full, but who needs it to be full when most plants have 50 or more berries on them.  Of the two varieties of Miracle Fruit, Large Leaf and Small Leaf, it was the former that was the predominant producer.  Large Leaf Miracle Fruit produce larger berries than their Small Leaf counterparts.  Typically, the varieties produce alternating crops from month to month providing a continuous supply of berries.  So what do you do with 24,000 Miracle Fruit berries?

Let’s start with a quick introduction for those not familiar with this versatile, yet mysterious little berry.  First of all, the berry itself is not a form of nutrition you receive from other berries like blueberries or raspberries.  Only one Miracle Fruit berry is eaten per sitting, and that's only for effect.  The berry contains a unique protein called miraculin which binds to the bitter and sour taste receptors.  The protein activates when a slightly acidic food or beverage hits the tongue, turning the sour flavor to sweet.  The effect is temporary, usually wearing off after an hour, but during that hour, your taste buds experience a whole new level of sweet.  The implications for this are many, thus establishing the versatility of the fruit.  Foods and drinks that are not inherently sweet due to a lack of sugar now taste as if they are covered in sugar.  This provides a natural alternative to reduce sugar in your diet, which helps diabetics, dieters, or those searching for ways to prevent cancer.  Along those lines, cancer patients often experience a distortion in their sense of taste from chemotherapy, radiation, or just the nature of the cancer.  A single Miracle Fruit berry can mask this taste making the unpalatable suddenly palatable.  Another use is just having fun experiencing food in a whole new way.  Making this a social event, also called a Taste Tripping party, is become a growing trend of Foodies around the US.  There is even a market for these berries that is turning heads faster in all walks of life.  Since the berry can make almost all things taste sweet, that includes some things that aren't eaten at the dinner table.  Yes, that is the sex market.  A conclusive study has not been published in this regard, so we’ll let your imagination can take it from here.

Now back to the record harvest and what this means for the future of Miracle Fruit.  There is already a source of Miracle Fruit tablets produced in Southeast Asia.  The berries are dried then broken down into powder form which is combined with corn starch to produce the shape of the tablets.  This provides advantages of extended shelf life and better portability as compared to fresh berries, plus it clears a path to process large quantities of berries.  You can imagine the difficulty in distributing 24,000 fresh berries to any number of buyers at one time.  The growers at the Miracle Fruit Farm, www.miraclefruitfarm.com,  are finding ways to put each berry to use by harvesting them for seed, flash freezing whole berries and donating fresh berries to charitable causes.  Plants grown from seed take a little bit longer to fruit than those grown from cuttings, although they can be easy to grow by cleaning the seed and planting in rich soil.  Flash frozen berries offer a variety of uses.  These berries can be converted to tablet or powder form.  Also, they can be consumed after thawing.  While a frozen berry isn’t quite as pleasant to eat as a fresh berry, it can still provide the same effect.  With a diversity of uses coupled with a diversity in harvesting techniques, the future of Miracle Fruit seems to be shining bright.  “At the rate our farm is producing and expanding, it won’t be long before a harvest like this becomes commonplace” foresees brother Kris Tietig of Miracle Fruit Farm.