tripping on miracle fruits

No, miracle fruit isn't slang for some new street drug, though it should be. The Miracle Fruit, or Synsepalum dulcificum as its known to those in the know, was recently featured in the NY Times. Suffice to say, this fruit blows my mind.

The Miracle Fruit works because of an aptly named protein, Miraculin, which binds to your taste receptors and turns all those sour tastes sweet. This isn't some minor transformation. For one to two hours, you could theoretically drink down battery acid like syrup (though that doesn't sound great either).

More practically, one person interviewed drank Tabasco sauce and said it tasted like donut glaze, and lemons like candy -- mind-blowing.

It works for about 2 hours it seems. You can order them online, though they are pricy.

Given the proliferation of diabetes and other sugar-induced disease, this would seem to indeed be a miracle drug. Unfortunately, the FDA killed that idea about 30 years ago. Why exactly? Haven't looked to see. There are no safety issues I've come across -- it may not be good enough for the FDA, but it's good enough for me.