One of the more annoying things about Lyme is how it affects your whole life–even what you eat.  Sugar feeds Lyme, and so it’s a thing to try and avoid.

But that doesn’t make cravings for sugar disappear, and sometimes a fruit on its own just isn’t enough. Enter Miracle Fruit! (Yes, it’s really called that.) Miracle Fruit has the unique property of being able to temporarily alter your taste buds so sour things taste sweet. Want to know more? Read on!

What is Miracle Fruit?: It is a berry. After eating it (or sucking on a tablet formed by compressed freeze-dried miracle fruit berries) and covering your tongue (and its taste buds) with the juice for a while, sour things will taste sweet afterward.

How does this work?!: The wiki page for miracle fruit explains it thusly: The berry contains an active glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin.[3] When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue’s taste buds, causing bitter and sour foods to taste sweet. It is not a sweetener, as its effect depend on what is eaten afterwards. This effect lasts between thirty minutes and two hours.

Because of the difficulty in transporting the plant and that the number of growers in the US are few, the easiest (and cheapest) way to buy miracle fruit is in tablet form. The berries are first freeze dried and then compressed into tablet form. In my pack (and I believe in all, though there may be another brand out there, so read the descriptions, folks!) there were ten tablets. Half a tablet is one dose. The effects for me seem to last about forty minutes when I use half a tablet, and closer to two hours for a whole one. You let the tablet dissolve in your mouth–very important–and try to coat as much as your tongue as possible. Let it dissolve and keep it in your mouth for a minute or two afterward. You want the tongue good and covered.

Beyond being cool, why use it? One of the reasons to use it is to try and lose weight; sour fruits like limes and lemons taste very sweet after using miracle fruit. Lemon juice and water makes a great lemonade without putting any sugar in it. You don’t have to deprive yourself of sweets to use it.

Another thing it’s good for is that it allows people who need to avoid sugar for health reasons–like having Lyme Disease–while, again, being able to have sweets and treats.

According to the BBC article linked to below, tests have been done on diabetics, who would that they could enjoy sweet things while not actually having sugar! They thought the “miracle” name was deserved.

Why haven’t I heard of it before?: Funny you should ask. The BBC has a four page article on the fruit, the attempt of a company in the 70’s to release it, and the FDA working with them until the last minute–when suddenly they changed the classification and stopped it from being released. Some of the people who were involved believe that a large business or association that would have been hurt by the wide-spread existence of products made from miracle fruit made a great deal of noise at the FDA and were the reason the product never made it onto shelves. I, personally, have no idea what the cause for the change by the FDA was, but I suspect I’d be annoyed if I found out.

Where can I order it?: I purchase mine from MiracleFruitTab.com. The packs cost $12.95, and shipping is $3.95. A piece of paper arrives with your first purchase, telling you the URL to go to when you next order. If you go to that page, you get 15% off, aka you pay $10.95 for the pack and still $3.95 for shipping.

My favorite thing so far with it is that I get fantastic lemonade; I mix the lemon juice and water in a 1:1 ratio, and the result is sweet and tangy lemonade. Just without the sugar. Eating an actual piece of lemon tastes like candy, almost. …Very, very, very acidic and tart candy.

So give it a try, if you have a sweet tooth, and let me know if you enjoy the experience!