Tablet Changes Sour Taste To Sweet

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By David Ponce

This looks like the sort of thing you might use to win drunken contests or something. Happens to be my life’s ambition, so listen up.

A 31 year old Japanese man by the name of Mitsuharu Shimamura has invented a substance that changes anything sour to sweet. The tablets, made from extracts from “miracle fruit”, contain a sweet-inducing protein called miraculin.

The modification in taste occurs when the miraculin protein firmly binds to sweet receptor cells in a person’s tongue when sour substances are present. The protein then transmits a false message to the brain, resulting in a strong, sweet taste. When people eat or lick the fruit’s red berries, any sour thing they eat or drink a minute later tastes sweet for about two hours.

Snake oil? The real deal?

Well, I don’t know but it’s $35 for 190… maybe, perhaps, I’m not sure. See, the site is all Japanese. Can anyone confirm?

[Miracle Fruit] VIA [J-Walkblog]

3 COMMENTS

  1. Not sure if this will work because taste receptors on tongue cells are not created equally. That is, some areas have more sweet receptors, while others have more sour receptors. Simply binding a high percentage of the sweet receptors does not prevent something sour from binding to the sour receptors. It is not like temperature because both hot and cold stimuli are transmitted over the same nerve, whereas with taste, different nerves are likely used.

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