Can The Miracle Berry Help to End World Hunger?

Can the miracle berry end world hunger? The late chef, Homaro Cantu believed so. The tiny berry was used in his trendy Chicago cafe where guests enjoyed sugar-free creations that tasted rich and sweet, all without the use of sugar.

What is the Miracle Berry?

The star of this transformation is the miracle fruit, a native berry to West Africa that explorers discovered during a cartography trip in the 18th century. The berry contains a glycoprotein called miraculin. This binds to taste receptors on the tongue and causes the consumer to taste sweet when the true taste is sour, bitter, or bland. But miracle berries don’t just change the taste we experience as sweet. They also have a way of amplifying the intensity of the natural flavor.

An Explorer of a Different Kind

The late Cantu was an explorer of a different kind. As a chef, he had worked with NASA to create a food replicator in space. He held numerous patents in food technology and experimented with the miracle berry since 2005 when a friend brought it to his attention. He published a cookbook called The Miracle Berry Diet Cookbook for dieters, chemo patients, and diabetics so they could use the attributes of the berry to create dishes without the use of sugar. One of his plans before his death was to plant an indoor grove of miracle fruit plants in the basement of one of his restaurants.

The Future of Food

In March of 2011, Cantu and his fellow chef, Ben Roche did a TED Talk called Cooking as Alchemy expanding on their concept of futuristic foods. They talked about how they installed a laboratory in the basement of their restaurant in order to do “some serious experimentation” with food. During the TED Talk, Cantu spoke about the economic benefits of the miracle berry’s properties by eliminating sugar using a fresh fruit.

Disruptive Food Technology

The key to their entire enterprise was creating food that was good for people as well as good for the environment, They called it “disruptive food technology” Taking plants that grew wild in the area and finding ways to make them feasible as food held enormous possibilities, particularly if wild plants could be produced and consumed in the same geographic area that they were grown. By changing the perception of what food was, they saw the implications of their experiments to eliminate energy and waste and potentially end world hunger in developing nations as well as first world ones.

Like Cantu, we believe that the miracle berry holds great promise for the future of food as we become more health conscious about our sugar consumption. Although this little berry may hold great promise for the future, it is currently helping diabetics and cancer patients alike with its taste transformation capabilities. Miracle berry tablets are now available to make consumption easier and more portable. If you would like more information on this amazing miracle fruit, visit our website at /.