The miracle berry

[dipsydoodle]

Imagine an extract from a berry that would make sour things taste sweet and help you lose weight. Then imagine not being allowed to take it.
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The search is always on for replacements for those things that, eaten in excess, make us obese - fatty and sugary foods. There is no miracle pill that can replace either. Nearly four decades ago one man came close to providing a tablet that could reduce our love of sugar. In the 1960s, Robert Harvey, a biomedical postgraduate student, encountered the miracle berry, a fruit from west Africa which turns sour tastes to sweet.
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But Harvey's sweet dream of making the world healthier came to an abrupt end. On the eve of the launch in 1974, the US Food and Drugs Administration unexpectedly turned against the product.
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The Sugar Association, the trade body representing "Big Sugar" in the US, declined to be interviewed on the subject but flatly denied that the industry had exerted any influence over the FDA.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7367548.stm

[lonestarnot]

1. Synsepalum dulcificum

All is not lost. Demand for the product is being created just through knowledge of the product.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

2. I believe that one can find almost anything on eBay

http://cgi.ebay.com/Synsepalum-dulcificum-MIRACLE-FRUIT-TREE-2-PLANTS_W0QQitemZ150241681640QQihZ005QQcategoryZ25463QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[dipsydoodle]

3. That's cool

Thanks for that.

Presumably you had some resistance to using ohmsweetohm :)

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

5. Your welcomed! lol!

I had amp-le time to decide and it wasn't a matter of resistance but of surrender. :)

[dipsydoodle]

7. Very witty

Amp-le :rofl:

Looks like we can buy them here in the UK anyway but at disproportionately higher prices : http://www.miraclefruit.co.uk/grow.html Think I'll get the ones you found on ebay.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

4. We have one of those bushes

or maybe they're trees, idr, but we just got it last fall, so it hasn't fruited yet.

[TZ]

6. Hmm I'm guessing there is more to this story than established here

Back in the mid seventies the FDA was actually heavily influenced by vitamin and supplement and altie med companies..in fact congress was so concerned about this in the 1980's they started having hearings trying to lessen the influence of supplement and homeopathic manufacturers on the FDA.
I think its just as likely that the supplement makers had a say in the investigation of this berry..probably they wanted to market it themselves and couldn't
Anyone who assumes it was "big suger" stomping on it, has no clue of the complex history of the FDA..a agency FOUNDED by a homeopathic medical practicioner

[shireen]

8. you can buy it at

logees.com

[nichomachus]

9. How the government manipulates information about food

Here's a rather long article that was in the NY Times a while back about how the government, because it is a whore for the corporations, influences not only your food choices, but also the information you get about food.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?ei=5090&en=a18a7f35515014c7&ex=1327640400

(You may need to be a registered use to read this. If so, I apologize.)

[TalkingDog]

10. stevia: grow yer own n/t

[RadiationTherapy]

11. Stevia went through this as well.