http://spidra.vox.com/library/posts/tags/miracle+fruit/page/1/ Fruit Geekery and Arm Gimpery en Vox Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:52:23 -0700 Copyright 2007 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss miracle fruit http://spidra.vox.com/library/post/miracle-fruit.html?_c=feed-rss-full nobody@vox.com(spidra) http://spidra.vox.com/library/post/miracle-fruit.html?_c=feed-rss-full http://spidra.vox.com/library/post/miracle-fruit.html?_c=feed-rss-full Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:52:23 -0700 <p>I have a horrible sweet tooth. I&#39;m addicted to sugar. I&#39;ve gone through periods where I have none and hardly any starchy foods, either, but it&#39;s hard not to fall off the wagon.&#160; The psychological addiction is strong.&#160; Miracle fruit doesn&#39;t taste like much, I&#39;m given to understand, but when you eat it and let it coat your tongue, it affects your taste buds in a way that suppresses bitter and sour tastes for somewhere between a half hour and two hours.&#160; You can eat a lemon as if it were an orange.&#160; Well, for someone like me who is a picky eater and needs to eat more veggies, that&#39;s a godsend.&#160; I imagine I&#39;ll be able to eat bitter greens I normally can&#39;t stand.</p><p>I had my eye on eventually obtaining this plant, but then the Wall Street Journal did an article on it and other magazines and papers picked up on it and the demand for the plant, seeds, and fruit went through the roof.&#160; It began to look as if I&#39;d not be able to afford the luxury of buying one.&#160; But I know that sometimes one can get good deals on Ebay so I looked.&#160; And found one.</p><p>They attempted delivery yesterday but I wasn&#39;t around to sign for it (I didn&#39;t know it was coming in a way that required my signature).&#160; So I had to rush to the post office today because otherwise it would be sitting around the post office yet another day and the thing had already gone through quite a long journey from Thailand.&#160; So far the seedlings seem in good shape and I have high hopes for them.&#160; They&#39;ll be an indoor plant, at least during the winter.&#160; They hail from African tropical rainforests so they like high acid soil, warmth, and high humidity.&#160; I may not be able to succeed at providing all of those as I do not have a greenhouse and my old Victorian house is subject to extremes of temperature and humidity.<br /> </p> <p style="clear:both;"> <a href="http://spidra.vox.com/library/post/miracle-fruit.html?_c=feed-rss-full#comments">Read and post comments</a> | <a href="http://www.vox.com/share/6a00c2252371ea604a00e398b2a6140005?_c=feed-rss-full">Send to a friend</a> </p> garden gardening miracle fruit synsepalum dulcificum