The Miracle Fruit: An Undergraduate Laboratory Exercise in Taste Sensation and Perception

"Miracle Fruit" is a taste-altering berry that causes sour foods to be perceived as sweet. The present paper describes a laboratory exercise that uses Miracle Fruit to educate students about the sensation and perception of taste. This laboratory exercise reinforces course material pertaining to the function of sweet taste receptors covered in a Sensation and Perception course at Christopher Newport University. Here we provide a step-by-step explanation of the methodology, and an example of data collected and analyzed by one group of students who participated in this laboratory exercise. The origins of the Miracle Fruit, the structure and the physiological function of miraculin (the glycoprotein responsible for the taste-modifying effect found in the pulp of the Miracle Fruit) were discussed before the laboratory exercise. Students then sampled foods known to target different types of tastes (i.e., sweet, sour, bitter and salty) and rated their perception of taste intensity for each food item. Next, students each consumed Miracle Fruit berries, then resampled each original food item and again recorded their perception of taste intensity ratings for these foods. The data confirmed that the sour food items were perceived sweeter after the Miracle Fruit was consumed. The students also completed a written assignment to assess what they learned about the origins, structure, and physiological function of Miracle Fruit. This hands-on laboratory exercise received positive feedback from students. The exercise can be used by other neuroscience educators to teach concepts related to the sensory system of taste.