The ‘Miracle Fruit’: Friend or Foe?
The (DN)A-Team is needed again! A certain little red berry from the savage lands of West Africa is enjoying a surge in popularity for its taste-bud twisting properties, and it’s time to take advantage of this phenomenon.
The “miracle fruit,” known in certain circles as Synsepalum dulcificum, contains a protein called miraculin. When you chomp down on the fruit, this miraculin binds with your taste buds and acts as a sweetness inducer when it comes in contact with acids. Basically, it makes the sour things taste sweet, and the sweet things taste unbearably disgusting. After sucking on a single berry for a minute, beer will taste like chocolate and lemons like candy. Chug a tall glass of vinegar and you’ll probably get very sick… but not before relishing in an imaginary bounty of the finest apple juice in all the world! A scientist who has studied the fruit, Linda Bartoshuk at the University of Florida’s Center for Smell and Taste, said she did not know of any dangers associated with eating miracle fruit. Of course, that all depends on what other bizarre foods you consume while taste tripping. Groups of the berry curious people gather and tweak their tongues, then proceed to dine on a wide assortment of revolting finger foods — like tabasco sauce and chicken feet — until the effects wear off or they pass out in a pool of their own vomit, whichever comes first.
UNSCRUPULOUS FRUIT
News of the miracle fruit has reached Homeland Security, where every potential enemy of the War on Drugs® is taken seriously. While the current strain of miracle fruit is limited in its psychoactive properties, the (DN)A-Team has recognized the potential to hybridize the plant and exponentially increase its power. Imagine a super miracle fruit that affects your subconscious mind and makes every thought as “sweet” as a basket of puppies. War would feel like a bright spring afternoon in a lover’s warm embrace. Suck on a (DN)A-Team Enhanced Miracle Fruit berry and, suddenly, drilling for oil in Alaska makes you weep tears of pure joy. Yes, news of this berry has indeed reached Homeland Security. It has reached the highest echelons of the U.S. government. It has already reached your local supermarket. It’s in that sandwich you’re holding. No, that’s not an amazingly sweet and tasty tomato. Subway® has never served anything that delicious. It’s a wiretapomato, and it will be monitoring your digestive track over the next few years. All the CIA has to do is spread a thin layer of miracle fruit jelly on the bread and they can stick any number of normally revolting items in between your cheese and hot meatballs: spy cams, spy bots, nanospycambots… mmmm, invasion of privacy…
END OF FOOD CRISIS?
Let’s consider a more politically correct application. These berries run $2 a pop, which is highly offensive until you imagine the collateral savings that will result from everything tasting awesome. Give your eight welfare kids a small chunk of miracle fruit and a slice of burnt rubber and voila, filet mignon for all. UNICEF and other helpful organizations are air dropping miracle fruit berries into Myanmar at the time of this report, in hopes the sweet savior will relieve the survivor’s of Cyclone Nagis from the grub-laden gruel they’ve been choking down over recent weeks. If the berry proves a hit in Burma, we can then export it to other devastated areas of the world. China is already the biggest importer of miracle fruit jelly, and orders have tripled since the tragic earthquake. Thanks to miracle fruit, hungry survivors are scarfing down the formerly unpalatable Chinese Emergency Food Rations (poisoned dog food mixed with sawdust).
Looks like this “miracle fruit” is finally earning that retardedly hyperbolic name.

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June 3rd, 2008 at 7:26 am
“nanospycambot”? Frinkin genious!
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Yes, perm, it will take someone like Professor Frink to bring this dream to a realization.
June 4th, 2008 at 11:00 am
What, no NES demonstrations on the benefit of miracle fruit? I mean, I could probably go on for twenty minutes discussing how many points you’d probably accumulate from skateboarding down strange two dimensional volcanoes and catching one of these Momma’s.
(Though this begs the question, with over 30,000 children dying of malnutrition because of a government that withholds aid… is Myanmar that funny?)
June 4th, 2008 at 11:11 am
And just to be clear, that was a vague reference to Hudson’s Treasure Island, but I’m low on sleep.
June 6th, 2008 at 1:09 am
I would like to know if you can print any Synsepalum dulcificum cocktail recipes.
I am having a Synsepalum dulcificum party this weekend and I need to get all that I can. We’re having a Fear Factor (Limited “Home Edition”) competition during some of it, which will most likely happen after the “Dunking for Synsepalum dulcificum” game, but before “Pin the Synsepalum dulcificum on the Orange,” but most likely the “Great Synsepalum dulcificum” pinata.
Also..one quick thought…if I chew them up before I drink a V8, what do you think it will taste like?
Key Lime Pie?
I’m low on sheep.