mberryMiracle Berry Tablets, Miracle Fruit Snacks, 10 Count, .12 Ounce, Pack of 1

I got these for my father in law who had cancer and was doing chemotherapy. He said everything he ate tasted disgusting from the chemo. So I thought maybe these berries would help him get a different flavor since they have the ability to make things taste different. Unfortunately, he said they didn’t help him. And we don’t live close so I never got the Chance to try them.

I brought this to girls' night and we all tried it together at dinner. Talk about a hoot! We had so much fun trying different foods with these. Lemons and limes were an agreed upon favorite. I loved what it did for hot sauce.

Mberry was my second experience with the “miracle berry”, the first being a generic brand I cannot recall.The first thing I noticed about the product was how tiny the box was. Awww, so cute. It looked as though it belonged in the candy section of a chain store. I appreciated the eco-conservative packaging. Shipping was a bit much though, considering the size of the packaging.Included with the Amazon order, external to the packaging was a nice information sheet that included a pairing guide for those who were “curious”, “adventurous” or “enlightened”, ranging from lemons and limes (obviously) to Goat Cheese. I enjoyed this suggestion pamphlet, as it also included spots to mark whether the flavors were smiley face or frowny, for future reference.Now on to the flavor test! Popping out one of ten tablets, I stuck the pill on my tongue and let it dissolve all the way. Slowly a tamarind-like flavor crept to my taste buds. Whether this was the natural flavor of the original berries, or the effects of the Miraculin glycoprotein taking its toll, I did not know.Naturally, the first thing you want to do is make sure the tablet worked. So heavy-ho, here comes the lemon. Oooh, that’s good. The lemon tasted super sweet like candy. Next I went for the banana, hmmm not much different. A wedge of tangerine was a sugary delight, and the same for some dried raspberries and raisins.From my experience so far, I would say that items that are super sour, like lemons are the best shot of getting the full experience. Items that were originally sugary have their flavor enhanced. For a lot of other food items, it can be difficult to tell. While my experience with Guava is limited, I didn’t notice a large difference there. The same for pears and apples.The effect begins to wear off after about twenty minutes, which was comparable to my first time. The sugary flavor imparted by the berry is somewhat iconic and is slightly different than if one was to taste pure sugar. Over time, I felt that my mouth became accustomed to it, and so the flavor of new fare was not as dramatic as the first lemon slice. I’d recommend trying to clean the palette between items.

I purchased on the advice of my 20 year old nephew. He said they were the wildest thing that he has tried. This are tiny dissolvable pills that actually alter the way you taste things. They tasted a lemon and a lime and said they it was sweet. The sweet turned sour. They took a teaspoon of sugar and it tasted sour. This was the moments that I will never forget. My wife was the one that this was brand new to. My nephew had had these before. This was so much fun to watch. They tried thing after thing and was amazed by how everything was backwards. The effects of this tiny little pill that was slightly sweet to taste made the 30 - 45 minute experience so much fun. They tried thing after thing. This is a great party favor for a small group of people. It is definitely worth the price for just the trickery alone.

After the novelty of these wore off, I was disappointed and they left an after-taste that persisted for hours. (I am curious whether the actual berries also leave an after-taste or whether the after-taste is due to the fact that these tablets are manufactured in a laboratory. Having never tried the berries, I can't answer that question).Anyway, as a perennial dieter, I was hoping that these might be just the ticket to add sweetness without calories and avoid the weird after-tastes of artificial sweeteners. However, one thing that I fundamentally did not understand is that these only sweeten if the food you are eating is acidic or sour. Thus, I stupidly thought that if I popped one of these before eating pancakes, my pancakes would taste cake-like and therefore my desire to add syrup to top the pancakes would be gone. However, that did not prove to be the case because pancakes are neither sour nor acidic so the flavor of the pancakes was not significantly modified. Moreover, these ruined my morning ritual of drinking expensive Japanese green tea. I like my tea bitter and unsweetened and I was curious about whether these would have the unwanted effect of making my tea taste sweet, as if I had added sugar. That did not occur, but these totally blunted the flavor of the tea -- as if I was drinking cheap Lipton's tea rather than a super premium Japanese tea. In essence, the tablets destroyed the umami of the tea. I did not try these with wine, but I think a similar effect would occur -- i.e., these would blunt your taste buds so that a premium wine would taste like a cheap supermarket blend.Here are the other things I tried these with:Limes - tasted nice and made a lime seem like chomping on a dessertPlain unsweetened goat milk yogurt -- added a subtle sweetness that made it easier to eat plain yogurt and somewhat camouflaged the "goaty" flavor of the yogurt.Lemons -- wasn't as exciting as the limes - still tasted pretty sour. It was a different tablet than the one I used when I ate the lime - perhaps a manufacturing defect or perhaps the lemon I picked up wasn't as good quality as the lime?Cherries -- had bought some cherries at the supermarket that were really disappointing because they weren't sweet enough and the tablets really improved the taste of the cherries, as if I had gotten super premium freshly picked cherries.Blueberries -- same experience as the cherries. Really improved the taste of mediocre supermarket blueberries.Granny Smith Apple -- didn't like this at all. Masked the sourness of the Granny Smith varietal, which I actually enjoy, and made it seem like I was chomping down on a mediocre supermarket Red Delicious.The bottom line is that I think these would be interesting if you wanted to have a "tasting party" with friends and experiment with how the tablets affect the taste of various foods, but as a tool for dieters, it is pretty much of a fail. The biggest improvement was making mediocre supermarket cherries and blueberries taste better, but I would actually rather seek out less mediocre fruit (and, as stated, I actively disliked how these affected supermarket Granny Smith apples).As a dieter, for those few things where I miss sugar (like oatmeal or plain yogurt), I think I am better served by seeking out artificial sweeteners. To that end, I just ordered some "Swerve" from Amazon, one of the few artificial sweeteners I have not yet tried.Swerve Sweetener, 16oz [1lb] At least that is less expensive and is not going to ruin my premium tea.