My mom just had her second round of chemo yesterday. She’s beginning to have trouble getting water down because of the taste. That was before she ate something called a Miracle Fruit Berry. After eating one small berry and then taking a sip of H2O she exclaimed “It tastes like water”. Before she would say that it tastes like have a mouth full of coins and could hardly get water down.
The Miracle Berry is a small red berry grown indoors in Florida by Miracle Fruit Farms. My grandma, her mom, actually found an article in her local newspaper about this fruit that originated in Africa. I did a little research and watched the testimonials and ordered some fresh berries and the powdered tablets.
Watching my mom suffer with her chemo treatments and being powerless to help her has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Being able to buy something that could possibly help was a no brainer. You can buy fresh berries, powdered berry tablets and even whole beery plants. The fresh berries are the most expensive option because they go bad so quickly. The tablets are less expensive and I would assume their top seller. We chose to buy both just to see if there was a difference.
The berries have a special chemical that acts on the the tastebuds that help mask the metallic taste caused by chemo. And for my mom it works. It’s advised to eat the berry or tablet before you eat or drink and swish it around your mouth in order to coat your tongue. The effect is supposed to last from 15 minutes to 2 hours.
I ate a Berry as well tonight and almost cracked a tooth. Turns out there is a huge pit in each berry so I advise caution when eating. The taste is very pleasant and you can feel the pulp coating your tongue as you chew it. After mom drank her water and found that it tasted like water again, I took a sip of my Yerba Mate tea in which I added some lemon to.
At first I didn’t know what was going as I was expecting the sour punch of half a lemon in my tea and it wasn’t there. My brain wasn’t able to compute what my taste buds were reporting, my tea didn’t have the acidic lemon flavor I’ve come to love at all. In fact it tasted like sweet tea. I had to take a few more sips before I remembered reading that the same chemical that can mask the metallic taste induced by chemo can also make sour foods taste sweet. Very crazy. I’m 30 minutes in and the effect is still going strong.
If you miss sweet tea and you are on a Primal or Paleo or a no-sugar diet this may satisfy that craving.
After I placed the order the fresh Miracle Berries and Berry tablets arrived in about two days. We’ve not tried the tablets yet but will try them tomorrow. And also we’ve frozen the fresh berries and we’ll see if that alters the effect on the taste buds. Hopefully they’ll stop work.
Chemo is horrible. In fact one of her 5 chemo drugs is actually a mustard gas derivative. To make it through this poisoning she has to eat and drink even though her mouth and throat are full of sores and on top of that food and water taste terrible. She has Miracle Mouth Wash and a homemade baking soda and salt mouth rinse for the sores but the the medical community doesn’t seem to have any answer to undoing her tastebuds short circuiting.
Miracle Fruit is the one thing so far that we’ve found to help water not taste horrible to her. We’ll see about it affects the taste of food tomorrow. Anything I can do to make her trip through this chemical induced hell, we call chemo, easier, I will happily do.
Update – 3 days after chemo mom used the berry tablet and was able to drink a fruit and veggie smoothie. She tried it before the tablet and said it tasted terrible. But after letting a Miracle Fruit berry tablet dissolve and coat her tongue, she tried it again and with a smile said “it tastes good”.
If you know anyone suffering through chemo and they are complaining of food and water not tasting right you might want to visit Miracle Fruit Farm and do your own research to see i you think it will help someone you love. I know I’m glad I did.
Brad Miller
Fellow Human
healthier2day.com 