Earlier this year, Homaro Cantu of Moto fame paired with Thomas Bowman to create a restaurant called iNG which offered a special miracle berry tasting menu at its kitchen table. The miracle berry or miracle fruit tricks human taste buds into thinking sour tastes are sweet, among other effects, and many people throw miracle berry parties to tour its flavor warping effects.

Cantu and Bowman now think the miracle berry can take on a more useful role: combatting obesity. If the miracle berry can trick people into tasting sugarless items as sweet, perhaps it can reduce sugar intake period.

“Famine is not only a distribution issue, but what we think of as food,” said Mr. Cantu, 34, who was homeless for three years as a child in Portland, Ore. Last year, as co-host of the Discovery Channel’s Planet Green TV series “Future Food,” he survived for a week eating only miracle berries and weeds, leaves and grass that he scavenged from his backyard.

Much nutritious, wild vegetation is mowed under or tossed into the garbage because humans do not find it palatable, Mr. Cantu said.

Miracle berries could be a way to get around that barrier, he said. “We have to redefine what is edible to include what is edible with the miracle berry,” he said.

Cantu has a miracle berry diet cookbook in the works. I just ordered a pack of miracle berries online. I have to try this out.