Attendees of our Science of Pie event this past spring probably remember sampling gymnemic acid. For anyone who has never tried the bizarre substance, we describe here our first experience with it. Guest speaker Dave Arnold (Founder of the Museum of Food and Drink, and host of the radio show Cooking Issues), supplied everyone in the audience with a small capsule filled with a dusty green powder along with a strawberry, a sugar packet, and small amount of honey. He then instructed everyone to coat the surface of his or her tongue with the mysterious green powder, let it dissolve, and then swallow it. After the unpleasant herbal taste faded away, Arnold told the audience to empty the small sugar packet into his or her mouth. Now, sugar is usually the key to sweet desserts and happiness. But to anyone with a gymnemic-acid coated tongue, eating sugar was like face-planting at the beach and getting a mouthful of sand. The sugar was utterly unsweet. Eating honey felt like taking a swig of thick canola oil. The strawberry became tart and acidic. As the audience quickly realized, gymnemic acid has the peculiar property of inhibiting our perception of sweetness.
Gymnemic acid is precipitated from an aqueous extract of the leaves of Gymnema sylvestre, a tree found in Central and Western India, tropical Africa, and Australia. ^[1] The leaves of this tree have traditionally been used in Ayurvedic medicine. In fact, the Hindi name for the plant’s derivative, gurmar, means "destroyer of sugar."[2] Only two other plants are known to have similar taste-altering effects: Bumelia dulcifica, which makes sweet and sour substances taste bitter, and of course the miracle berry of Synsepalum dulcificum, which makes sour things taste sweet. [1]
