Subject: Re: miracle fruit

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 16:29:27 GMT

Shankar Bhattacharyya <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Glutenous Maximus <[email-masked]> wrote:
               [.....................]
>>Not just neutral things.  Artichokes have a chemical in them called
>>cynarin which affects your tastebuds.
               [.....................]
>I'm not familiar with cynarin, not that that means anything.
>However, do you perhaps mean cymarin?  Cymarin is likely to be a
>quite toxic substance.  If I remember, cymarin is a glycoside of a
>distinctly toxic steroid with cymarose, a deoxy sugar.  I have no
>idea why I remember that or, for that matter, where I came across
>that bit of trivia.  Something to do with cardiac glycosides, I
>expect.  There are some strange ones.

It sounds like you might have useful knowledge of chemistry, or at
least considerably more than I have, but I made no error referring
to cynarin (with an 'n' after the 'y', not an 'm') - Harold McGee
reports that "In 1954, an organic acid unique to artichokes was
isolated and dubbed cynarin", etc, etc.  He also describes the
liqueuer Cynar which I mentioned (a bottle of which I own), along
with descriptions of the results of formal and informal testing of
the substance.

Regards,
 ---------------------------------
 Michael O'Donnell     [email-masked]            Copyright (c) 1996
 ---------------------------------

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From: [email-masked] (Shankar Bhattacharyya)
Date: 2 Sep 1996 19:58:33 -0400

>>However, do you perhaps mean cymarin?  

>   ... I made no error referring
>isolated and dubbed cynarin", etc, etc.

Thanks for the confirmation. You wouldn't remember offhand which of
his books it is in, would you? Not important - I can track it down.

I joined this thread late. Was there an explanation of mechanism
offered along the way?  From what I did see here I gather that the
effect with this fruit is quite strong. With the other things I
mentioned the effect is not really strong.

I'd be interested in reaching some understanding of why this
happens. It's quite peculiar.

- Shankar