Question: Would a serendipity berry contain a giant amount of sugar ???

Jean Bourke answered on 15 Nov 2012:

Hi,

It would probably contain a bit of sugar but not as much as other berries. Fruits are sweet because they want to be eaten by animals so they animals can spread the seeds around. The seeds are not digested and are when they are pooped out they come with their own personal mound of fertilizer! Animals like sweet things because sweetness means lots of sugar and that means energy which the animal needs to stay alive.

The serendipity berry appears to have found an easier way to make something sweet than having to putting in loads of sugar.

The sweetness is actually due to a protein. If it was due to sugar the plant would have to put in loads of it’s own sugar which needs as a foodstuff, this way it can put in protein which might be easy for it to make. And since this protein (called monellin) is so sweet the berries only need a little bit so seem sweet. There are scientist working with bacteria try and make them produce this protein so we can harvest the sweetener without having to kill any plants.