Miracluin Tablets + Price Discrimination + Does Eating Late Cause Weight Gain?
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| Miracle Tablets? |
Part 1:
So, what is this miracle fruit tablet?
The planet name is called Synsepalum dulcificum. This kind of plant produces very sour berries, that can be subsequently consumed to taste sweet. According to the few studies done, the effect is due to miraculin, which is used commercially as a sugar substitute. The berry itself has a low sugar content and a midly sweet tang. It contains a glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin. When the fruit is eaten, that molecule binds to the taste buds, and when you eat sour foods, the molecule makes it tastes sweet. No one really knows how it changes that kind of feeling from sour to sweet. That's why it's called a miracle fruit tablet.
The berry has been used in West Africa since at least the 18th century, when European explorer Chevalier des Marchai, who searched for many different fruits during a 1725 excursion to its native West Africa , provided an account of its use there. Marchais noticed that local people picked the berry from shrubs and chewed it before meals.
An attempt was made in the 1970s to commercialize the ability of the fruit to turn non-sweet foods into sweet foods without a caloric penalty but ended in failure when the FDA classified the berry as a food additive. There were controversial circumstances with accusations that the project was sabotaged and the research burgled by the sugar industry to prevent loss of business caused by a drop in the need for sugar. The US Food and Drug Administration(FDA) has always denied that pressure was put on it by the sugar industry but refused to release any files on the subject. Similar arguments are noted for the FDA's regulation on Stevia now labeled as a "dietary supplement" instead of a "sweetener".
For a time in the 1970s, US dieters could purchase a pill form of miraculin. It was at this time that the idea of the "miraculin party" was conceived. Recently, this phenomenon has enjoyed some revival in food-tasting events, referred to as "flavor-tripping parties" by some. The tasters consume sour and bitter foods, such as lemons, radishes, pickles, hot sauce, and beer, to experience the taste changes that occur.
Part 2:
What is Price Discrimination?
Price discrimination or price differentiation exists when sales of identical goods or services are transacted at different prices from the same provider. In a theoretical market with perfect information, perfect substitutes, and no transaction costs or prohibition on secondary exchange (or re-selling) to prevent arbitrage, price discrimination can only be a feature of monopolistic and oligopolistic markets, where market power can be exercised. Otherwise, the moment the seller tries to sell the same good at different prices, the buyer at the lower price can arbitrage by selling to the consumer buying at the higher price but with a tiny discount. However, product heterogeneity, market frictions or high fixed costs (which make marginal-cost pricing unsustainable in the long run) can allow for some degree of differential pricing to different consumers, even in fully competitive retail or industrial markets. Price discrimination also occurs when the same price is charged to customers which have different supply costs.
The effects of price discrimination on social efficiency are unclear; typically such behavior leads to lower prices for some consumers and higher prices for others. Output can be expanded when price discrimination is very efficient, but output can also decline when discrimination is more effective at extracting surplus from high-valued users than expanding sales to low valued users. Even if output remains constant, price discrimination can reduce efficiency by misallocating output among consumers.
Price discrimination requires market segmentation and some means to discourage discount customers from becoming resellers and, by extension, competitors. This usually entails using one or more means of preventing any resale, keeping the different price groups separate, making price comparisons difficult, or restricting pricing information. The boundary set up by the marketer to keep segments separate are referred to as a rate fence. Price discrimination is thus very common in services, where resale is not possible; an example is student discounts at museums. Price discrimination in intellectual property is also enforced by law and by technology. In the market for DVDs, DVD players are designed - by law - with chips to prevent use of an inexpensive copy of the DVD (for example legally purchased in India) from being used in a higher price market (like the US). The Digital Millennium Copyright Act has provisions to outlaw circumventing of such devices to protect the enhanced monopoly profits that copyright holders can obtain from price discrimination against higher price market segments.
Price discrimination can also be seen where the requirement that goods be identical is relaxed. For example, so-called "premium products" (including relatively simple products, such as cappuccino compared to regular coffee) have a price differential that is not explained by the cost of production. Some economists have argued that this is a form of price discrimination exercised by providing a means for consumers to reveal their willingness to pay.
Science Myth of the Week:
Does eating at night make you fat?
It is simply not true.
Read on facts here: Festive medical myths
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