Қант қызылшасының тәтті жеміс сығындысы

Sweet plant fruit extract

Siraitia grosvenorii, also known as monk fruit, monkfruit, luohan guo, or Swingle fruit, is a herbaceous perennial vine of the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae. It is native to southern China. The plant is cultivated for its fruit extract, called mogrosides, which creates a sweetness sensation 250 times stronger than sucrose. Mogroside extract has been used as a low calorie sweetener for drinks and in traditional Chinese medicine. The scientific species name honors Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, who, as president of the National Geographic Society, helped to fund an expedition in the 1930s to find the living plant in China where it was already being cultivated.

Monkfruit was first mentioned in the records of 13th century Chinese monks in Guangxi in the region of Guilin.

The first report in England on the herb was found in an unpublished manuscript written in 1938 by G. Weidman Groff and Hoh Hin Cheung.

The process for the manufacture of a useful sweetener from luo han guo was patented in 1995 by Procter & Gamble. The patent states that luo han guo has many interfering flavors, which render it useless for general applications, and describes a process to remove them. The offending compounds are sulfur containing volatile substances such as hydrogen disulfide, methional, methionol, dimethylsulfide, and methylmercaptan, which are formed from amino acids that contain sulfur, such as methionine, S methylmethionine, cystine, and cysteine. In Europe, it is classified as an unapproved Novel Food (not used in the food system before May 1997) which means that it may be marketed as a food or food ingredient only after a safety assessment and approval by the European Commission. In 2019, the EFSA Panel on Food Additives and Flavourings (FAF) was asked by the European Commission to provide its scientific opinion on the safety of Monk fruit extract as a food additive. The panel concluded that the current body of research was insufficient. As of 2023, Siraitia grosvenorii was not listed among approved Novel Foods in the EU.

The plant is most prized for its sweet fruits as a sweetener. In traditional Chinese medicine, it is used for cough and sore throat. The fruits are generally sold in dried form, and used in herbal tea or soup.