This is noni fruit:

noni fruit

In order to get to know this fruit reeeeal well, I want you to imagine the nastiest, acidic, putrid, eye watering, nose hair-singeing stench oozing from every puffed-up pimply hole on the so-called miracle noni fruit pictured above.

I, of course, did not know this when I had the bright idea to purchase an entire grocery bag-full at the farmer’s market last week. They were not ripe yet. They were on sale. I felt lucky — oh look! Noni fruit! I can make juice, drink it, and live forever! Yay noni!

I looked up nonis on the internet. To make the juice, you have to leave them in sealed glass containers in the sun for 6 weeks while they rot, boil the jars to kill the bacteria, and then drink the slime or something like that. I don’t really remember and don’t really want to, either. The whole process sounded a little gross. I was still game, though, because the nonis were not yet ripe. They were green, the instructions told me to wait until they had ripened into a nice yellow or brown.

I waited. Julio and I started to notice an odd smell in the kitchen. Still believing that my nonis were miracles, I didn’t lay the blame on them until the following day when they were definitely yellow and brown and oozing all over the other innocent fruit.

I was still not discouraged from making this juice, but I had not bought the glass jars yet and something needed to be done with them immediately. Drastic measures. I decided to try to speed up the process by slowly cooking them. This was my big mistake. I don’t think that smell will ever leave my nostrils. Do not try this at home!!!

I then went back to the internet — this can’t be right? Can it?

It was. Nonis have a foul odor and taste, too. How did I miss this the first time? Julio’s mom then confirmed, giggling a little, yes they indeed smell and taste horrible. (thanks for the warning, mom)

At this point, I decided to throw them out. How anyone can suffer through the nauseating process of making noni juice is beyond me. No wonder it costs so much in the store.

Here is my big question: If noni is so good for us, then why does it smell and taste so bad? Isn’t a repulsive odor and flavor a warning sign to our bodies that this is something vomitous that we should NOT be consuming?!

noni tree will grow anywhere

Apparently noni trees will grow anywhere. Look how evil it is, looming in the corner of a barren lot, waiting for the perfect moment to start stinking up the place.