Noni

The smell

Ripe noni fruit is notorious for its smell — a powerful combination of butyric acid (the compound responsible for the smell of vomit and rancid butter) and other volatile compounds. The fruit smells so strongly that in some Pacific communities it is consumed only in extremity, or the smell is managed by dilution in water or mixing with other foods. Commercial noni juice is produced from fermented fruit and is diluted heavily with other juices — the pure juice is barely palatable.

Pacific Island use

Despite the odour, noni has been used as a food and medicine by Pacific Islander peoples for at least 2,000 years. Polynesian navigation and settlement spread noni across the Pacific as a deliberately cultivated plant. The fruit was eaten when other food was unavailable; the leaves were used as a vegetable; the bark and roots provided dye and medicine. Traditional use was pragmatic rather than celebratory.

The health food boom

In the 1990s and 2000s, noni juice became one of the most commercially successful health food products in history, with marketing claims suggesting it could cure cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and other conditions. Global sales reached hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Scientific scrutiny found no reliable evidence for these extraordinary claims. Regulatory agencies in Europe and North America issued rulings against unsupported health claims.

Genuine properties

Noni does contain various bioactive compounds — anthraquinones, iridoids, and polysaccharides with antioxidant activity in laboratory settings. The fruit has genuine antimicrobial properties. Traditional Pacific medicinal use for infection, inflammation, and skin conditions may have a rational basis even if the commercial health claims were wildly overstated.