--FILE--Un fermier chinois moine les récoltes de fruits (luo han guo) à un village de RongAn county, Liuzhou city, en Chine, région autonome Zhuang du Guangxi
--FILE--A Chinese farmer harvests monk fruit (luo han guo) at a village in RongAn county, Liuzhou city, south Chinas Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, 24 October 2012. An obscure melon once cultivated by Buddhist monks in China to sweeten tea could give the $8 billion U.S. diet soda industry a shot at winning back consumers concerned about artificial ingredients. You will not find monk fruit in any of the soft drinks at your local convenience store. So far, shaky supplies and limited demand have kept the expensive melon on the sidelines of the sweetener industry. But some experts think the fuzzy green fruit, which ripens to the size of an apple, could be the ingredient soda makers have sought for decades: a natural product with great taste and no calories. When someone figures this out and gets a taste that is low-calorie and natural, it could really be a silver bullet that catapults that company ahead, said Ali Dibadj, an analyst at Bernstein who follows the soft drink industry. Soft drink makers are increasingly desperate for just such a miracle ingredient. Once a booming sector, diet soda has become a laggard. In the United States, consumption fell about 7 percent this year and could shrink by 20 percent through 2020, according to Nielsen data.