Artificial Sweeteners

volfan22

I have pretty much tried them all. (Erythritol, Swerve, Splenda, Truvia, Stevia). I have settled that for baking I prefer Truvia and for some things I like the Stevia Sweet Drops. Has anyone had any success with growing their own Stevia plant? Ever make your own extract from it? I'm researching this option and it doesn't look to difficult.

nill4me

Hi. I was able to grow a stevia plant (i live in south carolina)....sort of. I travel every week for work, so due to lack of attention...it ultimately seeded out and died off. I too read about making your own extract, which is why i planted it. I'm going to give it another go in the spring and see what happens.

On another note...I threw the top of a pineapple that i had cut up for that man i married into the dirt of my flowerbed and that sucker started growing. I also had a ginger bulb on my counter top that started sprouting...so i tossed that guy into the ground too. who knew??

DittoDan

volfan22 wrote: »

I have pretty much tried them all. (Erythritol, Swerve, Splenda, Truvia, Stevia). I have settled that for baking I prefer Truvia and for some things I like the Stevia Sweet Drops. Has anyone had any success with growing their own Stevia plant? Ever make your own extract from it? I'm researching this option and it doesn't look to difficult.

I am a gardener and it doesn't look too difficult. Park Seeds has the seeds. Below is an image of the Stevia seeds. The only thing I would be worried about is that you may have to grow a very large amount of them to make a useful amount of sweetener. I don't know.

Dan the Man from Michigan

DittoDan

Here is a really good site with a lot of info:

"How to Grow Stevia"

Dan the Man from Michigan

Alliwan

We grew 8 nice tall beautiful stevia plants last summer. Got them before they seeded, dried the leaves and then ground them to the same powder you'd get if you bought it commercially. 8 plants, gave me about 1/3 of a cup of powder....

So if you grow it, grow LOTS and LOTS of it.

Edit; Oh yeah, its green so makes anything white look weird, like cool whip.

volfan22

This is interesting....I may just stick to the store bought since it doesn't yield much and I absolutely do not have a green thumb.