Please no rants/advice on how all sweeteners are all bad. I just want simple answers of what you would choose.

Too bad, punkin. If you are adding sweeteners to the things you ingest - you're doing it wrong. You shouldn't be eating sugar unless there's a plant wrapped around it.

I knew some of you couldn't resist. I'm Not paleo yet, just learning about what others do. Stevia IS a plant, but so IS sugar cane. How it is processed ( if any) makes the difference.

That's pretty much my point. I eat fruits and sweet vegetables like tomatoes and carrots - but I do not drink fruit or vegetable juice. Extracting the juice concentrates the sugars and turns a moderate glycemic load into a high one. Drinking a glass of apple juice is the equivalent of eating four or five apples. I know almost no one would eat that many apples in one sitting - but there are plenty of people who will drink the equivalent amount of sugar in one sitting - and head to the fridge for a refill.

Stevia IS a plant - if you had a stevia plant in the yard and were chewing on the leaf for a touch of sweetness, I wouldn't quibble. How it is used, however is that (old school) the steviol glycosides are extracted by being steeped in alcohol, or (new school) an artificial sweetener using erythritol and rebiana (derived from stevia). Either way, it is an artificial construct of the plant - although 'old school' is more 'natural - and even though it is non-caloric, the body still responds to it like it does with any other sweetener.

Sugar cane IS a plant - but sugar is the extracted and condensed juice of it. Often as a kid, my dad would give me a hunk of cane as a treat; but it was a hard and pithy piece of 'wood' that I spent all afternoon sucking on to get little doses of sweet sap as I went about my day. It was the same amount of sugar as an apple, and it took all afternoon to get at it. That's a far cry from putting a couple of teaspoons of sugar into your coffee and having it hit you in the space of time it takes to drink it.

Akimajuktuq's comments are right on, but I will say that while my wife and I don't use sweeteners at all, we DO have some high-quality honey and boo-hiss Truvia around for when the kids come over. I may serve berries and yogurt for dessert, and they'll add a little honey to make it palatable for them; and the Truvia's for my stepdaughter, who just has to make her coffee annoyingly sweet - but doesn't want the calories from honey. They are adults and make their own food choices; and while I have no problem saying "if you want to stay for dinner, you have to eat our way", I'm also a nice guy and willing to toss 'em a frickin' bone here, y'know?