I need to know the truth about stevia!

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  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
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    i actually found my stevia packets in the vitamin aisle

    I never thought to look there! Thanks! :smile:
  • treeeee
    treeeee Posts: 39 Member
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    Just to update: bought my own stevia plants today! Looking forward to watching it grow and harvesting it's leaves!
  • only_5mom
    only_5mom Posts: 28
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    Stevia doesn't do for me in coffee. It is still bitter to me. Xylitol, also from a plant, tastes sweeter in coffee. Stevia is really good in tea and yogurt.
  • Michaelbrown99
    Michaelbrown99 Posts: 4
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    I found this article to be very interesting. Again, there doesn't seem to be any extensive studies or material from the American Journal Of Medicine, so people seem to be taking a common sense approach about how it is created.

    http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2013/04/25/stevia-food-babe-investigates/

    I have one question. Is Stevia better than the other artificial sweeteners? If you feel that you can answer yes to that question, then use it. We are all going to die one day anyway. My point of view may be bleak, but I have grown up during the cold war, when Nuclear War was a real threat, and everything has been identified as a killer. Let's face it, without years of research, no one really knows. Only now is the medical community coming out and saying that low fat diets are in fact very bad for you. Live the best you can, stay as informed as possible and live in moderation.

    http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stevia/AN01733

    http://www.livescience.com/39601-stevia-facts-safety.html

    http://www.everstevia.com/steviastudy.html
  • ldrosophila
    ldrosophila Posts: 7,512 Member
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    the truth is it tastes like nasty licorice
  • uconnwinsnc
    uconnwinsnc Posts: 1,054 Member
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    Coffee is only bitter when you brew it at too high a temperature or you use cheap grounds. If you put the energy into finding a good coffee and brew it at the right temperature, I promise you it will only taste slightly acidic but not bitter. A good cup of black coffee has so many flavor notes that you will never notice with sweeteners and dairy.
  • tiffaniedemayo
    tiffaniedemayo Posts: 38 Member
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    I've been looking into natural sweeteners, and found two things i like. One is raw organic honey, the other is "Stevia in the raw". Unlike Truvia that is stevia based, and is made with rebiana, and erythritol. "Stevia in the raw" has no other ingredients, just stevia. I have been using it in my morning tea every morning, and have had no ill effects.
    -Also i use Madhava Agave necture, it's organic, and a non-GMO product that is also low on the glycemic index 17, where sugar is something like 68.
    I think it all depends on what taste your looking for, and in moderation.
  • itbloke
    itbloke Posts: 20 Member
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    Hi All,

    I actually make my own natural low calorie (close to 0) sweeteners as I couldn't find anything on the market that I liked, and to save some cash on insanely priced sweeteners...

    With Stevia there are two main components :
    1. Stevioside which is about 2-300x sweeter from sugar but has a bitter after-taste (the liquorice type taste)
    2. Rebaudioside which is about 4-500x sweeter from sugar - is a very clean sweetness with no after-taste.

    I purchased 99% pure rebaudioside-a from a manufacture online (very expensive stuff) - and imported it myself. A little bit goes a LONG way.

    I mix it with other sweeteners because as Stevia has a slow sweet sensation onset time compared to sugar, its use in coffee, baking etc didn't replace the sensation of sugar:

    Mogroside-V produced from (Monk Fruit / Luo Han Guo) a melon type fruit from China - it is approximately 250-300x sweeter than sugar and has a very fast sweet onset time - but does not linger.

    Thaumatin is acutally a sweet protein found in the Katamfe fruit in Africa - it is approximately 5000x times sweeter than sugar and acts in a way to combine the sweet sensation in the other sweeteners together while reducing bitterness - very potent stuff.

    Because these sweeteners in their purest form are very intense, I have used organic Erythritol as a filler, it is approximately 60% as sweet as table sugar, and is actually produced from by yeast strain fermenting common sugar! I chose this sugar alcohol as it is the least likely to cause digestion issues (I don't have any problems with it) compared to other more common sugar alcohols.

    Since the erythritol is in small crystals, and the other sweeteners are powdered, I mix them up in a food processor for an even mix in the following approximate proportions:
    1kg Erythritol
    1tbs Stevia - Reb-A
    1.5tbs Mogroside-V
    1/8tsp Thaumatin

    Once mixed up - lasts me quite a while...

    Great for my morning coffee - I use about half a teaspoon, not sickly sweet or nasty after-taste - I have also used this in baking and making my own organic sugarfree dark chocolate... This is the closest thing I have come across that is not artificial and the sensation is very similar to table sugar - without the calories.
  • HealthPhD
    HealthPhD Posts: 1
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    Stevia leaf is hard to find. Keep looking. About the size of a dime, one leaf is almost too much in a coffee cup, for me. The raw plant is perfectly healthy. Refined and granulated Stevia with, dextrose is not good. Dextrose is another word for sugar. Some companies cut the powder with sugar, to make money. When purchasing any supplement, you have to do your due diligence, until you find a company with a LONG history of trustworthiness. All supplements are not the same. Fortunately, supplements are not regulated by the FDA, (yet) so a companies reputation, and quality, are the only thing that keeps them in business for a long time, and it keeps them honest, without government intervention or control, which equals taxation! In Germany, you have to have a prescription to get Vitamin C! Imagine that! Stevia is the best choice for natural sweetening, along with raw honey. PS. While coffee is high in antioxidants, the caffeine is counter healthy. Caffeine shuts down your duodenum, for about an hour and a half, which is the first 3 feet of your intestines, where most of your nutrient absorption takes place. Whatever you eat will not be absorbed completely, so your brain shifts to starvation mode, and tells your body to absorb and store all the fat that it can find! Also, you system starts to move the food through too fast, further reducing the amount of nutrition rendered from the food. A NEED for coffee, is a LACK of optimum nutrition, or a lack of just plain SLEEP! Get more sleep, or drink fresh squeezed greens juice for an energy boost!

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