Stevia?

I like Stevia in tea or oatmeal with fruit. If you use too much, there can be a sort of bitter licorice aftertaste. I like Now Better Stevia - it has the least aftertaste of any Stevia I've tried. I think it could be kind of gross in coffee, though.

Stevia is natural so its better for you the artifical sweetners but i personally dont like it. I perfer either xyitol (sugar made from corn) half the calories of sugar but same taste or raw sugar which is obviously still sugar but without the processing and chemicals its easier on your body

You gotta use like this tiny cocaine spoon. Too much is gross, 1 tiny spoon is perfect. You gotta know what you are doing. I've been using it for many years - its more affordable than artificial sweeteners.

A word of caution: if you have ragweed allergies you may be allergic to stevia. I learned this the hard way.

I LOVE Stevia in the Raw, but not in coffee. I use it in smoothies and with fruit.

I have an inflammatory disease and "diet" chemicals give me a great deal of inflammation and pain. I can use stevia and it does not effect me one bit as far as pain goes. I think that speaks volumes as far whether or not the others are bad for me.

It is not sugar so it does not taste exactly like sugar, but the aftertaste is not really unpleasant.

Stevia is natural so its better for you the artifical sweetners but i personally dont like it. I perfer either xyitol (sugar made from corn) half the calories of sugar but same taste or raw sugar which is obviously still sugar but without the processing and chemicals its easier on your body

I don't know even where to start with this...
No, it's not better for you because it's natural. That's a logical fallacy. Is arsenic better for you because it's natural?
Secondly, xylitol is a sugar alcohol. From wiki:

Xylitol is produced by hydrogenation of xylose, which converts the sugar (an aldehyde) into a primary alcohol. It can also be extracted from natural sources, and is often harvested by tapping birch trees to produce birch sap. Another method of producing xylitol is through microbial processes, including fermentative and biocatalytic processes in bacteria, fungi, and yeast cells, that take advantage of the xylose-intermediate fermentations to produce high yield of xylitol.[13] Common yeast cells used in effectly fermenting and producing xylitol are Candida tropicalis and Candida guilliermondii

Lastly, everything is made of chemicals so you will die if you don't "put chemicals in your body".

Xylitol makes me nauseous. I don't like the taste of Stevia. I just use Splenda. And yeah, I agree that just because something is "natural" doesn't mean it's automatically healthy and/or chemical free. Water is a chemical.

A word of caution: if you have ragweed allergies you may be allergic to stevia. I learned this the hard way.

I have to chime in here on this. I switched to Stevia from Splenda about 5 days ago - for the past 5 days I have been getting asthma symptoms and using my rescue inhaler more often. This morning I was actually wheezing. It was a bit scary considering my asthma has been well controlled for a couple of years.

I have allergies to many things (including dander, grass, shellfish, list goes on...) so, it struck me that the only thing I have changed in my diet was not eating bread/bad carbs AND switching to stevia!

I need to find an alternative now no more splenda or scary stevia.

As some people have commented, there can be a reaction to stevia (as with any food for a particular person) so you'll have to try it and see. I use it once a day in morning coffee and it's fine for me. I don't get the fatigue later in the morning that I did with sugar after the sugar rush. BUT PLEASE READ THE INGREDIENTS. So called stevia products like Truvia are garbage. Truvia is made by Coca Cola. It contains very little stevia (just some part of the plant...not the leaves) so its a stevia "extract". The sweetening effect comes from erythritol which is listed on the ingredients. Erythritol is a sugar alcohol derived from corn...and most corn in North America is GMO. So please check the label of whatever stevia product you buy. I used Truvia at first as it was cheap at Walmart, but found I was getting an upset stomach...checked the ingredients and voila...found out why.

I grow my own stevia plants. There are multiple uses. The leaves can be used fresh or dried. The stems can also be used. A stevia stem tied to a rosemary stem provide a very unique taste when used as a skewer through foods on the grill. We grind up the dried leaves and throw some in homemade herbal teas. Once brewed, it doesn't even need sweetened. A dried stevia stem can also be used as a stir stick in a drink, adding hints of sweetness. Or throw some fresh leaves in a pitcher for sun brewed iced tea.
Stevia is an acquired taste, but most new foods are.
A stevia plant can easily be grown in the garden, a flowerbed, or a pot outdoors or indoors. If you prune it properly, it will flourish for several months and can be treated as a perennial to come back each year. And if you grow the plants yourself, you can control what herbicides/pesticides, processing, etc it is exposed to.

I use Stevia in the Raw packets and would definitely recommend them. I put one packet in plain greek yogurt with berries and it's perfect. I use 1/2 pack in a mug of green tea. I haven't tried it with coffee but I imagine it would be fine, I prefer this to every other sweetener I've tried, I even prefer it to pure sugar.

I use Krisda in my tea and I really like it, I only use 1 packet.

The only experience I have with stevia is in coffee. It tastes ok but I prefer raw honey instead as it tastes so much better. As far as stevia in general goes, the powdered whole leaf is healthier and less processed than the white stevia extract powder. Plus, the whole leaf tastes much better too.

^This. Or maple syrup. I do not like the taste of stevia :noway:

Yeh stevia definitely takes some getting used to.