Sugar v Agave v Stevia

I would say use sugar if it fits into you calorie allotment.

You hear that Stevia is 'natural', but is it natural to highly concentrate a leaf extract purely for the purpose of sweetening which is 300 times the sweetness of sugar? Nothing natural about that.

As someone who has had a real addition to artificial sweeteners and now kicked the habit... I imagine Stevia is largely similar in that it confuses your body into thinking it's going to get calorific intake when it isn't and continues to condition you to want sweet things - even sweeter than sugar.

(These are my views though, not much scientific backing!)

Try sugar... but maybe try gradually brining the sugar down bit by bit.

by and large, the place you make money with Stevia or agave is cooking, not sweetening coffee... both require less to provide 'sweet'... agave's big thing is it sweetens at a low GI which minimizes any insulin response to it.... Stevia is also natural and low GI, but you can substitute a tbsp for every 1/4 cup in a recipe, at zero calories...

But, your final conclusion is the best in my bet, use it occasionally, but why switch from sugar... if you can't fit the calories into your budget, maybe you'll drop coffee? which has caffeine, another unnatural chemical that changes blood and body chemistry...

For me, I use agave in place of syrup, mixed with PB2, it makes a pretty awesome substitute for pancake syrup, and much lower than syrup and PB together...

Stevia I'll use to sweeten herb tea and take the bite off it..

But otherwise, I use sugar for cooking, sweetening my hot soy milk in the morning, and other stuff... since I use about 3 tbsp a day max

Thanks for the replies :-)

I do have some unopened Splenda at home actually. How is Splenda in baking? I bake a lot of banana bread (and usually use brown sugar for that) for my OH so I don't want to mess with the taste too much!

I find that Splenda has a weird taste when you bake with it. I've gotten used to it, though.

I am always hesitant about man made sweeteners. Even though some are plant/nature derived, I wonder about the process that is used to get there. If it is a health concern, maybe stay with sugar and try to ween yourself off. If it is just calories, then Stevia is pretty good tasting.

I have both stevia and sugar in my house. For tea, lemonade, ice tea, or baking I use stevia. I'm lucky that it doesn't have a bitter aftertaste for me and I'm even growing some plants on it on my balcony. I only keep the sugar around for baked goods for friends or cheat meals.

Though I've gotta say the stevia aftertaste took some getting used to. It's not bitter, but it is different. Actually, a lot like artificial sweetners, I guess.

Stevia has a slightly grassy aftertaste, with it being a plant and all, and some people can't really get used to it. I like it in certain things... I made a fruit bread pudding over the weekend with it and you couldn't even tell, and got the flavor of the berries instead of SUGAR, like you would with regular. I think a lot of people also use too much Stevia when they do use it. You only need a teaspoon of Stevia to a cup of sugar.