Stevia is a non-toxic, natural sweetener

by Daryl Kulak (Subscribe to Daryl Kulak's posts)
Oct 18th 2006 4:00PM

Categories: Healthy Kids, Diet & Weight Loss, Celebs & Entertainment, Reviews & Products, Alternative & Green Health, Nutrition & Supplements

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You've seen all the knocks against sweeteners by now. Refined sugar is causing a diabetes epidemic. Aspartame is a toxic manmade chemical and people are finding it's better used as ant poison than as a sweetener. And Splenda is proving to be as problematic as other artificial sweeteners, because it contains chlorine.

So are we stuck? Must we go through our lives without anything sweet ever again? I certainly don't plan to.

I found a sweetener that is not only completely natural (comes from the leaf of a plant) but it also stabilizes blood sugar and acts as an antiviral agent, in that it can stop the onset of cold or flu. It's called stevia (pronounced STEE-vee-uh or STEH-vee-uh).
I think stevia is the best kept nutrition secret in America. Here is a replacement for sugar that is not a manmade chemical, it is not toxic and is actually healthy.

I say America, because in other countries, it's no secret. Stevia is the number one sweetener in Japan, with the majority of the market. Even Diet Coke is sweetened with stevia in Japan. It's used extensively in South America and other places as well.

Why is America behind in accepting this natural, non-toxic sweetener? You can thank our Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for that. They made a decision to limit our access to stevia at exactly the time aspartame was being introduced. You can make your own decisions based on the story of aspartame and stevia in the early 1980s.

Stevia is possibly the most studied herb in the world. 900 studies have been done. Almost all of them have said that stevia is safe, but a handful of the studies hint at certain problems, which you can read about here.

Stevia has the ability to stabilize blood sugar. Whereas refined sugar causes spikes and drops in blood sugar, stevia can help regulate it. And stevia has strong anti-viral properties. That means you can use it to stave off a cold or flu, in concert with homeopathics and other remedies, of course.

You can buy it at most health food stores. Note that it is called a "dietary supplement," not a sweetener. That's the loophole that stevia makers must jump through to be able to sell it. Also, you won't see stevia added to any food products (soda, baked goods, etc.) in the U.S. because of the FDA rulings.

I use stevia everyday. I add a few drops of stevia liquid to water and drink several glasses each day. The liquid comes in various flavors - root beer is my favorite. I never drink soda anymore, my stevia water has been a satisfying replacement for that.

Stevia also comes in little packets, like sugar packets. These can be used to sweeten coffee or used in baking or anywhere else you might use sugar. Several stevia cookbooks are available. I've tried using the liquid stevia in cooking, with absolutely no success. I'm going to keep trying, though. The problem I've had is that I can't get the amounts right. Since the liquid is so concentrated, I always put in too little or too much stevia. Let me know if you've had any experience with this.

Another problem I have with stevia is the price. The 2 ounce bottles of liquid stevia are over $12. It seems really high, but it's good to remember that this stuff is very concentrated. I usually add 2 droppersful to a pint of water to drink. I'm guessing my pint of sweetened water costs about 70 cents or so. It's not bad when you think of it in those terms, but it's very frustrating to go to the store and have to pay so much for a tiny, tiny bottle. My guess is that stevia will become less and less expensive as more people start buying it. So buy, BUY!!

Oh, and if you don't want to pay big prices for stevia, you can grow it yourself. Stevia plants can grow pretty well in most parts of the country. The quality might not be as good (i.e. some bitter aftertaste) but it could be fun. Get stevia seeds here.

Overall, I'm so happy to have found stevia. I love my daily stevia-water drink - can't do without it. I wish I could get it to work in my baking, but that will just take experimentation.

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Comments (4)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Josh 10-19-2006 @ 11:27AM

It's great to see a natural alternative to sweeteners. I'll definitely have to try stevia out.

However, I have to point out the false statement that aspartame is effective ant poison. That rumor originated from a spoof article in a satirical publication. Snopes.com says:
"As for the claim that aspartame (regardless of its intended use) effectively kills insects such as ants, no evidence supports that assertion. Many common, non-toxic substances (such as talcum power or pepper) serve as effective deterrents to keep ants away from household areas, simply because the sprinkling of those substances significantly alters the ants' habitat by disrupting the scent trails those critters typically follow."

http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/antpoison.asp

Daryl Kulak 10-19-2006 @ 12:00PM

Josh,

Thank you for your comment. I love Snopes for debunking "urban legends" - it's very useful.

But I don't believe Snopes is perfect. In this case, it's worth going back to the original Website where the "aspartame is poison" got started. It is not a spoof Website. These guys are really upset with aspartame and cite examples of aspartame poisoning in humans. Medical doctors are among those writing the articles.

The original ant poison article is here:

http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20060612.htm

The Websites that endorse this article are here:

http://www.mercola.com/2006/sep/5/got_an_ant_problem_use_aspartame.htm
http://idaho-observer.com/
http://www.dorway.com/indexnew.html
http://www.healthy.net/scr/news.asp?Id=8700

Mercola.com and Healthy.net are very high traffic health Websites, and they have both reprinted the article and have not offered any retraction or mea culpa.

The Idaho Observer "sounds" like a daily newspaper, but it is mostly an anti-aspartame Website and newsletter. Still, I haven't read anything there that indicates it is a spoof site.

Snopes.com, like I said, is a good Website, but, like Wikipedia, it is run by technologists, who are very unlikely to see problems with a technological solution, aspartame, compared to a natural solution like stevia. I hate saying anything bad about Snopes.com, because they are so often correct, but in this case, I think they missed the story.

As for aspartame being toxic, that is well-documented.

http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/
http://tinyurl.com/2hg6y

The second link is a study published in the Journal of NeuroPathology and Experimental Neurology that links aspartame to brain tumors.

Thanks again for continuing the conversation on ThatsFit.com.

Dr Gerry H Tan 10-19-2006 @ 9:55PM

Hi Daryl... your blog has a wide readership and as an endocrinologist reading this piece on sugar sweetener, I would like to suggest something that I hope should be made the basis for supporting facts written in our posts.

Your post on sweeteners and the allegations that aspartame is harmful is based on opinions but facts tell us otherwise. Ive written about aspartame and whether they are safe in my blog and purely based on facts from the FDA and scientific studies. Im posting here their sites: http://healthwealth.wordpress.com/2006/08/02/whats-the-latest-on-aspartame/
http://healthwealth.wordpress.com/2006/08/01/is-diet-soda-safe/

I congratulate you and your group for coming up with a very informative blog. My only hope is that informations written on health should have a scientific basis or if with studies... done by reputable institutions. If your source is from an alternative medicine advocate then the information maybe biased.

Laymen will read what we write about health and misinterpretation of facts are common.

Daryl Kulak 10-19-2006 @ 10:15PM

Dr. Tan,

Thanks for your comment and the additional links. I appreciate them very much.

It seems like your comment implies that the FDA is somehow unbiased.

Wasn't the former head of the FDA just charged criminally this past week for hiding his bias, via stock ownership in the drug companies he was regulating?

Haven't several FDA chiefs been charged with bias-related activities? Didn't the FDA chief who approved aspartame retire 4 months after the approval and work for aspartame's maker, G.D. Searle, as a paid consultant?

Wasn't the drug Gemzar recently approved by the FDA, even though it's own review committee voted to reject it, based on the facts?

I don't mind you saying that alternative medicine Websites, magazines, etc. have bias. Many of them do.

What I don't agree with is that the FDA is unbiased. Unfortunately, I consider the FDA to be one of the most biased information sources available.

To combat the problem of biased alternative medicine Websites, I try to find several independent sources on the same topic and compare. And if I can find an authoritative source (peer-reviewed journal, etc.) stating the same facts, then I publish those.

I certainly do not think my research is perfect. I hope to improve. But, at this time, I am very unlikely to use FDA studies as my basis for fact. Nor will I be inclined to use scientific studies where drug companies have provided the funding and subsequently may have altered the findings to suit their own financial goals. Unfortunately, this is the case for too many scientific studies.

I do appreciate you calling my research methods into question. This helps me try to find ways to be better. Thanks Dr. Tan.