Friday, November 30, 2007

Wham: Stevia is Picking Up Steam

The US FDA has indicated that they expect to soon be petitioned for an approval for the sweetener derived from the plant Stevia. This will be good news for the world over, because so much of what the FDA does affects other nations. Approval in Europe, if granted in the USA (or vice-versa) would likely follow.

As reported here in Sham vs. Wham earlier, Coca-Cola and other very large companies have been working with Stevia and in fact have submitted a number of patents regarding the processing of the sweetener, derived from the plant Stevia rebaudiana, to remove its somewhat unfortunate aftertaste. Anyone who has tried a variety of over-the-counter Stevia products knows that there are as many different qualities of this product as there are brands . . . Some of them taste really bad. (We recently tried a bargain bottle of Trader Joe's powdered "Super Stevia Extract" and found it was impossible to control the consistency of the sweetness, and it had a very unpleasant aftertaste.) At this time, the sweetener is sold as a dietary supplement only. Approval as a sweetener would have the product showing up in a number of foods.

Stevia is said to have up to 300 times the sweetness of sugar. Its taste has a slower onset and longer duration than that of sugar. Today, new research seems to indicate that there is also a great deal of antioxidant in the plant as well. (An extract from Stevia rebaudiana leaves was found to contain an abundance of antioxidant polyphenols, including quercitrin, apigenin, and kaempferol. Subsequent tests showed that the extract could protect against DNA strand scission by hydroxide radicals, states the report in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.)

This is one herbal product that is really on a roll. Once approval hits, we'll see Stevia everywhere. I wonder how companies producing products like NutraSweet and Splenda feel about this business-killing potential!

Dave

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

After getting my first stevia, I figured out how much to use to replace the sugar in my tea. It tasted like sweet soap. But after figuring how much stevia to use for HALF the sugar, then using regular sugar for the other half, it was fine.

Since then, I've been able to cut down the actual sugar to just 25%.

Another thing I'm having problems with is the clumping of the stevia, I guess since it's also considered dietary fiber. The clumping is worse when the water is hot or cold. I've cut down clumping by mixing the stevia in a small amount of room temp water, then stirring like crazy with a fork or whisk, then pouring that into the tea container.

S

Dave Jensen said...

Thanks for the comment S. My wife, who uses Stevia all the time, loves the Stevita brand liquid drops. You avold all the issues with clumping that way,

Dave

Anonymous said...

I love the liquid Stevia as well. Sweetleaf has many different flavors and I use them in my coffee, tea and recipes. The Vanilla Creme is awesome in french toast!

Casey

Dave Jensen said...

Thanks Casey -- Yes, we have the Sweetleaf flavors here, and use their Apricot Nectar flavor regularly. The "Lemon Drop" flavor was a big disappointment from them, however.

Dave