Adds for this are beginning to appear on the national networks. Being a diet soda consumer and amateur herbalist I found it interesting. I have yet to taste it. Does anyone here have personal experience with this? If it doesn't taste like crap I would be inclined to use it. Hopefully it will be available in my diet coke before I lose a kidney.
wikipediaQuote:
The genus Stevia consists of 240 species of plants native to South America, Central America, and Mexico, with several species found as far north as Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. They were first researched by botanist and physician Pedro Jaime Esteve; the word stevia is a Latinized derivation of his surname. Human use of the sweet species S. rebaudiana originated in South America. The leaves of the stevia plant have 30–45 times the sweetness of sucrose (ordinary table sugar). The leaves can be eaten fresh, or put in teas and foods...
...As a sweetener and sugar substitute, stevia's taste has a slower onset and longer duration than that of sugar, although some of its extracts may have a bitter or licorice-like aftertaste at high concentrations...
...With its extracts having up to 300 times the sweetness of sugar, stevia has garnered attention with the rise in demand for low-carbohydrate, low-sugar food alternatives. Medical research has also shown possible benefits of stevia in treating obesity and high blood pressure. Because stevia has a negligible effect on blood glucose, it is attractive as a natural sweetener to people on carbohydrate-controlled diets. However, health and political controversies have limited stevia's availability in many countries; for example, the United States banned it in the early 1990s unless labeled as a supplement, although in 2008 it became commercially available as a sweetener. Stevia is widely used as a sweetener in Japan, and it is available in Canada as a dietary supplement...
..In 1899, the Swiss botanist Moisés Santiago Bertoni, during his research in eastern Paraguay first described the plant and the sweet taste in detail. But only limited research was conducted on the topic, until in 1931, two French chemists isolated the glycosides that give stevia its sweet taste. These compounds were named stevioside and rebaudioside, and are 250–300 times sweeter than sucrose, heat stable, pH stable, and non-fermentable...
..Since the Japanese firm Morita Kagaku Kogyo Co., Ltd. produced the first commercial stevia sweetener in Japan in 1971, the Japanese have been using stevia in food products, soft drinks (including Coca Cola) and for table use. Japan currently consumes more stevia than any other country, with stevia accounting for 40% of the sweetener market...
...For centuries, the Guaraní tribes of Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil used stevia, which they called ka'a he'ê ("sweet herb"), as a sweetener in yerba mate and medicinal teas for treating heartburn and other ailments. More recent medical research has shown promise in treating obesity and hypertension. Stevia has a negligible effect on blood glucose, even enhancing glucose tolerance; therefore, it is attractive as a natural sweetener to diabetics and others on carbohydrate-controlled diets...
Questions & Answers about Stevia © David Richard (Excerpted from Stevia Rebaudiana: Nature's Sweet Secret, Vital Health Publishing)FDA Clears Natural Sweetener Stevia The Wall Street Journal DECEMBER 18, 2008Stevia poised to deliver knockdown punch to aspartame and inflated medical costs.
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