Stevia: a non-caloric sweetner; The FDA strikes again?

[Guest guest]

Stevia Rebaudiana, " The Sweet Herb "

A Safe Replacement for Sugar and Sugar Substitutes

 

 

 

When I first got plots in a local community garden a few

years ago, I went wild at a farmer's market and bought every herb,

the weirder the better, that I could carry home. One of them was

stevia, the " Sweet Herb " , truly sweet-tasting, I noted as I munched

on a leaf. Stevia apparently has been used by Paraguaians since pre-

Columbian times as a sweetener and been studied off and on since the

late 1880's. Its dried leaves are reported to be 10-15 times sweeter

than table sugar, while the refined extract, called stevioside, is

said to be 200-300 times sweeter. Stevia thrived in my garden. Not

so at home. Its failure to survive transplantation was probably

because, although I like plants, my thumb tends toward the brown,

rather than green. I find herbs (as well as many other plants)

tricky to grow in the home. My guess is that indoor conditions are

too dry, too dark (My plants are in a north window under flourenct

lights) and too subject to the whims of a forgetful waterer (me).

 

Stevia's derivatives are widely used world-wide, as a

prepackaged, safe replacement for sugar and artificial sweeteners,

particularly in South America and the Pacific rim. " According to the

Herb Research Foundation, numerous scientists, and tens of millions

of consumers throughout the world, especially in Japan, the herb is

safe and intensely sweet, which could make it a popular noncaloric

sweetener. " said Rob McCaleb, president, Herb Research Foundation,

Boulder, Colo., USA, as quoted in www.stevia.net. " . . . In [the]

well-chronicled history of stevia, no author has ever reported any

adverse human health consequences associated with consumption of

stevia leaf. " (Supplement to GRAS affirmation petition no. 4G0406,

submitted by the Thomas J. Lipton Company February 3, 1995.)

 

However, the plant has been labeled an " unsafe food additive "

and been kept off the U.S. market since the mid-1980s by the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration, apparently at the behest of the U.S.

artificial sweetener industry. The USFDA has initiated search-and-

seizure campaigns and an " import-alert " against the Sweet Herb.

Under legislation enacted in 1994, while stevia can be legally

marketed as a dietary supplement, that legistation prohibits mention

of the herb's use as a sweetener or a tea. This bias of the USFDA

was predicted by James A. Duke, former chief of Medicinal Plant

Research of the USDA, in 1986: " ..I predict rough sailing with our

FDA for this non-nutritive sweetener. I hope it will make it. " (The

Business of Herbs, November/December, 1986). Stevia is not more

widely known in the United States, according to Jon Kyl ®, AZ, in a

1993 letter to former FDA Commissioner David Kessler about a 1991

stevia " import alert " , because of " . . . a restraint of trade to

benefit the artificial sweetener industry. "

 

According to information on www.heathy.net, there are no

calories in stevia, it does not raise blood sugar levels, it can be

combined with other sweeteners, it will not harm one's teeth (it may

actually help prevent cavaties) and one can make one's own stevia

extract. However, stevia does not caramelize so that the use of it

in foods such as meringues may be difficult. Also, some report that

in large amounts, stevia may give foods a licorice taste.

 

As for me personally, having recently been diagnosed with

type II diabetes, I'm planning on researching on-line herbal sources

to buy both the extract and the herb. I figure that I'll order

stevia, as well as herbs or spices that are available locally, so

that I can compare the quality of the online source's goods with what

I can buy where I live. I also plan to set up an indoor greenhouse

(again) and give that lackadaisical waterer (me) a good stern talking

to and a boot, if necesary, to induce better watering-compliance.

 

 

Information sources: www.stevia.net, www.healthy.net,

www.doorway