Everything about Stevia

Acceptance of Stevia

2006-05-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

I am finding that the use of Stevia in increasing. What now is needed are more sources/growers of Stevia.

Stevia FAQ

2006-05-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

There are many facts about Stevia on the web. You can start searching from by Stevia FAQ blog. This link is located on the side.

Article: Stevia Madness

2006-03-04T12:07:00.000-08:00

Here is a extract of an interesting fact

Only one loophole permits stevia into the country at all: Under our absurd food additive laws, stevia can be sold as a “dietary supplement,” provided no one ever markets it for any specific purpose. Thus the plant and extract are both available in health-food stores, most of whom take great pains to hide the fact that stevia is, in fact, sweet. You can usually find it on the shelf next to the ephedra… oh, wait. Given how the dietary supplements market is looking lately, you never know.

Read more here

Sinfully Sweet?

2006-02-26T10:42:00.000-08:00

The herb stevia is natural, sweeter than sugar -- and has no calories. People enjoy it around the world. Why won't the FDA let you?

New Age Journal, Jan/Feb 1996 by Linda and Bill Bonvie

While classified as a civil action, "the United States of America vs. forty cardboard boxes" had all the trappings of a big-time drug bust. It took place on a summer day in 1991, when a bevy of armed federal marshals raided the Arlington, Texas, warehouse of businessman Oscar Rodes, served him with a warrant, and proceeded to seize his most recent shipment. Read more ...

An interesting tidbit about the FDA

2006-02-04T14:15:00.000-08:00

Interesting little piece from a Stevia article:

"I had one guy from
the FDA tell me 'if we
wanted to make carrots
(be) against the law,
we could do it.' "

Complete article click here

STEVIA: The green stuff

2006-02-04T12:07:00.000-08:00

Remember that commercial that actress/songstress Cher did a few years ago pouting and touting her preference for "The Blue Stuff", aspartame (NutraSweet) artificial sweetener in the little blue packets, over "The Pink Stuff", saccharin artificial sweetener in the little pink packets and "The White Stuff", good old table sugar in the little white packets? Now there's a new (old) kid on the sweetener block to add to the little colored-packet collection: The Green Stuff, the one in the little green packets. Its name is Stevia Rebaudiana Bertoni. A big name with a big claim: 300-400 times sweeter than sugar and not artificial anything. Stevia is 100% Mother Nature in the form of a green herb plant of the Aster/Chrysanthemum family, the leaves of which yield its naturally-occurring sweet substance, glycoside, or stevioside. Best of all, it has been shown in numerous research studies to have no ill effects on the human body. In fact, in China, Stevia is also used to aid digestion, lose weight and even stimulate the appetite. It is also reported that Stevia powder heals external skin sores while drinking Stevia tea reduces mouth sores and improve oral health. And if that wasn't enough, Stevia cooks, bakes, sprinkles, and tastes, amazingly like real sugar, maybe even better.
extracted from moonbowmedia

Some more FDA History on Stevia

2006-02-04T11:45:00.000-08:00

extracted from every thing
Commercial resistance to stevia is known as far back as 1913 when a German agency described it as a well known plant "which alarmed sugar producers years ago" The US FDA labeled stevia as an "unsafe food additive" despite also acknowleding it as a well known and historically well used plant. The FDA has been accused of caving in to established commercial interests in excluding stevia from the US market. Although calling stevia "unsafe" the FDA provides little evidence to back up the claim and has stonewalled attempts to prove otherwise. The FDA has also resisted attempts to get full information through the FOIA requests about complaints lodged against companies using stevia.

Stevia plant chemicals

2006-01-22T10:56:00.000-08:00

An extract from www.rain-tree.com

PLANT CHEMICALS

Western interest in stevia began around the turn of the nineteenth century, when researchers in Brazil started hearing about a plant with leaves so sweet that just one leaf would sweeten a whole gourd full of bitter yerba mate tea. It was first studied in 1899 by Paraguayan botanist Moises S. Bertoni, who wrote some of the earliest articles on stevia (in the early 1900s).

Over 100 phytochemicals have been discovered in stevia since. It is rich in terpenes and flavonoids. The constituents responsible for stevia's sweetness were documented in 1931, when eight novel plant chemicals called glycosides were discovered and named. Of these eight glycosides, one called stevioside is considered the sweetest - and has been tested to be approximately 300 times sweeter than sugar. Stevioside, comprising 6-18% of the stevia leaf, is also the most prevalent glycoside in the leaf. Other sweet constituents include steviolbioside, rebausiosides A-E, and dulcoside A.

The main plant chemicals in stevia include: apigenin, austroinulin, avicularin, beta-sitosterol, caffeic acid, campesterol, caryophyllene, centaureidin, chlorogenic acid, chlorophyll, cosmosiin, cynaroside, daucosterol, diterpene glycosides, dulcosides A-B, foeniculin, formic acid, gibberellic acid, gibberellin, indole-3-acetonitrile, isoquercitrin, isosteviol, jhanol, kaempferol, kaurene, lupeol, luteolin, polystachoside, quercetin, quercitrin, rebaudioside A-F, scopoletin, sterebin A-H, steviol, steviolbioside, steviolmonoside, stevioside, stevioside a-3, stigmasterol, umbelliferone, and xanthophylls.

For further reading click here for the complete article.

Stevia, why isn't it popular?

2006-01-22T10:04:00.000-08:00

This is from my personal experience. It is like anything new or different. Stevia is not sugar, this must be stressed. Like all other sweet substitutes, yes they have a sweet taste, but there are a combination of after-tastes that turns many off.

Case in point. I know of some people that are so addicted to the taste, yes the taste is addictive, and have gained so much weight that they are using sugar substitutes to control their weight and diabetes. This one person that I know was spooning the substitute into their coffee. Well the coffee became bitter because of the interaction of the substitute and the coffee.

When it comes to substitutes there is a limit. There is even a limit to sugar itself before the body reacts to it i.e. weight gain, ADD, ADHD, diabetes.

Stevia like all things is an acquired taste. I personally do not taste sweet so therefore items that are heavily ladened with sugar and honey can be eaten with out me saying 'Ohh that is too sweet'. I personally use stevia to have that sweet taste in my mouth, yes I can taste this sweet. I like it because the variety that I use has very little after-taste and the taste is lasting. Among other benefits the taste significantly moderates my intake of sugar.

As with all things another example. When it comes to milk, I can not stand to drink cow's milk, but I like soya and goat or sheeps milk in that order. After drinking soya milk I have developed a preference. The same is true for stevia, it is an acquired taste.

Wikipedia Stevia Entry

2006-01-22T10:01:00.000-08:00

Stevia (also called sweetleaf or sweet leaf) is a genus of about 150 species of herbs and shrubs belonging to the Asteraceae (sunflower) family, native to subtropical and tropical South America and Central America (north to Mexico). The species continue reading ...

Stevia and Diabetes

2006-01-15T10:50:00.000-08:00

If you have diabetes, chances are you consume a large amount of artificial sweeteners. Until now, these sweeteners have been the only sugar alternative for those with diabetes. The problem, however, is that there has always been a concern that overconsumption of these synthetic sweeteners may cause some harm to the body. Could partial or complete stevia substitution for artificial sweeteners be a good idea? We believe so. Stevia leaves have been used as herbal teas by diabetic patients in Asian countries for many years. No side effects have been observed in these patients after continued consumption (Suttajit, 1993). Furthermore, studies have shown that stevia extract can actually improve blood sugar levels (Alvarez, 1981, Curi, 1986).

In 1986, Brazilian researchers from the Universities of Maringa and Sao Paolo evaluated the role of stevia in blood sugar (Curi, 1986). Sixteen healthy volunteers were given extracts from 5 grams of stevia leaves every six hours for three days. The extracts were prepared by immersing the leaves in boiling water for twenty minutes. A glucose tolerance test (GTT) was performed before and after the administration of the extract. During this test, the volunteers were given a glass of water with glucose. Blood sugar levels were then evaluated over the next few hours. The results were compared to those of another group of volunteers that did not receive the stevia extracts. Those with a predisposition to diabetes showed marked rise in blood sugar levels. The group given stevia was found to have significantly lower blood sugar levels as indicated by the glucose tolerance tests.

The results of this study were a positive indication that, potentially, stevia can be beneficial to diabetics. And even if stevia by itself does not lower blood sugar levels, the simple fact that a person with diabetes would consume less sugar is of significant importance in maintaining better blood sugar control.

We suggest that switch to stevia. You can begin by using it instead of sugar or an artificial sweetener to flavor your coffee or tea. After a few days or weeks, as your comfort level with stevia increases, gradually use more of the herbal extract in those dishes or beverages in which you would normally use a different sweetener. With time, more research will become available on the safety of stevia and artificial sweeteners. Based on the results of these studies, you can better determine which sweeteners to continue using in greater amounts.

Although some argue that artificial sweeteners are safe in small amounts, problems may arise if they are used in excess. Even partially substituting stevia for artificial sweeteners can help reduce any potential risk.

extracted from here

Stevia and Weight Loss

2006-01-15T10:46:00.000-08:00

It would seem quite obvious that even partially substituting a no-calorie sweetener for sugar would help reduce caloric intake and thus contribute to weight loss. (One ounce-approximately 2 teaspoons-of sugar contains 50 calories. The average daily sugar intake for persons in the United States is 13 ounces, or 650 calories.) Such is the case with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame.

Researchers at the Center for the Study of Nutrition Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, studied the influence of aspartame on obesity (Blackburn, 1997). In one study, 163 women were randomly divided into two groups. Each group was assigned to either consume or abstain from aspartame-sweetened foods and beverages for sixteen weeks. Both groups were also actively involved in a weight-control program using a variety of modalities. At the end of the study, both the group on aspartame and the group without the synthetic sweetener lost an average of 10 kilograms (22 pounds). During the maintenance phase that lasted for the next two years, the women assigned to the aspartame group gained back an average of 4.5 kilograms (10 pounds) while those who were not on aspartame gained back 9.4 kilograms (20 pounds)- practically all of the weight they had previously lost. The researchers concluded, "These data suggest that participation in a multidisciplinary weight-control program that includes aspartame may facilitate the long-term maintenance of reduced body weight."

Unfortunately, no formal studies have been done to evaluate stevia substitution in relation to weight loss. However, as stevia has virtually no calories, we would suspect the results to be similar to those in the aspartame study.

Are you the type of person who uses a lot of sugar? Do you use it to sweeten beverages? Do you sprinkle it on cereal? Do you consume it in baked goods and other sweet treats? If so, there's a good possibility that even partially substituting these refined sugar calories with calorie-free stevia can make a difference in your weight.

extracted from here

Stevia and Tooth Decay

2006-01-15T10:43:00.000-08:00

Even a five-year-old child knows that sugar can cause tooth decay. There are certain bacteria in your mouth, particularly Streptococcimutans, that ferment various sugars and produce acids. These acids, in turn, eat through the enamel of the tooth, causing a decayed spot or cavity. For a long time, scientists have searched to find alternative sweeteners that are not fermentable by bacteria and, hence, do not cause cavities. Artificial sweeteners have been helpful in this regard.

Does stevia lead to tooth cavities? According to one study done on laboratory rats, the answer is no. In this study, stevioside and rebaudioside A -- the two primary sweet constituents of the stevia plant -- were tested on a group of sixty rat pups (Das, 1992). The rats were divided into four groups. Group 1 was fed 30 percent of its diet in sucrose (table sugar). Group 2 was given 0.5 percent of its diet in stevioside. Group 3 received 0.5 percent of its diet in rebaudioside A. Group 4, the control group, was given no sugar or sweetener of any kind. There was no difference in the food or water intake among the groups.

After five weeks, the rats were evaluated. There was a significant difference in the condition of their teeth. The sugar-fed rats in Group 1 had significantly more cavities than the rats in the other groups. The rats in Groups 2, 3, and 4 had about the same number of cavities. The researchers stated, "It was concluded that neither stevioside nor rebaudioside A is cariogenic [cavity causing] under the conditions of this study." It appears that the chemicals within the stevia plant that impart its sweetness are not fermentable, and thus do not cause tooth cavities.

extracted from here

Sugar Facts

2006-01-07T12:17:00.000-08:00

Take a look at this document: www.sugar.ca/fact_intNatl.htm

The Sugar Industry is apparently a highly subsidized industry. Here are some snippets from this document:

- Canada's sugar producers are unique in the world in that they do not depend on government subsidies

- In most other countries, governments artificially inflate sugar prices while restricting imports.

- The world's distorted sugar market is paid for by consumers. Most developed countries keep domestic sugar prices high with subsidies and transfers from consumers.

No wonder Sugar profits are so highly protected. Hence any hint of competition would cut into profits.

Thoughts from My Research

2006-01-07T10:29:00.000-08:00

It is interesting reading about the controversy regarding this plant.

One of the interesting notes is that in the early 1900's there was a movement to introduce Stevia to the public at large. Through some of my research, before Stevia marketing started, a dirty little lie was introduced to the public and government by quite possibly 'Big Sugar'. This villianised the plant and as such was in many countries 'Stevia' was considered a controlled substance like cocane. For a time it was even illegal to market a product stating that it is sweet if it did not have sugar as the sweetener. Could it be that the vast profits that Big Sugar is making could have been at risk?

Stevia can be grown by anyone. This topical plant can be grown in northern Canada. This is quite different to sugar cane, sugar beets, corn etc. that sugar can be extacted from. This fact is probably why Big Sugar has lobbied so intensely to limit anything that would cut into their profits. Profit is the name of the game. You piss them off, they come after you.

I my humble opinion there is room for Stevia in the market place on a commercial scale. Sugar is a $178 Billion a year market industry. These are the official numbers. Currently world wide sugar production has plateaued. There is still room for other products in this niche like Stevia.

Final note: I do not think that 'sugar' will ever be fully replaced by other sweeteners. The body requires this substance in some form whether simple or complex to run our bodies but not at the amounts that are put into merchandised product.

Stevia Leaf - Too Good To Be Legal?

2005-12-18T14:18:00.000-08:00

Here is an article that I found to be of interest. A few things are dated but you get the point.

Rob McCaleb

Herb Research Foundation

For hundreds of years, people in Paraguay and Brazil have used a sweet leaf to sweeten bitter herbal teas including mate. For nearly 20 years, Japanese consumers by the millions have used extracts of the same plant as a safe, natural, non-caloric sweetener. The plant is stevia, formally known as Stevia rebaudiana, and today it is underwholesale attack by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Stevia is a fairly unassuming perennial shrub of the aster family (Asteraceae), native to the northern regions of South America. It has now been grown commercially in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Central America, the United States, Israel, Thailand and China. The leaves contain several chemicals called glycosides, which taste sweet, but do not provide calories. The major glycoside is called stevioside, and is one of the major sweeteners in use in Japan and Korea. Stevia and its extracts have captured over 40% of the Japanese market. Major multinational food companies like Coca Cola and Beatrice foods, convinced of its safety, use stevia extracts to sweeten foods for sale in Japan, Brazil, and other countries where it is approved. Europeans first learned of stevia when the Spanish Conquistadors of the Sixteenth Century sent word to Spain that the natives of South America had used the plant to sweeten herbal tea since "ancient times".

The saga of American interest in stevia began around the turn of theT wentieth Century when researchers in Brazil started hearing about "a plant with leaves so sweet that a part of one would sweeten a whole gourd full of mate." The plant had been described in 1899 by Dr. M. S. Bertoni. In 1921 the American Trade Commissioner to Paraguay commented in a letter "Although known to science for thirty years andused by the Indians for a much longer period nothing has been done commercially with the plant. This has been due to a lack of interest on the part of capital and to the difficulty of cultivation.

"Dr. Bertoni wrote some of the earliest articles on the plant in 1905 and 1918. In the latter article he notes: "The principal importance of Ka he'e (stevia) is due to the possibility of substituting it for saccharine. It presents these great advantages over saccharine:

It is not toxic but, on the contrary, it is healthful, as shown by long experience and according to the studies of Dr. Rebaudi.

It is a sweetening agent of great power.

It can be employed directly in its natural state, (pulverized leaves).

It is much cheaper than saccharine.

"Unfortunately, this last point may have been the undoing of stevia. Non caloric sweeteners are a big business in the U.S., as are caloric sweeteners like sugar and the sugar-alcohols, sorbital, mannitol andxylitol. It is small wonder that the powerful sweetener interest shere, do not want the natural, inexpensive, and non-patentable stevia approved in the U.S.

In the 1970s, the Japanese government approved the plant, and food manufacturers began using stevia extracts to sweeten everything from sweet soy sauce and pickles to diet Coke. Researchers found the extract interesting, resulting in dozens of well-designed studies of its safety, chemistry and stability for use in different food products. Various writers have praised the taste of the extracts, which has muchless of the bitter after taste prevalent in most noncaloric sweeteners. In addition to Japan, other governments have approved stevia and stevioside, including those of Brazil, China and South Korea, amongothers. Unfortunately, the US was destined to be a different story. Stevia has been safely used in this country for over ten years, but a few years ago, the trouble began.

FDA ATTACK ON STEVIA

Around 1987, FDA inspectors began visiting herb companies who were selling stevia, telling them to stop using it because it is an "unapproved food additive". By mid 1990 several companies had been visited. In one case FDA's inspector reportedly told a company president they were trying to get people to stop using stevia "because Nutra Sweet complained to FDA." The Herb Research Foundation (HRF), which has extensive scientific files on stevia, became concerned and filed a Freedom of Information Act request with FDA for information about contacts between Nutra Sweet and FDA about stevia. It took over a year to get any information from the FDA, but the identity of the company who prompted the FDA action was masked by the agency.

In May, 1991 FDA acted by imposing an import alert on stevia toprevent it from being imported into the US. They also began formally warning companies to stop using the "illegal" herb. By the beginning of 1991, the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) was working to defend stevia. At their general meeting at Natural Products Expo West, members of the industry pledged most of the needed funds to support work to convince FDA of the safety ofstevia. AHPA contracted HRF to produce a professional review of the stevia literature. The review was conducted by Doug Kinghorn, PhD., one of the world's leading authorities on stevia and other natural non-nutritive sweeteners. Dr. Kinghorn's report was peer-reviewed by several other plant safety experts and concluded that historical and current common use of stevia, and the scientific evidence all support the safety of this plant for use in foods. Based on this report, and other evidence, AHPA filed a petition with FDA in late October asking FDA's "acquiescence and concurrence" that stevia leaf is exempt from food additive regulations and can be used in foods.

FDA, apparently attempting to regulate this herb as they would a new food additive, contends that there is inadequate evidence to approve stevia. However, because of its use in Japan, there is much more scientific evidence of stevia's safety than for most foods and additives. The extent of evidence FDA is demanding for the approval of stevia, far exceeds that which has been required to approve even new synthetic food chemicals like aspartame (Nutra Sweet).

AHPA's petition points out that FDA's food additive laws were meant to protect consumers from synthetic chemicals added to food. FDA is trying, in the case of stevia to claim that stevia is the same as achemical food additive. But as the AHPA petition points out, Congress did not intend food additive legislation to regulate natural constituents of food itself. In fact, Congressman Delaney said in 1956, "There is hardly a food sold in the market today which has not had some chemicals used on or in it at some stage in its production, processing, packaging, transportation or storage." He stressed that his proposed bill was to assure the safety of "new chemicals that are being used in our daily food supply," and when asked if the regulations would apply to whole foods, he replied "No, to food chemicals only." AHPA contends that stevia is a food, which is already recognized as safe because of its long history of food use.Foods which have a long history of safe use are exempted by law from the extensive laboratory tests required of new food chemicals. The AHPA petition, however, supports the safe use of stevia with both the historical record, and references to the numerous toxicology studies conducted during the approval process in Japan, and studies by interested researchers in other countries.

To date, the FDA still refuses to allow stevia to be sold in the U.S.but the recently-enacted Dietary Supplement Health and Education Actof 1994 may prevent the FDA from treating stevia and other naturalherbs as "food additives."

rmccaleb@herbs.org -- [also herbal@netcom.com]

Is Stevia not ready for Prime time?

2005-12-18T11:16:00.000-08:00

Here is an article from foodsafetynetwork.ca

STEVIA: NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME; MORE RESEARCH NEEDED TO ANSWER SAFETY QUESTIONS ABOUT 'NATURAL' SWEETENER
March 21, 2000
Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) Press Release
http://www.cspinet.org/new/stevia.html
WASHINGTON - Stevia, a plant-based sweetener that has created a buzz in the health-food world, may pose risks to health and should not be allowed in the food supply until it¹s proven safe, says the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Extracts of a South American shrub are hundreds of times sweeter than sugar but provide no calories, making stevia a potential natural alternative to such synthetic sweeteners as aspartame and saccharin. Stevia is currently sold as a dietary supplement in powder form at health food stores. 'Although there is no evidence of harm to people, laboratory studies of stevia have found potential cancer and reproductive-health problems. Stevia depressed sperm production in male rats and reduced the number and size of the offspring of female hamsters. Until those concerns are disproven, stevia should not be used by manufacturers in soft drinks, candy, or other foods,' said David Schardt, associate nutritionist for CSPI. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the past 10 years has rejected three food-additive petitions for stevia because its safety had not been adequately demonstrated. Canada also has not approved its use, and last year a scientific review panel for the European Community declared that stevia is unacceptable for use in food. In an article in the April issue of CSPI's Nutrition Action Healthletter (NAH), Schardt notes that in the test tube a derivative of stevia can be converted into a mutagen. Such chemicals also sometimes cause cancer.'Until we know whether this mutagen is formed in people, stevia cannot be considered safe,' said Schardt. Several studies have also raised concerns about the effect of very large amounts of stevia on carbohydrate metabolism. And that troubles some toxicologists. 'I think we need to be very careful, indeed, as to whether stevia would present a problem for children. The take-home message is simply that we don¹t know enough,' said toxicologist Ryan Huxtable of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

What is ridiculous about this article is that a culture called the Guarani have been using this herb for centuries. These guys can not even get certification on their series of tests. I think that if your test subjects will not die then should this not tell you something about the safety of Stevia?

Stevia. How Sweet it is!

2005-12-18T10:17:00.000-08:00

Yes, Stevia is a sweet tasting herb. The Guanari Natives have been using Stevia for centuries in food preparations and medicines.

So why do the FDA in the US and CFIA in Canada refuse to allow Sweet and Sweetner on labels of the Stevia products?

In Europe it is considered a Novel Food item as found in this report 'SCF's opinion on Stevia'.

In Canada it is considered a Novel Food item.

In the US it is considered a Dietary Supplement and to label it as Sweet or a Sweetner would render the product "adulterated," according to the FDA, and make it again subject to seizure.

In the past Stevia has been subject of searches and seizures, trade complaints and embargoes on importation. So much so that Stevia has been handled at times by the FDA as if it were an illegal drug.

This Blog has been created to document and explore these issues and why the Big Companies are so threatened by its use.

Welcome to my blog

2005-12-15T08:33:00.000-08:00

Stevia is a sweet tasting herb that was found in valley between Brazil and Paraquay.

I will be reporting on my research about this herb in this blog.
There will be much exploration, data and products that will be linked and discussed.

I hope that you will find this discussion entertaining, inciteful and useful.

My website for the promotion of Stevia is at http://www.reversitall.com.
I hope you can visit this site and purchase Stevia extracts and seeds.

Thank-you