Sunday, February 26, 2006

Sinfully Sweet?

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 ...

Saturday, February 04, 2006

An interesting tidbit about the FDA

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

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

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.