Yesterday I talked a little bit about Sweeteners – the pale-colored packets of not-quite-granular sweet white powder. People ask me all the time about sweeteners and if they’ll cause cancer or give you headaches. Mind you, most of these people are downing French Fries and doughnuts like they are the last ones left on the island on that show Survivor. Yet they are unusually concerned about baby-colored packets of the sweet stuff.
The newest kid on the sweetener block is Stevia. Now, as I mentioned yesterday, every single one of these sweeteners has at least one study saying they aren’t healthy (again, let’s put this in perspective as too much water is harmful) except for erythritol (a sugar alcohol that is found in some beverages and some sweeteners such as Z Sweet). So what is Stevia? Well, per the green colored packet it comes in, stevia is from a plant. It has been sold as a dietary supplement for years (typically found in dropper form). And, many other countries have used it to sweetener their food for quite some time (centuries!).
Some people turn to stevia because it is natural and the trend toward “natural” is certainly gaining ground. Especially when something as American as peanut butter turns up with a foodborne pathogen in it (salmonella; and mind you that did nothing to halt my frequent consumption of peanut butter or peanut butter products). But, I digress. Stevia is about 250-300 times sweeter than sugar. So, you use less to sweeten your food. Less = less calories. Actually, no calories because you use so little you won’t even consume 1 little calorie.
Stevia gained GRAS (generally recognized as safe) approval for use as a sweetener in the past 6 months. Both Coke and Pepsi petitioned the FDA for GRAS status so they could formulate diet drinks with stevia. Is it safe? Well, it has FDA approval. My recommendation is to use the sweetener version vs. the supplement version (packets in the grocery store vs. supplements in the supplement store). And, don’t overdo it with any sweetener. There are plenty of flavorful foods out there (even tomatoes are sweet) that you can add to your diet to tempt your taste buds. Sweeteners and diet stuff should be a mere addition to a healthy diet.