uebtootoo200901

Marjorie Milne swore off sugar 10 years ago, but she still indulgesher sweet tooth without regret. She does it without using saccharine, aspartame or any of thosepink, yellow and blue packets of artificial sweeteners. Chemicallyengineered sugar substitutes aren’t her thing. Instead, she reaches for a plant-based substance called stevia,which is said to be 300 times sweeter than table sugar and has gotten a reputation as the Intensive Sweetener of choice for people withdiabetes and those on low-carb diets. Sharon Schulman, owner of Gentle Strength Wellness Education &Herb Shop in Colorado Springs, and her husband are such stevia fansthat they won’t leave home without a stash. She carries a small vial of the liquid form in her purse. "I use it to sweeten my water," she says. "In the summer, putting one or two drops in my water bottle helps me drink more water dueto the great flavor. My husband takes a baggy full of the smallpackets everywhere he goes to sweeten anything he drinks that need sit." Stevia is "an all-natural, calorie-free sweetener that is suitablefor diabetics, safe for children, and does not cause cavities,"according to Ray Sahelian and Donna Gates, authors of "The SteviaCookbook" (Avery, 2004). So where are all the ads proclaiming the wonders of stevia? Whereare all the packaged sugarfree products - puddings, ice cream,cereals, hot chocolate packets - boldly announcing their switch tostevia? Turns out this food product is not considered a food at all - atleast not by the U.S. government. Instead, it’s categorizedas a dietary supplement, making it something of a subversive amongsweeteners. A lengthy history Stevia - Stevia rebaudiana, in taxonomical terms - is a bushy plantthat grows wild in South America. Its leaves have a very sweettaste and were thought to have been used by pre-Colombian Indiantribes in South America. A Swiss botanist of Italian descent, Moises Santiago Bertoni,learned of the plant from Indian guides while exploring Paraguay in1887. Excited about the discovery, he started an intensive study ofthe plant. "In placing in the mouth the smallest particle of any portion ofthe leaf or twig," he wrote, "one is surprised at the strange andextreme sweetness contained therein. A fragment of the leaf only afew millimeters in size suffices to keep the mouth sweet for anhour; a few small leaves are sufficient to sweeten a strong cup ofcoffee or tea." The plant was presented to the United States Department ofAgriculture in 1921 as a "new sugar plant with great commercialpossibilities," but no one took much interest. Then, in 1931, theplant got noticed in France, where two chemists isolated thecompounds that give the stevia leaf its sweet taste. Still, it would take five more decades before anyone north of theequator really figured out what to do with it - and it wasn’tanyone from the United States or France. The Japanese started using stevia as a tabletop sweetener andsweetener for all sorts of foods, including ice cream, bread, candies, pickles, seafood, vegetables and softdrinks. By 1988, Japanese food products sweetened with steviaaccounted for about 41 percent of sweetened foods made in thecountry. The stevia boom in Japan began to get the attention of U.S. foodmanufacturers in the mid-1980s, including Boulder, Colo.-basedCelestial Seasonings, which uses crushed stevia leaves in a few ofits herbal teas. Stevia also caught the attention of the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration, which in 1987 issued a ban on its use because ithad not been approved as a food additive. That started severalyears of wrangling between natural-food advocates and thegovernment. In 1995, the FDA issued a statement allowing stevia to be used as adietary supplement, and that’s how it has to be labeled. Hitting the kitchen Call it what you want - dietary supplement, plant, sketchy foodproduct. Whatever it is, it’s found a small but devotedfollowing in U.S. kitchens. "I’ve been cooking with stevia off and on for more than 15years," says Schulman. "At first, the taste was really off, and Iknow how some people tend to not like stevia due to the aftertaste.When I finally learned to only put in the tiniest of amounts, mylife with stevia as a sweetener changed." Milne, a Colorado Springs, Colo., woman who was diagnosed withbreast cancer in 1997, got hooked on stevia as a way to control hercraving for sweets and to maintain her weight during cancertreatment. "Breast cancer treatment causes you to gain weight, and Ididn’t want to gain weight." She went to a nutritionist for information on how to eat well andboost her energy without gaining weight during treatment. "One of the things she suggested was using liquid stevia. She hadme adding a few drops of it and chlorophyll to water for arefreshing beverage," Milne says. "After using stevia for severalweeks, you lose the craving for sugar and other sweets. I stilllike the drink and use powdered stevia sometimes on cereal." Stephanie Walizer, an herbal specialist at Sequoia Women Health& Healing in Colorado Springs, started using stevia about sevenyears ago. She uses it in cooking and baking and prefers the liquidor powder form. "I started using it because of my concern with a familypredisposition to diabetes and was looking for an alternativeanswer for sweet foods for my toddler. Stevia has a low glycemicindex and will not ‘spike’ your blood sugar." Waiting for research Despite such glowing reviews for stevia, it has yet to win approvalfrom the FDA, although it’s been used for years as aningredient in South America, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China andMalaysia without any reports of adverse health effects. And if a company with deep enough pockets could fund the necessaryresearch and present results to the FDA, there may be a chance thatstevia could be approved as a food ingredient. But because the FDA hasn’t OK’d it, several watchdogorganizations, including the American Dietetic Association, arereluctant to endorse it. "The FDA has not received sufficient scientific evidence to assurethat this substance can be safely used as a food additive," the ADAsays in a position paper on sweeteners. "Stevia can be sold as a‘dietary supplement’ and may be available in packetsthat resemble tabletop sweeteners. "Consumers should be informed that Stevia is not approved as anon-nutritive sweetener." The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a pit bull amongconsumer organizations, is equally cautious. "The USFDA has rejected stevia for use as a food additive. In sum,small amounts of stevia are probably safe, but it is inappropriateto endorse wide use of this sweetener," says Jeff Cronin, theorganization’s director of communications.