photo by hebam3000

I have a pretty pronounced sweet tooth. I’ve tried my fair share of sweeteners. I was a huge fan of Equal in high school, dabbled with several other sweeteners, and got really into Splenda once that got popular. I’ve had plenty of diet sodas containing Aspartame (which has been linked to complaints of seizures, blindness, brain tumors and even death). But I was pretty bummed about having to choose between getting fat from too much sugar and potentially getting a brain tumor from chemical sweeteners. But, considering I didn’t know anyone who actually had health problems as a result of artificial sweeteners, and I’ve always had to keep a close eye on my figure, I went the chemical route.

I have longed for a more natural sweetener that would neither go straight to my thighs, nor mess with my precious brain matter. Splenda was supposed to be the new breakthrough chemical because it was “made from sugar,” but even Splenda has its questionable health research.

And then came Stevia. Well, Stevia has actually been around for a very long time and has been used as a sweetener for over 400 years, without ill effects. It comes from a plant called Stevia Rebaudiana, native to South America. The leaves of this plant are sweet and calorie free. How did this not become popular sooner?? Well, the FDA is taking its precious time getting around to approving this natural sweetner (they’ve approved it as a supplement but not an additive in foods). But they are more than willing to back the potentially harmful chemical sweeteners that have, sadly, done horrible things to lab mice, and have been linked to human health problems as well. Apparently Coke and Pepsi are planning to add Stevia into their products to replace Aspartame. And actually, Stevia has been popular in Japan for over 20 years and they’ve used Stevia in their Coke, but recently decided to replace it with Aspartame to be more unified with other Coke products around the world.

Though Stevia does seem like an underappreciated miracle sweetener, bear in mind the old adage “too much of anything is never good.” Moderation is important. On boxes of Stevia they advise you not to use more than 8 packets per day. So be safe about your consumption. And, though Stevia is stamped as a vegan product, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has been testing it on animals. To fight against this cruel, unreliable and archaic method of product testing, go here: http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/cspi_stevia.

more sources:http://www.steviacafe.net/stevia-sweetener-mainstream-coca-cola-soda,  http://www.steviacafe.net/dangers-of-stevia, http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/12/18/coke-and-pepsi-stoked-for-stevia-after-fda-green-light/, http://www.cspinet.org/nah/4_00/stevia.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevia, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121082042102994411-search.html,