Some swear by stevia

Marjorie Milne swore off sugar 10 years ago, but she still indulges her sweet tooth without regret.

She does it without using saccharine, aspartame or any of those pink, yellow and blue packets of artificial sweeteners. Chemically engineered 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 sweetener of choice for people with diabetes 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 fans that 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 due to the great flavor. My husband takes a baggy full of the small packets everywhere he goes to sweeten anything he drinks that needs it."

Stevia is "an all-natural, calorie-free sweetener that is suitable for diabetics, safe for children, and does not cause cavities," according to Ray Sahelian and Donna Gates, authors of "The Stevia Cookbook" (Avery, 2004).

So where are all the ads proclaiming the wonders of stevia? Where are all the packaged sugarfree products - puddings, ice cream, cereals, hot chocolate packets - boldly announcing their switch to stevia?

Turns out this food product is not considered a food at all - at least not by the U.S. government. Instead, it’s categorized as a dietary supplement, making it something of a subversive among sweeteners.

A lengthy history

Stevia - Stevia rebaudiana, in taxonomical terms - is a bushy plant that grows wild in South America. Its leaves have a very sweet taste and were thought to have been used by pre-Colombian Indian tribes in South America.

A Swiss botanist of Italian descent, Moises Santiago Bertoni, learned of the plant from Indian guides while exploring Paraguay in 1887. Excited about the discovery, he started an intensive study of the plant.

"In placing in the mouth the smallest particle of any portion of the leaf or twig," he wrote, "one is surprised at the strange and extreme sweetness contained therein. A fragment of the leaf only a few millimeters in size suffices to keep the mouth sweet for an hour; a few small leaves are sufficient to sweeten a strong cup of coffee or tea."

The plant was presented to the United States Department of Agriculture in 1921 as a "new sugar plant with great commercial possibilities," but no one took much interest. Then, in 1931, the plant got noticed in France, where two chemists isolated the compounds that give the stevia leaf its sweet taste.

Still, it would take five more decades before anyone north of the equator really figured out what to do with it - and it wasn’t anyone from the United States or France.
The Japanese started using stevia as a tabletop sweetener and sweetener for all sorts of foods, including ice
cream, bread, candies, pickles, seafood, vegetables and soft drinks. By 1988, Japanese food products sweetened with stevia accounted for about 41 percent of sweetened foods made in the country.

The stevia boom in Japan began to get the attention of U.S. food manufacturers in the mid-1980s, including Boulder, Colo.-based Celestial Seasonings, which uses crushed stevia leaves in a few of its herbal teas.

Stevia also caught the attention of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which in 1987 issued a ban on its use because it had not been approved as a food additive. That started several years of wrangling between natural-food advocates and the government.

In 1995, the FDA issued a statement allowing stevia to be used as a dietary supplement, and that’s how it has to be labeled.

Hitting the kitchen

Call it what you want - dietary supplement, plant, sketchy food product. Whatever it is, it’s found a small but devoted following in U.S. kitchens.

"I’ve been cooking with stevia off and on for more than 15 years," says Schulman. "At first, the taste was really off, and I know how some people tend to not like stevia due to the aftertaste. When I finally learned to only put in the tiniest of amounts, my life with stevia as a sweetener changed."

Milne, a Colorado Springs, Colo., woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997, got hooked on stevia as a way to control her craving for sweets and to maintain her weight during cancer treatment.

"Breast cancer treatment causes you to gain weight, and I didn’t want to gain weight."

She went to a nutritionist for information on how to eat well and boost her energy without gaining weight during treatment.

"One of the things she suggested was using liquid stevia. She had me adding a few drops of it and chlorophyll to water for a refreshing beverage," Milne says. "After using stevia for several weeks, you lose the craving for sugar and other sweets. I still like 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 seven years ago. She uses it in cooking and baking and prefers the liquid or powder form.

"I started using it because of my concern with a family predisposition to diabetes and was looking for an alternative answer for sweet foods for my toddler. Stevia has a low glycemic index and will not ‘spike’ your blood sugar."

Waiting for research

Despite such glowing reviews for stevia, it has yet to win approval from the FDA, although it’s been used for years as an ingredient in South America, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China and Malaysia without any reports of adverse health effects.

And if a company with deep enough pockets could fund the necessary research and present results to the FDA, there may be a chance that stevia could be approved as a food ingredient.

But because the FDA hasn’t OK’d it, several watchdog organizations, including the American Dietetic Association, are reluctant to endorse it.

"The FDA has not received sufficient scientific evidence to assure that this substance can be safely used as a food additive," the ADA says in a position paper on sweeteners. "Stevia can be sold as a ‘dietary supplement’ and may be available in packets that resemble tabletop sweeteners.

"Consumers should be informed that Stevia is not approved as a non-nutritive sweetener."

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a pit bull among consumer 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 inappropriate to endorse wide use of this sweetener," says Jeff Cronin, the organization’s director of communications.

PIÑA COLADA SMOOTHIE
Yield: 2 (8-ounce) servings

1-1/2 cups fresh pineapple juice
1/3 cup plain yogurt or kefir
1/2 cup pineapple chunks
1 teaspoon coconut flavoring
1/8 teaspoon white stevia powder, or to taste

Place all ingredients in blender and whip on high speed 30 seconds. Serve immediately.

Source: "The Stevia Cookbook: Cooking with Nature’s Calorie-Free Sweetener" by Ray Sahelian, M.D., and Donna Gates

HOT BREAKFASTPORRIDGE
Yield: 2 large bowls or 4 smaller servings
2 cups water
1 cup quinoa flakes
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
12 drops stevia liquid concentrate
1 tablespoon butter or coconut oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon flaxseed oil (optional, but healthful)

Bring water to boil in 1-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. Add quinoa, salt, cinnamon, stevia and butter or coconut oil. Cover and reduce heat to very low. Simmer 10 minutes.

Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly before adding vanilla flavoring and flaxseed oil.

Source: "The Stevia Cookbook: Cooking with Nature’s Calorie-Free Sweetener"

HOT COCOA
Yield: 4-5 servings
3 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 teaspoon powdered stevia extract
4-5 cups soy milk or milk
2 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Optional: 1 teaspoon cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg

Mix cocoa with stevia extract in medium-size saucepan. Add about 1/2 cup soy milk or milk to dry ingredients to make a paste. Gradually thin paste with about 1/2 cup milk.

Add honey or maple syrup while bringing to a low boil. Boil 2-3 minutes. Add remaining milk as needed for desired richness. Add vanilla and return to burner until heated through.

Source: "Stevia: Naturally Sweet Recipes for Desserts, Drinks and More!" by Rita DePuydt

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Yield: About 4 dozen
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon white stevia powder
1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
1 cup salted butter, softened
1-1/4 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a cookie sheet and set aside.

In medium mixing bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder; set aside.

Place egg, stevia and vanilla in large mixing bowl. Beat well with wooden spoon or electric hand-held mixer. Gradually add butter, continuing to beat until mixture is smooth and creamy.

Add flour mixture to butter mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring well with wooden spoon after each addition. Fold in chocolate chips.

Drop heaping teaspoonfuls of batter onto cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until cookies are golden brown.

Source: "The Stevia Cookbook: Cooking with Nature’s Calorie-Free Sweetener"

Stevia Q and A
• Question: Where can I get stevia?

• Answer: The most common place to find it is in health food stores.

• Q: Is it a powder or liquid?

• A: Both - and more. You can buy dried leaves, powder and a liquid extract. A small amount of the liquid goes a long way - 1 ounce is about 100 servings. You can also buy sugar-like packets.

• Q: How much do I use?

• A: The authors of "The Stevia Cookbook" recommend substituting a teaspoon of stevia powdered extract or stevia liquid concentrate for a cup of sugar. Use about 1/4 teaspoon of the stevia powder or 6 to 9 drops of the liquid stevia for a tablespoon of sugar. And use a pinch to 1/16 teaspoon stevia powder or 2 to 4 drops of liquid stevia for a teaspoon of sugar.

• Q: Some sweeteners can’t withstand the heat of cooking and baking. Can stevia?

• A: Yes, stevia can withstand high temperatures. However, there are a couple of drawbacks when baking with stevia: Baked goods do not rise as well as those baked with sugar, and they won’t have the crunchy texture derived from the crystalline structure of sugar.

Source: ‘‘The Stevia Cookbook;’’ Sharon Schulman