Low-calorie sweetness the natural way
Chances are you’ve never heard of stevia or, if you have, you know little about it. For people dedicated to eating well, it’s a valuable tool – but there are powerful people who would rather you were kept in the dark.
Every year in the United States, over 5,000 food products are sold which are artificially sweetened. If you’re diabetic, hypoglycemic or trying to lose weight, you probably buy these products. The sweeteners most commonly used are saccharin, acesulfame k, and aspartame. These chemical sweeteners are in everything from chewing gum and soft drinks to children’s multivitamins. Designed in laboratories, made in giant chemical factories and sold by multibillion-dollar conglomerates, they go by innocent-sounding names like NutraSweet, Sweet ‘n Low and Equal, and they carry almost no warnings about their possible dangers.
If you look closely at packages of aspartame, you’ll see no warning that the substance has caused brain tumors in laboratory animals. And the National Cancer Institute has increase in the incidence of malignant brain tumors in Americans since the introduction of aspartame in the early 1980’s. Many people complain about headaches after eating foods sweetened with aspartame. Coincidence? In fact, thousands of people have registered over 92 different side effects related to aspartame with the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control, including headaches, menstrual irregularities, nausea, dizziness, skin lesions, rashes, hyperactivity, heart palpitations, gastrointestinal disorders, blackouts, numbness, memory loss, blindness, seizures, and suicidal depression. And those are just the ones that have been reported – a small percentage of the number of people who experience these symptoms.
There’s a lengthy history behind the FDA’s approval of aspartame, but the condensed version is this – despite there being a lot of tests that showed that aspartame was potentially dangerous, it was approved for sale. And despite the attempt by Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum in 1985 to pass a bill requiring studies into the safety of aspartame, that bill was killed by the Labor and Human Resources Committee. And despite there being strong evidence to suggest that aspartame works like a neurotoxin, actually changing brain chemistry and interacting with other drugs, there’s no regulation on it – and it’s present in thousands of products consumed by mean, women, children and the elderly every day.
On the other side of the low-calorie sweetener issue, let’s take a look at stevia.
Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni is a perennial shrub native to Paraguay, and it’s been used as a natural sweetener has been used by the Guarani Indians for hundreds of years, who use it primarily to sweeten their herbal mat tea. South American settlers in Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil began using it in the 1800’s, and around 1908 plantations started cultivating stevia for commercial purposes. Over the next several decades, botanists and businessmen attempted to interest the U.S. government in cultivating stevia for the domestic market, but sugar producers managed to keep them from making any headway.
In the 1970’s the Japanese, who had already banned aspartame, discovered stevia, and some American companies used it in their herbal teas in the 1980’s. It looked like stevia was finally poised to reach the American consumer – except that the FDA began taking action against companies that were using stevia, including embargoes, search and seizures, and calling for an "import alert" on the sweetener. Stevia was denied the all-important FDA "generally recognized as safe" status, despite it’s long history of scientific studies supporting its safety. At about the same time that the FDA was granting the corporate giant G.D. Searle’s request to allow aspartame to be used in dry foods and beverages, stevia – a completely natural and safe substance with no side effects whatsoever – was classified as an "unsafe food additive,’ and Celestial Seasonings and other companies were forced to stop using stevia.
Despite the FDA’s long-held opposition to stevia – and a bizarre period in 1998 when the FDA actually demanded that a Texas importer destroy a warehouse full of stevia-recipe cookbooks! – it has been allowed to enter the U.S. as a food supplement. This completely natural, non-toxic, non-caloric sweetener, that’s enjoyed by people all over the world, is a threat to the big corporate chemical sweetener companies for several reasons:
Stevia actually balances blood sugar levels, and is safe for use by both diabetics and hypoglycemics.
Unlike aspartame, there are no reports of adverse effects from stevia’s use, and scientific studies throughout the world prove out its safety.
Unlike aspartame, stevia reduces the craving for sweets, making it ideal sweetener for people trying to lose weight.
Unlike sugar, stevia reduces cavities by retarding the growth of plaque.
Still not convinced? Pick some up at your health food store – it’s available in powder or liquid form.
