In honor of winter, which brings along everyone’s favorite white powder (unless you’re lucky enough to live in Miami…), today’s post is about a different sort of white powder: Stevia
What are your thoughts on sugar?
I’ll go first: I’m a bit wary of including a lot of sugar in my diet, not because of the calories (if anything, I try to eat as many calories as I can, not as few), but because of how sugar made me feel in the past. However, this doesn’t mean I don’t think sugar can be part of a healthy diet.
Sweeteners
Why is sugar perceived to be so bad?
The media gives a bad name to sugar, but the truth is that if one isn’t trying to lose weight (and even if one is), there is absolutely no harm in including some sugar in one’s everyday diet. Sure, it’s devoid of nutrition, but that doesn’t mean it has negative nutrition (as long as you brush your teeth thoroughly).  Also, some sugars, like maple syrup and blackstrap molasses do have nutritional value. Blackstrap molasses is an exceptionally-high source of iron, and it also contains calcium, potassium, copper, and magnesium. In other words, it’s a super sugar!
The main reason people are told to cut back on sugar is that they eat sugary foods instead of nutrient-dense ones. But unless you have diabetes or another such illness, I’d argue that as long as you’re getting enough nutrients in your diet, there’s nothing wrong with eating non-nutritious, sugary foods too. Sugar may not help you get in more nutrients, but it certainly won’t hurt you or take away the nutrients you are getting. (I’m not a doctor, so take my opinion with a grain of salt sugar ;).)
What about artificial sweeteners?
I admit that I don’t have much experience with these. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever tried Splenda or any products containing it. My only encounters with artificial sweeteners: When I was younger, I hated soda (still do); therefore, at restaurants, my habit was to order iced tea. My mom told me that Sweet-n-Low dissolved better than regular sugar in iced tea, so I’d use that. But I kept getting stomach aches, so my doctor recommended I try nixing the Sweet-n-Low.  Surprise: the stomach aches went away! Maybe it was a coincidence, but maybe–on the other hand–my stomach was trying to tell me that people aren’t supposed to ingest dangerous chemicals in place of real food!
What about stevia? Is it safe?
As I said before, I’m not a doctor, so I can only tell you my opinion. I’ve heard the lab-rat studies that claim to show stevia is unsafe. But honestly, I think those studies are flawed because the rats were fed HUGE amounts of stevia, and anything in such a high quantity will produce negative results. (Did you know that too much broccoli can cause acid poisoning? Or that too much cinnamon damages the liver?) Stevia, an herb, has been used for centuries in South America and Japan to sweeten teas and other foods, without evidence of harm. So looking at historical evidence, it seems as if stevia—when used sparingly—is harmless.
Next up:
Ways I use sugar, followed by ways I use stevia. Without much of a sweet tooth, I don’t really use much of either. But I feel that there’s a place for both in a healthy diet. Variety is the spice of life, right? Well, that and some good-quality onion powder ;).
Yay on getting the free samples! I cant wait for your reviews. I use stevia and I love it. Its the only sweetner I really use. 🙂
I agree with you that everything in moderation is fine. I avoid HFCS and other artificial sweeteners, but I don’t beat myself up about it if I had a product that contains those things.
Ron sent me that same sample package that you put up!! He is so generous! I love all of the NuNaturals stuff 🙂
Have a lovely day my dear!!
stevia is the artificial sweetener i feel most comfortable about, because it’s basically just a leaf, it wasn’t concocted in some crazy lab experiment, and it’s been used for yearssss in some cultures. those nunaturals sound awesome, iw ish i could try them but i never see them in stores! happy natl carrot cake day, yum!
I’ve been attempting to cut out all refined sugar from my diet, and I’ve noticed that I’m having less headaches and stomachaches–like you, I’m not sure if they’re related but it seems to me that they are! Also, the less often I use sugar, the less I seem to crave sweet stuff. Go figure.
BUT I do use quite a bit of stevia to sweeten my coffee in the mornings, so maybe I lied about craving sweets…
Also, I never ever do artificial sweeteners like aspartame, nutra-sweet, splenda, etc. Several family members have severe allergic reactions to those substitutes so they were always banned in my house and now I find them pretty nasty.
AND I see that a couple people have used the actual stevia plant to sweeten things. I’m curious to see how they work!
Sweet post! (hilarious.)
-Monica
Excellent blog, I haven’t heard of Stevia. I cut down as much as I can on sugar as it is full of empty calories. However, I do include some in my diet because I find sweet food to be mentally healthy. A little bit of something sweet can make you feel better some days and my mind is as important as my body. I just make sure that I don’t eat the over processed stuff. Manuka Honey is a good form of sweetness for me as is Agave syrup and I LOVE Maple syrup 🙂
xx Sam xx
I’m with you girl – artificial sweetners give me stomachaches. However, stevia is the exception. I wish it weren’t so darn expensive though!
I generally have been avoiding white sugar and HFCS for a few years. For many reasons. I think they are causing the downfall of American society and the health care system (thank you monsanto). So I have learned to enjoy things that are less sweet or sweetened alternatively. My tastes have changed a lot. I enjoy many things unsweetened like coffee, tea, hot cocoa. For many recipes, I replace sugar with another sweetener and cut the amount in half. After making these changes, I don’t really like food sweetened to a normally accepted level sweetness, so avoiding sugar is not a self control thing. Its a taste preference thing.
My fave sugar sources are grade B maple syrup, agave, dates, fruit in general and recently Erythritol crystals (I’m still deciding if its too processed for me, its made from fermented sugar). I’ve used one brand of liquid stevia in some things, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of the taste. I’d like to try some others, though.
But from a natural source or not, I try not to eat too much sugar because it makes me feel healthier.
We took a food science test today and one of the units covered was artificial sweeteners (and stevia, but that’s not artificial). I was so surprised to hear that most of my fellow nutrition majors approved of artificial sweeteners… I, on the other hand, am violently opposed. The taste… The chemicals… The questions and uncertainty about safety… Plus, I am convinced that there’s some sort of nasty and addictive compounds in artificial sweeteners that scientists don’t know about yet. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I do enjoy the taste of stevia and use it in small amounts, just like you. I have never liked soda or felt the need to try diet soda either…
But there’s a study Purdue University is supposedly doing right now investigating the trick these sweeteners do on your brain…from what I gathered from hearsay, your brain and body get confused because the body is processing a low-calorie food, but your brain thinks it is getting a high-calorie food. The resulting mismatch between signals causes funky things…my speculation is that the appetite seeks more food.
But this is all to say that I would prefer to adjust my palate to crave unsweetened versions of things. But a slice of vegan cheesecake here and there is a-okay with me!
What I find amusing about my own experience is that I’ve never, ever in my life considered using artificial sweeteners (bar the VERY occasional Pepsi Max) until I visited America. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere, and my friends were all using it, and now I’ve become quite a fan of stevia.
And partly for the same reason as you – I’m not trying to cut calories, but I do eat an awful lot of sugar in other things (e.g. vast quantities of chocolate) so I don’t mind using stevia in a few things here and there.
But golly gee, I wish a company would send me samples of yummy things!!
I used to be obsessedddd with artificial sweetners. Particularly, Splenda. I think that loading up on chemicals is WORSE for you than loading up on refined sugar. I mean, both aren’t good…but I’d rather not mess around with my body’s natural chemistry 😕
I used your idea for carrot cake cereal & had it for bFast!