HERB - stevia

[Carl/Anne Adamczyk]

I'm sorry to be a bit late with my 2 cents worth here.  It may be very
difficult to find nutritional information on stevia anywhere.  I does not
affect blood sugars but is not artificial like aspartame or saccharine. 
Check out the FDA web site, address slips my mind right now, maybe
www.FDA.gov.  The government all but banned stevia in the past and it is
has banned claims that it is a low calorie sugar substitute.  I can only
be sold as a nutritional supplement similar to vitamins.  In a prior post
I did mix up stevia with aspartame.  It doesn't loose sweetness with
heating, it does get bitter in larger amounts.  I never used it in my
coffee but I did use it on cereal.  I didn't use it for a short time
period (2 weeks or so) and when I went to use it again, the entire bottle
had crystallized.  At $12 for the bottle I considered it an economic
waste.  Sugar only has about 16 calories per teaspoon.  If refined sugar
wont do, how about raw sugar.  It is not bleached or refined and a more
natural product, still with only about 16 calories/tsp.  If I understand
fermentation properly, the yeast require a sugar source to feed on for
fermentation to occur.  I'm not sure stevia will fulfill this
requirement.

Grania
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