[Sca-cooks] Stevia

[El Hermoso Dormido]

On Tuesday 26 November 2002 04:01 pm, jenne at fiedlerfamily.net wrote:
> Well, that's funny, because a quick Google search on Stevia shows up a
> bunch of things that supposedly explain what glucosides are in Stevia.

Mentioning that it's a glucoside (which I had previously not found) helped.

Last time I searched, I got page after page of A)advertisements and B)the
aforementioned "it's all natural and it's not Evil Nutrasweet" sites...
(The very first site on a search for "Stevia" has a faq that mentions
glucosides, and then goes on to claim that Stevia's not sold as a "sweetener"
because "an agent admitted that it was because Nutrasweet [sic] complained to
the FDA" and it's not already popular because Big Sweetener Corporations
conspired against it back in the early 1900's because it was cheap.  Sites
that can refer to a pair of natural amino acids as an "artificial food
chemical" lack credibility in my estimation...

A search on "Glucoside Stevioside" turns up an interesting abstract on a
study which seems to show potentially therapeutic affects:

"Stevioside induces antihyperglycaemic, insulinotropic and glucagonostatic
effects in vivo: studies in the diabetic Goto-Kakizaki (GK) rats."

Unfortunately (and I DO mean unfortunately) if it's TRUE, that means it
is affecting the functioning of the body and could therefore potentially
cause harm in some people, and is argueably a "drug"...
(but see below)

> The FDA has banned Stevia to be sold as a food additive (see:
> http://www.fda.gov/ora/fiars/ora_import_ia4506.html) because they feel
> there are not enough toxicological studies.

Heh...though by now I've probably got most of the list convinced that I'm
a Willing Tool of The Man(tm), I've got to say I think the FDA is a bunch
of petty bureaucrats intent on getting more power and bigger budgets from
the federal government than on actually worrying about the health of
the US Populace.

And while what I wrote above implies a fear that it could be harmful, I very
much doubt that Stevia has any more capacity to harm anybody than any of the
other sweeteners on the market right now (INCLUDING plain old sucrose), and I
think it's utterly STUPID that because of the FDA, they have to label it a
"supplement" instead of just marketing it as another sweetener.

Furthermore - they actually do have bags of the stuff at a local supermarket
here.  I've been considering trying it.

> I suspect the PDR (Physician's Desk Reference) for Herbal Medicine could
> give you the information about what makes stevia sweet if you wanted to
> take the time to go look at your library's copy.

At this point, I just want to see a diagram of the molecule in question.

Yes, I AM a nerd, thank you very much. :-)

Signed,
El Hermoso Dormido, wondering what he did with the model of Eugenol
that he'd made and was calling his "lucky molecule"...