Using traditional sugar to add sweetness to your drinks and baked goods can also add an unwanted amount of calories. To avoid these additional calories, you may have tried replacing sugar with other types of sweeteners. Stevia, a natural sweetener that comes from the stevia bush, is often used as an alternative to sugar.
Source
Stevia comes from the plant Stevia rebaudiana, which can be found growing wild in Paraguay and Brazil. The sweetest part of the plant is used to create the stevia sweetener. The leaves of the stevia pant have been used to sweeten foods by native cultures for many years.
Nutrients
Stevia has virtually no calories, making it similar to many types of artificial sweeteners. The differences are that stevia is derived from a natural source and, unlike many artificial sweeteners, it does not contain sucrose or fructose. Although it comes from natural source, stevia does not contain any beneficial nutrients. Using stevia in your food simply adds sweetness without adding any calories or nutrients.
Safety
In the United States, stevia was not approved for use as a sweetener until 2008. Before this, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had limited the use of stevia to food supplements. Then the FDA approved stevia for used in its concentrated form as a sweetener.
The World Health Organization has reported that it believes stevia to be safe as a sweetener that is generally used to sweeten foods, according to the American Dietetic Association. The WHO has set the safe upper limit for stevia use at 4 mg per kilogram of body weight per day. Also, stevia has not been reported to negatively affect the blood sugar levels of people with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes, reports the ADA.
Sweetness
In its natural form, stevia can leave you with a bitter aftertaste, but when produced as a sweetener stevia is much sweeter than table sugar. According to the ADA, stevia can be 200 to 300 times sweeter than traditional sugar. When using stevia as a replacement for table sugar, you can use less to add flavor your food because it is so much sweeter.
Current Uses
Stevia is currently available in individual package forms and in larger sizes for use in foods such as baked goods. Stevia can be found under brand names such as A Sweet Leaf, Sun Crystals, Truvia, PureVia and Steviva. Also, manufacturers such as Coca-Cola have begun to add stevia to sugar-free foods and beverages.
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