Olade lemonade, with Stevia! (worth reading about)

Cafe Society
1

Olade web site

Has anyone tried it? Brad Wilk, the drummer for Rage Against The Machine, and his wife Serena Wilk, lead singer for 7 Year Bitch, started a company called Ola Beverage, and their first product is a 5 calorie, zero carb lemonade called Olade. What’s really cool about it is that it’s sweetened with Stevia, a plant native to Central and South America, that, while currently banned as a food additive in the US (due to a bunch of political bullshit) can be sold and used as a “dietary supplement” :rolleyes:, which is, I assume, how the label lists the ingredient. I’ve been using Stevia for years and love it.

Olade was sold at Coachella and Lollapalloza so I’m wondering if anyone tried it. I’d love to, but for now it’s a bit pricey, $25.00 per 12-pack. A special that was running, buy one case and get one free, doesn’t seem to be in effect anymore, even though it’s still listed on the web site and on amazon.com. I went through the checkout process with 2 cases in my cart, but right up until the final button to submit order it still had a double price, and I wasn’t going to pay $50.00 for lemonade, no matter how much I want to try it, and support them, so I canceled the order.

According to the press materials, Wilk has diabetes, and had been making his own lemonade for years, using fresh lemons, spring water and Stevia. Also according to the web site, new products will be rolling out in September, including Tea-Olade (lemonade / iced tea mix), Pom-Olade, Cran-Olade, Mint-Olade, Ginger-Olade, and Berry-Olade.

I wish them well. Hooray for anyone making anything with Stevia as an additive. I hope this is just the beginning, and that the price comes down.

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Don’t know if people know how cool this is. Several people have tried this previously have been harassed by the FDA. Apparently, you can include Stevia if you don’t claim it is a “sweetener”, only that it is a “herbal extract”. But it’s 300 times sweeter than sugar by volume and lacks the awful aftertaste of most artificial sweeteners.

3

I love stevia, and never noticed any kind of aftertaste at all. I hadn’t thought of making lemonade with it, though. I may have to do that tonight.

4

I’ve made tea with Stevia before and was really impressed with it, since it added a lot of sweetness without any sort of weird aftertaste. I’d love to try it in lemonade! Too bad it’s unlikely I’ll come across it out here unless I manage to talk the co-op into ordering some.

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The website indicates that they are building up to a national launch in September.

6

I hate Stevia. It is the absolute worse sugar substitute I have ever tried. I can’t imagine trying any product that uses it. Sticking with Splenda. RMV

7

There’s some packets of stevia in our kitchen at work, and I tried it with coffee I think, and it was easily the worst sweetener I’d ever tasted. Absolutely awful.

I have no problem with Sweet’NLow or Equal or Splenda.

8

Anything with Aspartame has a vinyl aftertaste to me. Can’t stand Equal or Sweet’n’Low but Splenda is good, and I quite like Pepsi One.

I’ve found that different brands of Stevia extract have different tastes. Now brand liquid extract is the best tasting to me. One other thing to consider, it’s a plant extract and can spoil. Those packets might have been sitting around for a long time. If you get a chance, you ought to try a couple of drops of the liquid extract in tea.

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I ran across some Stevia plants at the local hardware store nursery.

Am growing a few plants…just for the hell of it.

You take a fresh leaf and eat it.

Damn if it doesnt taste just like sugar…or at least darn close.

And I am one of those folks that finds most sugar substitutes only tolerable…and some downright nasty.

Helpful hint to the readers. Never try to make sugar cookies using splenda. One of the most vile cooking experiments I have experienced in recent memory.

I guess a good question might be this: Is Stevia a good substitute in that it has much less of the “negative effects” of true sugar? I am kind of skeptical that a natural substance that taste like sugar iwould not be very sugar like for all practical purposes.

Even if it is very sugar like, it doesnt seem significantly easier for the home grower looking for a source of “sugar” than growing sugar beets, sugar cane, or making corn syrup…

Blll

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[Anecdotal information from personal experience] It’s said that for diabetics, it has zero to negligible impact on blood sugar, and I’ve found that to be true for myself. As someone who grew up eating sugary things with abandon (ice cream, Hostess Cup Cakes, candy bars, any and everything), I’ve been surprised to find I’m so sensitive to sugar now that I can’t even eat bacon, sausage, ham, etc. that’s been cured in anything sugar-like (sugar, brown sugar, molasses, whatever) and have to look for special brands. And yet I can put as much Stevia in my coffee as I want (and I like my coffee very sweet) and it makes no difference to my blood sugar numbers or my weight, which fluctuates wildly with even the most minute amount of sugar, or any other sugar substitute. Plus it has no aftertaste to me, and doesn’t give me a headache, the way aspartame does. Also, it doesn’t have any of the laxative qualities of sugar alcohols. Stevia is an amazing thing.

I do agree though, that certain brands taste far worse than others. I think that Stevia with less fillers are the best. It’s when companies start adding crap like maltodextrin and whatnot to add bulk (to save money, no doubt) that they’re making what was once pure downright nasty. I hate maltodextrin and try to avoid it like the plague. I love the convenience of those “to go” packets like Crystal Light or Wylers that you can just open and pour into a bottle of water to flavor, but I can’t stomach them because they have both maltodextrin AND aspartame in them. I was delighted when I found Stevia-sweetened packets at amazon when I was looking to buy the Olade. I’ve ordered some and can’t wait to try them.

11

I couldn’t agree more.

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I’d be interested to know what you guys had that had Stevia in it, or what kind of Stevia it was you tried. I have some black liquid Stevia in the fridge that’s languished there for months because I think it’s totally nasty. If I hadn’t tried that after already knowing about and liking the clear liquid and powdered Stevia, I might think all Stevia was just as nasty.

13

I used Stevia regularly for a year or two. It’s definitely an acquired taste, like diet sweeteners always are. I had a liquid extract I got used to using in my coffee, but it seemed to work best mixing it with some sugar-free lemonade mix.

Olade might be onto something, and I’d like to see Stevia used more widely. Maybe if enough companies experiment with it, they could make it taste a little better. In the meantime, just get yourself some and make your own lemonade.

It’s easy to grow, too. It’s like mint, and can be used fresh pretty much the same way.

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I hate sugar substitutes with a passion. The slightest sip of any of them sets me a’gaggin’. They’re my second most hated “food” right after cilantro.

But last summer I bought a box of xylitol/stevia packets and found them to be acceptable. Not sugar, but for once something that kind of approximated it. Unfortunately, I did the math on the packets and found out they just weren’t worth the cost. I was blowing through them like a hooker on coke. It took 3 or 4 packets minimum to sweeten anything.

If it ever got cheaper though, I could probably get accustomed to it and almost eliminate sugar from my diet.

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How much were you paying, just out of curiousity? At Netrition you can get 100 packets for $5.79 (flavored packets are slightly more). I like Netrition because their shipping is a flat $4.95 no matter how much you order or how heavy the order is, even if you get several bottles of Da Vinci syrup!

amazon.com also has several brands with different pricing. The first one listed is more expensive (SweetLeaf tends to be more expensive than other brands), but scroll down for more. I haven’t tried any of those so I can’t recommend one. I am going to get some with my next paycheck, but I haven’t decided which. Probably Simply Stevia because of its purity and price.

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Thanks for the links. I never thought to check online, I just bought it in a local store. IIRC I figured the packets to be about $0.17 each, but they were tiny. Even sweetening a little cup of hot tea was 3 or 4 packets at least. I liked to put it in organic plain yogurt with fresh blueberries but that took about 5 packets before you could even taste it.

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From advice from some health nutz at work I got some powdered form from a local health food store, and a couple bottles of “diet” soda (might have been from Brazil or something). I gave it all to the nutz the next day. I don’t “acquire” tastes, it is either good or it is not.

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Do you like beer or wine or coffee? Very few people like those the first time they try them, but I’m sure you know how most people feel about them once the acquire a taste.

I find the tastes I’ve acquired are the ones I appreciate the most. I hated horehound when I was a kid but I ate it all the time because my grandpa liked it. Now I love its nuanced flavor.

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Your using the term “health nutz” doesn’t give you much credibility about your willingness to try something that’s out of the norm, but no matter. Not everything is for everybody. Whatever works for you is what you should eat. I happen to like Stevia. It and Splenda are the only alternative sweeteners I can stomach, but Stevia is not used in mainstream products in the US, until now. I’m glad to see it in something that’s getting some attention so that others will follow suit and give us more variety.

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Let’s back this bus up a few stops - stevia is not FDA approved as a safe food additive because, and I quote fromtheir website:

Stevia is allowed as an herbal supplement, but that’s not because it’s safe; that’s because supplements aren’t as carefully controlled as they should be. I’m not sure what politics are involved in this, but it seems like stevia simply doesn’t have enough data yet to be allowed to be put in your food.

*I don’t know what GRAS is, and it doesn’t specify on that site.