Olade lemonade, with Stevia! (worth reading about)

[pinkfreud]

@featherlou

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.

GRAS is an acronym for “Generally Recognized As Safe.”

[levdrakon]

Well, you can read about the controversy around Stevia on wikipedia. To me, it sounds like a bunch of baloney stirred up by the existing artificial sweetener industry to shut out a natural herb that has been safely used for centuries, they can’t patent.

[Equipoise]

@levdrakon

Well, you can read about the controversy around Stevia on wikipedia. To me, it sounds like a bunch of baloney stirred up by the existing artificial sweetener industry to shut out a natural herb that has been safely used for centuries, they can’t patent.

Yep, that’s how I see it too. And you’re right, it’s been used for centuries in Central and South America. In more modern times, look at Japan…

In the early 1970s, Japan began cultivating stevia as an alternative to artificial sweeteners such as cyclamate and saccharin, which are suspected carcinogens. The plant’s leaves, the aqueous extract of the leaves, and purified steviosides are used as sweeteners. Since the Japanese firm Morita Kagaku Kogyo Co., Ltd. produced the first commercial stevia sweetener in Japan in 1971,[10] the Japanese have been using stevia in food products, soft drinks (including Coca Cola),[11] and for table use. Japan currently consumes more stevia than any other country, with stevia accounting for 40% of the sweetener market.[12]

If there were dangers associated with its everyday use I’m sure we would have heard about it by now.

[Cisco]

Damn, I wonder if that’s why the Coke I drank in Japan tasted different. I got in an argument with a professor last semester when he INSISTED that Coke uses the same recipe all over the world and I - having been to 11 different countries as opposed to just reading about them - know they don’t.

[Bill_Door]

It doesn’t have to be a huge conspiracy to keep stevia off the shelves. It’s mainly that the testing protocols to demonstrate its safety would be very expensive, and no one anywhere would make any money off it. Who would pay for these tests?

That said, I use Stevia Glycerite liquid, it adds some bulk to the stevia and allows it to be used more easily. Splenda is far superior for cooking and baking, but for a lot of things stevia is my sweetener of choice.

[gaffa]

@Bill Door

It doesn’t have to be a huge conspiracy to keep stevia off the shelves. It’s mainly that the testing protocols to demonstrate its safety would be very expensive, and no one anywhere would make any money off it. Who would pay for these tests?

It’s food. Would sugar pass tests to determine if it was safe? I can understand these tests for laboratory created sweetener, but something that has been used for hundreds of years of use in different cultures? That’s like demanding that corn syrup be tested to show that it is safe.

[pulykamell]

@Cisco

Damn, I wonder if that’s why the Coke I drank in Japan tasted different. I got in an argument with a professor last semester when he INSISTED that Coke uses the same recipe all over the world and I - having been to 11 different countries as opposed to just reading about them - know they don’t.

I don’t know whether Japan Coke uses stevia (I wouldn’t have thought so, but who knows), but I do know that not all Coke is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup like most here in the US. One reason Mexican Coke is prized among Coke aficionados is that it’s made with cane sugar instead of HFCS. (Actually, there’s also a Passover version of Coke here in the US that is sweetened with cane sugar, as well). It’s quite possible what you were tasting was sucrose-sweetened Coke.

A quick glance through the internet seems to indicate that Diet Coke in Japan used to contain stevia, but now is sweetened with aspartame in order to standardize the product.

Other than the sweetener, I believe the Coke formula is the same world round.

[RiverRunner]

@pulykamell

I don’t know whether Japan Coke uses stevia (I wouldn’t have thought so, but who knows), but I do know that not all Coke is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup like most here in the US. One reason Mexican Coke is prized among Coke aficionados is that it’s made with cane sugar instead of HFCS. (Actually, there’s also a Passover version of Coke here in the US that is sweetened with cane sugar, as well). It’s quite possible what you were tasting was sucrose-sweetened Coke.

Re Coke and HFCS, The Perfect Master speaks :

Still, whatever may be said about the formula, Coke’s taste has certainly altered over the years. The most radical (and to serious Coke aficionados, most upsetting) change came in 1980, when Coke, in an effort to control costs, permitted its bottlers to substitute high-fructose corn sweetener for the beet and cane sugar once used in the product.

The result was that Coke’s previously crisp and bracing taste was sadly blunted. For that reason I didn’t share the feelings of the fanatics who stocked up on “old” Coke when the new version was first introduced. The regrettable fact is that Coke hasn’t been It for many years.

RR

[Cat_Whisperer]

Coke in Canada is made with sugar/glucose/fructose rather than high fructose corn syrup (I just went and looked on the can). My husband, a coke drinker, swears that coke in the US is not as good as what he’s used to in Canada. Just a little hijack for those of you close to the Canadian border.

[bufftabby]

I tried powdered stevia a few times, and had hit-or-miss results. I don’t know if I put too much in sometimes or what, but the result was bad enough to completely turn me off of stevia.

I like using agave nectar as a sweetener. It tastes kinda funny in coffee, so I use splenda for that, but agave is great in lots of other things. It has an extremely low glycemic index sweetener as well. It’s a great substitute for honey, especially if you get the dark kind.

[Number]

@Equipoise

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.

I emailed their support and got this reply:

If you log on to amazon.com, http://catalog.amazon.com/abis/detailPage.amzn?asin=B0015S9174. The special offer and product promotions are mentioned below the product features; the promotion will be fulfilled after you purchase a case or more of Olade Lemon Squeeze.

Unfortunately the instructions on that link aren’t too helpful. My best guess is that you buy one case through Amazon and they will know to ship you two cases instead of one.