I was at Whole Foods with my boyfriend, and I came across something called Stevia, which is a plant whose leaves are extremely sweet. Seeing as I drink a lot of iced tea, I thought I’d try growing my own, since regular sugar (and the yellow and blue packeted derivitives) don’t dissolve so well, and sweet and low tends to give me headaches. After buying a plant at OSH, growing it, harvesting some leaves, and looking up ways to get the sweet into a liquid form, I read there might be some issues with the safety of stevia in general. Since some of these alleged problems are links to cancer (although isn’t everything linked to cancer these days?) and reproduction problems, I thought I’d come to the smartest people on the web and ask if anyone really knew the “straight dope”. I don’t want to take the word of a hippie on a commune, or the advice of the PR guy of a sweetener corporation as gospel. Additionally, I’ve heard the FDA regulates the importation of stevia pretty strongly, but if that were true, why would I be seeing more and more products boasting the stuff popping up? 
I don’t know if they regulate pretty strongly or not, but before they started doing that, they weren’t allowing it at all. Now that it is allowed you’re seeing more and more products boasting the stuff.
I avoid the dissolving issue and get liquid splenda, sweetzfree.com
Stevia was originally banned by the FDA under pressure from Monsanto, the manufacturer of Nutrasweet. In fact, the FDA violated its own policies in order to do so, since there is absolutely no evidence that stevia is unsafe. If you look at the actual document filed by the FDA, they claim that there is “insufficient evidence of safeness” for stevia. The actual policy states that there must be positive evidence of negative effects to ban a natural substance. Stevia has been used for centuries in South America without ill effect. It is used extensively in Japan, again without ill effect. There have been some 200 or so studies done on stevia, of which the only side effect reported has been a (very) slight decrease in the potency of male rats for extremely large doses of stevia. There have also been scary noises about the possible mutagenic effects of stevia, not because there’s any evidence for it, but because there is no evidence against it. No one knows for sure what the breakdown products are of stevia or how they interact, but we know for a damned certainty that aspartame breaks down into some very unpleasant and dangerous substances (such as methanol).
As further evidence that the FDA’s witch hunt against stevia was motivated by Monsanto, when the FDA was forced to remove its blanket ban on stevia, they created a rule that it could be sold only as an herbal supplement. Companies were banned from referring to stevia as “sweet” anywhere on the container or in advertising, despite the fact that it’s about 400 times sweeter than sugar, by volume.
For the record, I have consumed large amounts of stevia for years, with no ill effects. Stevia is safe, tastes good, and has been shown to help type-2 diabetics regulate blood sugar levels. In short, we could have been using stevia for a decade or more except for the efforts of Monsanto to get rid of it.
SmashTheState has just given what is in my opinion the only reason it took so long for it to be allowed in the USA. As for growing your own, the seed is expensive and the germination is not high. There is a good chance you won’t be able to get the seed and it’s not hardy to over winter in cold climates like Wisconsin where I live. Order you seed early if you want to grow it.
You might just order the leaf extract.
Edited to add: the European Union has much the same attituede towards stevia extract as the one decibed in the US. It is not permitted as a foodstuff or food additive, because of “the lack of independent European research” . It is however, for sale for cosmetic purposes. Yeah, I know, cosmetic?
Putting aside allegations of conspiracy, a stevia advocacy site appears to reference several studies that bear out the notion that the stuff is safe. At the bottom of the linked page, it makes reference to the contraception concerns and deconstructs a study that may have supported (or may be cited in support of) the idea that it can decrease fertility.
Here’s another article about a peer-reviewed study (commissioned by a corporation that is going to market a stevia extract) that says it is safe.
Is this journal regarded within the scientific community as carrying credibility? The only reason I ask is one of their most-oft cited articles is on the mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana Linn.), and I quote from the abstract:
“Experimental studies have demonstrated that extracts of GML have antioxidant, antitumoral, antiallergic, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and antiviral activities.”
Really?
edit: here is the abstract: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T6P-4T542J0-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e2082ac699287e27fb4c7869973fafb6
Like all new sweetners (ignoring its pre-ban condition for now) its impossible to be very sure. Right now, all the information on the subject suggests its just as safe as any alternative.
Sadly, even after 30 years of nutrasweet I still see information (usually on the web) on how it causes cancer and other conspiracy theories. I think being deathly scared of sweetners is something thats socially acceptable. The science doesnt matter for some people. Its like our brains refuse to accept a zero calorie sweetner so we assume there must be a serious catch. This has fed a disinformation cycle, usually started by eco-warriors and health food nutters.
In the end of the day its just chemistry. Drink your stevia. Stop worrying so much.
This spring, when I was looking through greenhouses and nurseries, stevia plants (already germinated and about 4 inches tall) were pretty easy to find, at least in Chicago. Even some grocery stores had it out in their plant sections, along with the basil, oregano, etc. I didn’t buy any, but the price was the same as the other herbs, anywhere from the $1.50-$4 range depending on how fancy the nursery was.
There is a catch- it tastes like shit. 
I would take SmashTheState’s link with a grain of salt, seeing how it’s completely uncited and all.
And he is inarguably anti-establishment.
I live in an area that gets stuff 20 years after it becomes available.
I have considered putting a bug in the ear of a greenhouse operator I know, but if it don’t sell the first year they try it, it won’t be back. I thought of it rather late this year. Maybe next spring they’ll be in the area.
That too, but I didn’t think it was appropriate to mention that in GQ.
Being a plant, Stevia can be hard to grow and get consistant results. You may grow a batch that is fine, but the next batch isn’t so sweet. The Japanese have been using Stevia much, much longer than in the West. I would Google around for Japanese studies and Japanese use of Stevia.
I live in Colombia and Stevia is plentiful here in all the stores. I use it every day and have for the past year or so. I see nothing wrong with using it to sweeten your coffee, tea or cereal. I don’t know about sweetening other things, but it works for me in the things I previously mentioned. I buy a box of it with 100 packets like Splenda. I might add that I am diabetic.
If you’re going to make such an accusation you’ll need something better than this link, which features undocumented charges and is almost entirely a fulmination about aspartame.
Stevia for years has been marketed as a dietary supplement, because it was a way to get around regulations that otherwise would have required proof of its safety. Now that sufficient studies demonstrating safety (at least in the view of a consensus on the subject) have built up and there has been enough lobbying from big corporations (oh, the irony) seeing a market for a “natural sweetener”, the FDA has okayed general use of stevia.
I doubt the level of conspiracy theorizing and nutbaggery that has been generated around aspartame will ever be duplicated for stevia, but it wouldn’t surprise me if all sorts of claims of alleged stevia-related health problems start getting promulgated by the alt med community, now that stevia is no longer just a trendy anti-corporate sweetener but has been co-opted by the Establishment.
This is typical of the sort of scare stories spread by the uninformed. Aspartame is a simple combination of two common amino acids that are building blocks for proteins and found in many foods. Saying that aspartame “breaks down into METHANOL” is akin to the scaremongering about “formaldehyde” allegedly in vaccines (any trace amounts of this compound are dwarfed by formaldehyde normally found in the human body as a metabolic breakdown product - the same goes for methanol).
"Before its FDA approval, the safety of aspartame was tested in over 100 scientific studies. These studies were carried out in both humans and laboratory animals and included studies of rats that were fed aspartame in doses greater than 100 times the amount that humans would normally consume."
There was no valid reason that stevia not go through a similar approval process.
Well! Your testimonial means more to us than any nasty old corporate research studies. :dubious:
The argument that stevia has been used for a long time by less developed cultures doesn’t carry a lot of weight, since life spans in those cultures have typically been much shorter, not allowing time for nasties like cancer to have been detected, assuming that medical surveillance was advanced enough to have detected increased cancer or birth defect incidence anyway. A number of herbs that supposedly were guaranteed safe through traditional use have been found to have serious side effects by modern medical science (including comfrey, chaparral and aristolochia, which have been linked to major organ failure).
I would be willing to try stevia-sweetened products. I’m not sure I’d want to pay substantially more for them because they’re “natural” (stevia users at this point will pay a premium because it’s more expensive than other sweeteners). I like the idea of continuing to use sugar, in moderation.
*incidentally, the Italian foundation that’s been beating the drug about alleged aspartame dangers has been found to have used poor research methodology and its claims are not taken seriously by the vast majority of health experts.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a citation by the FDA which says, “We were pressured by Monsanto to ban stevia and acted in an unethical manner.” However, here is some background on the history of stevia from the Weston A. Price Foundation, including information on the collusion of the FDA with Monsanto to keep it off the market.
Chapter on stevia from “Sugar Free Blues” quoted as fair use. (Note to mods: I have gone to the effort of making the citations clickable, which they are not in the original. This is a little long, but it’s a small part of a much larger work, and making the citations clickable justifies its length, IMO.):
Stevia
Stevia, another natural sweetener derived from a plant, is becoming a well-known option in many U.S. health food stores. A native of Paraguay and a member of the sunflower family, the stevia plant is botanically known as Stevia rebaudiana. The plant is also referred to as Bertoni, a nod of remembrance toward Moises S. Bertoni, the Italian botanist who first studied stevia in 1899.li Taken as a whole, the leaves of the stevia plant average at about 30 times sweeter than sucrose. Scientists have isolated and named a number of individual sweet compounds within the stevia plant, chiefly including stevioside, steviobioside, rebaudiosides A, B, C, D and E, and dulcoside A. The sweetness of these purified substances varies between 50 to 450 times that of sucrose. (Stevioside, the most commonly-used extractive of stevia, is about 300 times sweeter than sucrose.){1}[/li]
Stevia leaves and stevioside are virtually calorie-free, beneficial in the prevention of cavities and do not trigger a rise in blood sugar. They are not only safe for diabetics and hypoglycemics, but in some countries stevia leaves are even prescribed as a medicinal substance for these conditions because they normalize pancreatic function and thus aid in the metabolism of sugar.li The whole stevia leaves contain a number of beneficial compounds, including ascorbic acid, calcium, beta-carotene, chromium, cobalt, iron, magnesium, manganese, niacin, phosphorus, potassium, riboflavin, selenium, silicon, sodium, thiamin, tin and zinc. (It should be noted that only the whole stevia leaves have nutritive benefits. Stevioside extracts merely function as a sweetener and pass through the body undigested, although they do possess anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties.)* When applied topically, the stevia leaves also fight acne and speed wound healing while also reducing the formation of scar tissue.[/li]
While natives of Paraguay have used the stevia plant for many centuries, the western world has also had a few centuries of experience with this sweet plant, dating back much earlier than Bertoni’s time. Spanish Conquistadors of the sixteenth century learned about stevia from the local Guarani and Mato Grosso societies, who used it to sweeten teas and herbal medicines. Early European settlers sweetened foods, teas and other beverages with stevia, and Gauchos (the local version of what we might call cowboys) in the region of Paraguay later used it as a sweetener.
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1 - Alternative Sweeteners, Third Edition. Lyn O’Brien Nabors (editor)
2 - “Lo Han: A Natural Sweetener Comes of Age” article from Whole Foods, June 2003, by Peilin Guo and Dallas Clouatre
This is true. I recently had the opportunity to speak to an ex-Gatorade VP and he told me at the time of his leaving the big thing they were working on was appealing to the “nature” brand. Stevia is at the top of the list. They are doing this solely because people distrust artificial sweetners. They did not see any big benefits in sweetness or cost. If you put “natural” on the label, you can expect more sales.
Here’s a question- what does it taste like? I can’t stand other artificial sweeteners; they all have bitter, sour or medicinal aftertastes.