It tastes very sweet yet, supposedly it is neutral to the body, not being harmful or beneficial. Is it too good to be true by actually having harmful effects? Also, why is it not commonplace like sugar?
If you can stomach it and like the taste, great!I can’t for the life of me find Stevia edible in any way, nor do I know anyone who actually likes it. The Keto movement was very strong in my country 10 years ago, and I remember them trying to bake with that….thing. Tasted horrible every time.
Stevia like Monk Fruit is a plant. It’s not artificially made like other sweeteners. There are next to no randomized controlled trials or mechanistic data to show Stevia is harmful or even artificial sweeteners for that matter outside of animal studies where they pump the rats full of sucralose or aspartame to the point they have cancer. None of those studies are 1 for-1 human comparisons. For me drinking something Zevia or sweetening my coffee with monk fruit sweetener and erythritol is 100 percent better than getting the calories and sugar highs and crashes sugar gives me.
For me, ALL of the Stevia based sweeteners have a cloying Way To Sweet aftertaste the Refuses to disapate.
I don’t have the genetic component that makes Stevia taste like soap.
So in my coffee, I prefer Ideal Brand sweetener which is basically xylitol and sucralose. Yes, I know it’s not good for pets.
For cooking, there’s a lot more options, so there’s lots of brown sugar replacements that are fine, but why stock more than one sweetener?
Stevia is effective in extremely tiny amounts (0.3 g stevia is equivalent to 50g sugar), so unlikely to have any noticeable effect with normal use.
Some people don’t like the taste and it can be pricey, but I’m starting to see it used more in commercial products.
I had this same question last year, and looked into it briefly.
Unfortunately there are limited studies of the effects between stevia and the human body, so getting a solid answer will most likely be incomplete for now. However, there has been an uptick in research correlating negative effects between gut health and stevia. Trials vary among other dietary factors and the subjects themselves, but worth reviewing some articles/publications to get your own opinion on the matter.
This is just one article discussing a downside, but there have been others that don’t. As always, DYOR. Curious if you find any strong research, whether it’s for or against.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31159256/
I hope it’s not found out bad later on because I don’t mind it for for my coffee. I make it super strong and adding that gives me just enough sweet, what I need to stay off sugar. Learned it reacts to the same brain receptors as sugars so just go with it and help it along haha. -80lb of booze and sugar weight over 2 years. Feelin nice at 37. Like a greying 20 year old haha
All the sweetners that aren’t regular sugar, natural or artificial, give me awful headaches. Nothing else gives me headaches. All zero sugar, sugar free, or 0 calorie food and drink is not an option. I can tell 5-10 minutes after consumption.
Yep precisely. Natural sweeteners like stevia and even artificial sweeteners have no calories and have been shown to be very safe through countless trials.
One downside is that they can cause bloating for some people (especially in high amounts; sugar alcohols for example are digested by bacteria in your gut so it produces carbon dioxide gas and makes you farty).
The other downside is that they increase your appetite. I’ve stopped drinking Diet Coke because when I used to drink it, I would get an uncontrollable urge to eat junk food lol.
But despite these downsides, still 10x better than real sugar.
Stevia can never mimic sugar. I tried it for more than a year before giving it up and getting back to raw turbinado sugar. Stevia is either too minty or has a noticeably weird aftertaste. You can easily say that something is sweetened with Stevia. The only thing I can have with stevia is the “Zevia” drinks, but that also is rare now as I am not a soda addict anymore (I can live without any carbonated water now).
I tried to switch to stevia a few years ago but I really don’t like it. It has an aftertaste that I don’t like and foods don’t taste the same using it, and not in a good way. It’s also WAY too sweet for me. I have no idea the proper conversions, and I already use less sugar or honey or maple syrup in recipes than is called for. I don’t know about its qualities to humans because I haven’t looked too much into it because I don’t like it.
Stevia is an amazing plant packed with many benefits and it’s yummy and sweet too. I like to make chocolate bars sweetened with stevia.
Here’s a quote form an article I read about the health benefits of Stevia.
“Stevia products stimulate insulin production in diabetics, improve polycystic kidney disease, have chemotherapeutic action in cancer and possess powerful antibacterial, antioxidant and immunomodulating properties” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8600158/
well its taste sucks ass, so it’s not too good to begin with lol. also, a lot of stevia based sweeteners available in the market are very heavily processed and full of fillers, so i wouldn’t call them much better than sucralose/aspartame/regular sweeteners.
if you use the natural stevia leaves then it’s probably mildly beneficial for you.