Do any of you out there use stevia? I love it, because I like the taste and it seems healthier to me than the packets of powdered sweeteners often available in coffee shops and stuff...however, I do wonder if I'm just buying into marketing and I use it daily so it's always in the back of my mind whether I should cut it out (or at least down) or maybe it's just fine?? I use the liquid SweetLeaf brand of "Sweet Drops". I put it in my coffee, tea, yogurt, unsweetened almond milk...
Yes, I use it for a couple of cups of tea each day. I use the powdered versions of whatever I find on sale. When I use the Truvia brand, I only use half the packet per cup.
For completely unscientific reasons, I try to limit it to two servings a day.
I use it every day in my coffee. It's great stuff. Completely natural and safe. The liquid or the pellets are the ones to use. Unfortunately all powdered sweeteners, Stevia included, use Dextrose (Glucose) as a bulking agent, so it kind of defeats the point.
Can't stand the stuff I'm afraid, although it's better than your standard aspartame sweeteners :)
To me it has a real minty xylitol after taste to it, if I do really have a hankering for a sweet drink or something I just use agave nectar and bolus for it.
If I have cream in the coffee with the agave and bolus accordingly I don't seem to spike.
I get terrible stomache ache from it so don’t use it. Nancy
I love stevia, I use it all the time, for baking, in tea, made the cranberry sauce with it and so on. I use Sweet Leaf too, they are the only brand that doesn't add sugar, sugar alcohols in etc. Their packets have inulin which doesn't spike me. I also get Wholefoods brand liquid stevia which has alcohol instead of glycerin and which is cheaper than sweet leaf stevia- it comes in a big bottle. There are one or two other brands that have only pure stevia powder. It is most definitely healthier than all the other non sugar sweeteners and it doesn't spike me at all. I have a stevia plant now and plan to try to make my own stevia.
I thought it was cool too, I tried growing it from seeds but failed and found one at home depot I think- it's a pretty plant, quite large- I just moved it in for the winter two weeks ago and now I have to read up on making my own stevia extract. The wholefoods brand is 365, they have one liquid with glycerin, and one with alcohol- glycerin will spike me. They also have a 365 powder with only pure stevia extract. NOW also makes a powder form with nothing added in which I like. Try amazon also if you can't find what you want, I was ordering sweetleaf drops from there for a while in bulk from one seller there until they ran out recently, but they may start back up again soon. I didn't like the sweetleaf pills in metal containers, something added in to them had a very gritty texture which winds up at the bottom of your tea/coffee if you use them for that, but the cases were nice for putting in your purse/pocket for going out.
I also use stevia daily, and have also wondered about how healthy it really is. I've heard of a new sweetener called Swerve (http://www.swervesweetener.ca/) that's supposedly even better. Has anyone heard of that?
I envy those of you who find the taste of stevia pleasing... yuck yuck yuck
I don't care for the taste of Stevia, but I understand that there is a liquid, "debittered" version available. Has anyone tried it? Thanks.
Stevia is great. I don't use a lot of sweetener. Always have done my coffee black. I do drink "Zevia" soda though, pretty much every day.
I have found another sweetener that I like much better. Zero after taste and BG concerns. Measure like sugar and best of all it cooks up like sugar. It is called "Swerve". We had to ask our local low carb store to bring it in earlier this year. Evidently we are not the only ones who llike it. When we retirned for more they had added the confectioner's version to their offerings at the store. Made LC pumpkin bread and cookies for Thanksgiving that turned out great.
I use the liquid stevia manufactured by NOW Foods (available online from a variety of vendors including Amazon.com). For portability, I carry a small squeeze bottle (container used originally for eye drops) of approximately 7.5cc capacity. It is convenient/portable and I use 5 to 7 drops per full cup of coffee. Beats anything else I have tried. For those who prefer the convenience of stevia packets, the current version of Truvia now uses erythritol as a diluent instead of dextrose/glucose so it is finally diabetic-friendly (note: applies to Truvia packets only, not to their powdered version intended for baking).
I bought Swerve on line about 9 months ago and it really spiked up my glucose. It was the powder for baking but it shouldn't have that much of a spike in my opinion. I will be tossing it out soon.
That' s odd. I have been using it for over 6 months and have never seen a spike. I normally use it to sweeten beverages like lime in seltzer water or iced tea and coffee. I did not check closely with the baked goods. The cookies were made with coconut flour and did have some impact, but not more than expected. The pumpkin bread was made with almond flour and again I did not see anything unexpected. I love ths stuff way more than stevia, although I use them both. The thing I like best about these two is that there are no chemicals like chlorine and ethal alcohol that remain other products like splenda and sweet n low.
I used it soley for sweetening rhubarb which requires a lot of sweet! I measured just like sugar only a little less. 5g carb per teaspoon is a lot in my opinion but I wanted to give it a try anyway. I've had T1D for many many many years so I guess I'm just used to the no carb sweeteners even though they are certainly not good for us.
It is expensive... I think the least expensive one is the larger wf 365 bottle which has alcohol not glycerin added in. My wf didn't get it for a while and only had the smaller bottle with glycerin. I also ordered sweetleaf in bulk from amazon which was less expensive than their larger bottle in stores. But that has disappeared temporarily now also.
I don't like erythritol or any of the sugar alcohols. They are all laxatives and have given me the runs/gas/stomach upset as does aspartame & sucralose. Sucralose also spikes me.
I tried the butterscotch and chocolate but not for a while- I buy huge bottles of vanilla at bj's with no sugar added and just add that on everything, lol. I will have to try that with that tea because I love creamsicles. When I was getting it in bulk at Amazon I think it came to about $15 per 4 oz bottle with the subscriber repeat discount. The 365 is 17.99 for 8 oz.
I think stevia is the healthiest by far of all of them... I haven't read any credible info about any dangers on stevia. But of course if someone reacts to it then it's not for them, or if they don't like the flavor etc. For me it works, I don't need the huge sugar rush in my tea, just a little bit is fine and for baking I find it works really well- it depends what you add it to.
On the other hand there is plenty of info on dangers of aspartame and it makes me immediately ill, I feel aspartame and splenda taste really awful too, sickeningly sweet. I don't know how I was drinking soda with that after my diagnosis I must have been crazy! The last time I had that was when I tried some cough drops in desperation and had a terrible stomach ache, gas, runs immediately and headache- it was awful. Now I will just use steam, tea, vics vaporizer/rub, ice etc. I haven't figured out how to make a sweetener sugar free cough drop yet.