Sugar vs. SteviaWritten by a non medical professional who simply wasted an entire day researching for 10 hours and thus ignoring laundry.
Regular refined
cane sugar from walmart is sucrose that has been extracted from sugarcane and then processed and bleached.
Sugarcane is the actual grass stalk that contains a juice that is evaporated into crystals (when raw is brownish). This is all natural but does contain calories and does not dissolve as easily at refined sugar.
Splenda processes the sucrose from sugarcane into sucralose. There is nothing all natural about this and it is highly processed which is kinda scary to me. Much better than aspartame, but still scary. All sweeteners use bulking agents...one actually being Sugar. The product can be described as "sugar free" if a serving contains less than 5 grams of sugar, and "calorie free" if a serving is less than 5 calories. Splenda packets contains 1 gram of sugar and contain 4 calories. Diabetics can have 4 packets of splenda before it messes with their blood sugar levels. Consuming a lot of Splenda will in fact create the same effect as sugar does. If you think you are getting zero calories and zero sugar by consuming this....you aren't!
Stevia is the world’s
only all natural sweetener with zero calories, zero carbohydrates and a zero glycemic index. Stevia is an herb with a very potent sweetness to it.
You can grow stevia and grind up the leaf into green powder and eat it just like that. The green powder has more nutrients and phytonutrients but does not dissolve. I have read that it can have more of a licorice sweet taste and if you use too much, it can be a little bitter.
The
white stevia powder is made using the extract of stevia leaves called steviosides through a natural steaming water process and then crystalized. The stevia is sold using a percentage. The higher the percentage of stevioside, the sweeter it is.
Pure stevia extract in powder form lasts soooooo long as it is super sweet and since it is only the steviasides and not the entire stevia leaf, it does not have the bitter licorice taste some find in the green powder.
Spoonable stevia contains another ingredient which is a natural filler called erythritol (a natural sugar alcohol found in pears and grapes). This is more convenient for baking than pure extract. 1/4 cup is equivalent to 1 cup of sugar. White powder Stevia dissolves just fine but does not caramelize like sugar does.
Truvia is similar but mostly erythritol instead of being mostly stevia extract. It also contains other "natural flavors." This is a much better choice over Splenda as it seemingly is in fact all natural but it is "calorie-free" and states there is "not a significant amount of calories" instead of "zero calorie". Truvia measures out regularly like sugar where as stevia does not.
Pure stevia extract in
liquid form is 200-300 times sweeter than regular sugar. Only 1.5-2.5 teaspoons to every cup of sugar. If using the liquid in baking, you will need a bulking agent (applesauce, banana puree, yogurt, etc). This will take practice to perfect to your liking. It is however perfect for dropping into tea or coffee. It is so sweet you will only need a drop.
There are many
recipes using stevia and I hope to try baking with it soon...when I stop being scared of baking. It sure does make my detox tea yummy though!!
She is amazing and I love seeing her everyday! We have been super busy since starting last month. She found that quickbooks was all messed up and unreconciled, the office and storage were a disaster, and I realized that no payments from insurance or patients had been applied to their accounts since Febuary 2010!! Also several claims were going to the wrong address, weren't authorized, had a diagnosis or CPT code error and were NEVER fixed and resent!! It's been crazy but I'm still loving it! There is always something interesting that happens which breaks the monotony of my life...like when the Dr. Phil show calls to get one of their guests some continued therapy with us. Everyone I work with is so sweet and hard working. I could not be more blessed right now.
