Stevia

Ok, WTF is this shit? I'm drinking it now. I mixxed 2 packs of this, two tablespoons of lemon juice, and about a quart of ice water. I'm trying to cool down in this sweltering heat, and this stuff is actually not bad.

It's suppose to be a zero calorie alternative to sugar and my sister tells me to use this instead of Splenda or Nutrasweet. She says the latter two give you formaldehyde, or AIDS, or cancer of the ass or something else not good.

Anyone else tried this? Is what she says true?

Stevia is a leaf. Looks a little like mint leaves:



And unless it's mixed with something else, that's all it is - completely natural. (If you come across a stevia plant in a Whole Foods or a plant nursery, snitch a leaf and chew on it - very sweet.)

Splenda (brand name)/Nutrasweet (generic) isn't life-threatening, but some people are allergic to it (like MSG), and in others it's a mild diuretic (makes you pee more frequently).

^
What she said. I was totally stoked to find an actual stevia plant in the garden section of the Navy Exchange a few weeks ago, and wished I'd had a place to plant it. The leaf WAS sweet to eat, and would make a great alternative to regular sugar in sweet tea.

I use stevia when I make a cup of tea because it tastes pretty good. I use Splenda for cooking. What your sister says about the formaldehyde stuff is just a continuation of an already classic urban legend. It was aspartame's deadly deal before it was used for Splenda: http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp

The reason Stevia doesn't get the bum rap by the folks who hit saccharine, aspartame, and sucralose (Splenda) is because it's derived straight from a plant, and as we all know, plants are harmless, and organic, and completely safe to chew, nibble, consume, fornicate with, and love forever and ever.

I imagine when the next artificial sweetener comes out, that will cause cancer and all that shit, too.

Nutrasweet gives rats cancer. You ain't a rat, are ya?

In any case, people say you shouldn't use those artificial sweetners anyways, because they your body will start craving sweet things with real sugar in them. Then you will get a visit from Diabeetus! (I think that's Cleetus's older cousin)

It sounds like a load of horse shit.

DICKYNOO!

I demand that you put a character in your comic books named Cleetus Diabeetus!

So THIS is what Black Sabbath were singing about:

[YT="Sweet Leaf"]H3YtvuZ2-I0[/YT]

Did she have a lot of moles?

Well as your link points out, aspartame does metabolize into formaldehyde and methanol, but it's in very low quantities, even compared to other foods that are considered healthy.

I've been using stevia extract in my coffee, tea, and recovery shakes for years. It's popular with the holistic health, organic foods crowd.

I use a brand called NuStevia. I find it's the closest to Sweet & Low in terms of taste, and I use it in coffee and tea.

fixed.

I'm into unpasteurized honey these days...

I read that the more artificial sweeter one eats, the less the body is able to process real sugar once it is introduced into the bloodstream. I just avoid all of 'em, and if I need something sweet, I just eat real sugar in small amounts.

A guy I work with says that some brand of swttener is made out of bug shit.

Then again, honey comes out of a bee's ass.

Point-of-Order: Splenda is indeed a brand name, but so is Nutrasweet. The generic of Splenda is Sucralose. The generic of Nutrasweet is aspartame. The two are unrelated, aside from both being artificial sweeteners.

Fixed correctly.

That shit does wonders to help my Spring allergies.

I recall reading a study that said Bacon causes cancer in lab mice. They gave the mice amounts of bacon equivalent to feeding a human 8 lbs. of bacon per day! :bacon:

(if ya gotta go...what a way to go!)

I use sugar.

what was there to correct?

And that's from one meal at McDonalds!

Yeah, it does produce infinitesimal amounts of formaldehyde, and that can be scary for people who have no idea how the body's conversion systems work. I just get annoyed when people lose their shit over it.

There's a really subtle pun in there someplace . . .

Aside from health reasons, which are as noted marginal, I won't use NutraSweet or Splenda because they taste like shit. Weird, chemical shit. If the choice is between real sugar and its marginal health risks or weird chemical shit and its marginal health risks, I'll choose the one that tastes good. The risk is the same, the reward is greater.

^ Stevia has been used as a sweetner in South America since before the white man came over, so I think it's safe to say that it's the better of the sugar alternates on the market.

And saccharine tastes like...like if poisonous doses of radiation had a flavor, it would be that.

Huh...while I find Nutrasweet's taste to be , to me Splenda tastes the same as sugar.