Stevia Liquid ExtractStevia is a natural, noncaloric, sweet-tasting plant used around the world for its pleasant taste as well as for its increasingly-researched potential for inhibiting fat absorption and lowering blood pressure. Despite its centuries-old use without reported toxicity in Latin America and Asia, including Japan, the FDA decided in 1991 that Stevia was an unsafe food additive and ordered all imports seized. The U.S. sugar industry breathed easier, and the market for non-caloric sweeteners was made once more safe for the chemical producers. The consumer was left with the choice of the empty calories of sugar, or the high side effects of the chemical substitutes. The FDA's import alert allows stevia to be sold only if labeled as a dietary supplement, not as a sweetener. But (just between you and us) once you buy it, you can go ahead and use it however you’d like. Add a pinch of dried leaves to your favorite tea, and it tastes like you added a spoonful of honey. The liquid extracts and powders can be used in cooking and as tabletop sweeteners. Note: Because of its intense sweetness, the powdered extract is often mixed with water and used by the drop. To the rescue, the 1994 DSHEA legislation gave the (previous) leading importer of stevia enough leverage to place a legal Hobson's choice before the FDA: admit stevia was safe (which would expose the food additive market), or admit it as a previously-sold dietary supplement with no evidence of toxicity. The FDA took the line of least resistance and declared it admissible as a dietary supplement, but not as a food additive. When the cheering of the sugar industry and the producers of Nutrasweet and Sweet'N Low dies down, it will be interesting to see how the FDA can maintain that a natural product deemed safe as a supplement can be unsafe as a food additive, especially for a market dominated by notoriously high side-effect chemical products. Stevia is sold in many forms:
An Alternative Sweetener? You may have heard about a natural herb called stevia, which yields a sweet taste although it is not sugar. Stevia is a product made from a shrub from South America, Stevia Rebaudiana. Other names for the leaves of this plant are Sweet Herb and Sweetleaf. Although all plant parts are intensely sweet, usually it is the leaves from which a water extract is taken to produce the alternative sweetener. Stevia is classified as a nutritional supplement and not a “food” or food ingredient by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). The law is written like this - in order for a food ingredient to be approved for use in the U.S., the producer must provide FDA with documentation that the ingredients are safe. This includes experiments that have proven the ingredients do not cause cancer in laboratory animals, do not alter any aspect of reproduction and do not damage any organ system, such as the kidney or heart. When the petition to have stevia approved as a food ingredient was presented for review by the FDA it was rejected. Scientists did not believe that the company provided enough evidence that stevia was safe. Legally, stevia is not supposed to be marketed as a sweetener, but as a supplement. The nutritional supplement laws differ from the food laws. With nutritional supplements the burden of proof is on the FDA. Supplement manufacturers do not have to provide detailed scientific information about their product to the FDA in order to get it on the market. Companies collect information about the adverse effects of a supplement and voluntarily supply the information to the FDA, but, it is the responsibility of the FDA to prove that the produce is unsafe. Stevia has also been purported to lower blood glucose. This is unproven. Supplement manufacturers are not supposed to make health claims that have not been approved by the FDA. When a company makes an unapproved health claim, a disclaimer is also printed on the package label. Thus far only a few animal studies have been conducted about the health benefits of stevia. Certainly not enough information is available to make general recommendations about using stevia to control blood glucose levels. The following is a sample disclaimer statement:
Supplements are not regulated, so the amount of the active ingredient steviodide will vary from product to product. This also means that the sweetness can vary within a product, among producers and among the various forms sold. Source: Carol Schlitt, MS and Karen Chapman - Novakofski, RD, PhD, University of Illinois Extension 2001 Click Here to Return to the Product Explanation Page! To Order Products - Apricot Seeds, Vitamin B17 and Watch the "Ultimate Cancer Cure Video" online Free and get As soon as you finish the double optin process we
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