Stevia comes from sweet leaf, an herb native to South America but can now be found around the world. Since before the arrival of Columbus, stevia has been used to sweeten food and beverages. Stevia can sweeten a drink or dish while minimizing the amount of sugar, providing sucrose flavouring without the added calories. Stevia is also different from artificial sweeteners like aspartame and saccharin, as stevia comes from natural sources.

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Stevia Benefits:
*Natural sweetener
*No artificial ingredients
*Low-calorie sweetener
*Free of aspartame & saccharin

Low Blood Sugar
For people with diabetes or hypoglycemia, stevia is useful because it doesn’t cause blood sugar spikes. Stevia is a stable substance, meaning it doesn’t break down at high temperatures, as is the case with aspartame and saccharin. This makes it more suitable for some recipes, but it is, however, different from sucrose in that it cannot caramelize or be used in cookies and fudge.

Candida & Sucrose
Unlike sugar, stevia doesn’t feed yeast, which is a benefit for those with candida or yeast overgrowth. This also means that stevia cannot be used in place of sucrose to make bread rise. Because stevia is expensive to make, there remain many bridges to cross before it can be widely used.

Stevia Forms
Stevia can be found in liquid, fresh, powdered, dried, or ground forms. Powdered extracts can reach 80 to 95% sweet glycosides, which is many times sweeter than sugar. Many powdered forms are filled with lactose and maltodextrin to dilute the powder.

Safety Considerations
Though stevia has many benefits, there are some safety considerations. There have been studies that stevia causes reproductive issues, cancer, and disrupts carbohydrate metabolism.