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Bad news for Splenda


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That's terrible news!!

I've tried Stevia....and don't think I could ever get used to it!

I'm bad though....I've never quit using saccrarin, regardless of what they say! Nutrasweet makes me hungry, and Spenda is expensive....so I use mostly Saccarin pills....however, now if they're gonna start messin' with splenda I'll have to stock-up on it regardless!

I think the Sugar industry just has to find something wrong with anything that might help those with weight problems!!

I'm anxious to see what Atkin's will say about this new research!

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deeknight.jpg

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I like Stevia! My hubby had to go off all chemical type things including sweeteners, etc. So, I guess when you have no other options you learn to like it. I haven't tried baking with it though. I guess there is a good reason!

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It's hard for me to believe that the people who published this report don't have their own vested interest in the sales of stevia-HOLISTIC Medicine?!?!?!?!? shocked.gif

I'm NOT slammming alternative medicine as a whole, just asking you to consider the source of the "bad" news.

Suzanne Sommers also has her own sweetner-Sommersweet-which is supposed to act like sugar in baking, etc-BUT-it is very EXPENSIVE.

There is one brand of stevia which is supposed to taste better than the others-I will try to find that info again and post it here. In the meantime, I will continue to use my Splenda. smile.gif

edited to add the following:

Got this from Hold the Toast newsletter archives

http://www.holdthetoast.com/archive/991208.html

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Product Review

Two weeks ago, I told you all about Splenda, the new artificial sweetener that was approved this spring by the FDA. However, I get a fair number of posts from people who don't want to use artificial sweeteners at

all. They want to know if there's a natural alternative. There is!

Many of you have heard of stevia, the South American shrub whose leaves are 30 times sweeter than sugar. And many of you have tried the white, powdered stevia extract. No doubt, you've had the same experience I

have -- that stevia works pretty well in some things, and not at all well in some others. For instance, I like stevia just fine in protein shakes, but when I tried using it to make a chocolate cheesecake, the

results were nothing short of *vile*. Nasty. Bitter. Icky beyond belief.

Along with bitterness, stevia shares another drawback with artificial sweeteners: While it can replace the sweetness of sugar, it cannot replace sugar for volume, and it lacks the dramatic textural effects that

sugar brings to many recipes -- moistness, browning, etc. Even Splenda can't give you these effects.

What if I told you there was a sugar that was effectively no calorie, and no carb? You'd either think I was nuts (nice, low carb nuts!), or that you'd died and gone to heaven. Well, there is! But don't get too

excited yet -- even this has its problems. Welcome to the real world.

The sugar I'm talking about is called fructooligosaccharide. Don't even *try* to pronounce it, just call it FOS. FOS is a naturally occurring sugar that occurs in small quantities in many foods, ranging from

bananas to onions to tomatoes. You can think of FOS as being sort of the fiber of the sugar world -- just as fiber is starch that's too big for your body to digest and absorb, FOS is a sugar molecule that is too

large for your body to digest and absorb! Result? No blood sugar rise, no insulin release. Pretty cool!

Better yet, FOS *can* be digested and absorbed by the good bacteria in your intestine. This means that eating FOS will actually *improve* your health by increasing the number of those good bacteria. So what

could be bad?

Well, first of all, FOS is about half as sweet as sucrose (table sugar), so it doesn't make things as sweet. Well, you're thinking, just use twice as much! Tiny little problem there. You know what would

happen if you doubled your fiber intake? Same thing happens if you eat too much FOS -- it acts as a laxative. Also, FOS is *very* expensive. When it first hit the market, I paid $12 for *two ounces*. Could make for some mighty expensive low carb treats!

So NOW for the product review! (You've been wondering when I'd get around to that, haven't you?)

My beloved health food store, Bloomingfoods, is now carrying a product called SteviaPlus, which is a blend of the white stevia extract powder and FOS. It is made by a company called SweetLeaf. SteviaPlus comes in

little packets, like artificial sweeteners do, and is also apparently available in a shaker jar. The benefit of this combination is obvious: FOS mellows out the somewhat edgy taste of stevia, and has some of

the textural effects of sugar; stevia adds the sweetness that FOS lacks.

I've been using SteviaPlus recently in my attempts to come up with sugar free chocolate recipes that A) taste good and B) have a good texture. I've found that SteviaPlus helps to get me the texture I want, no doubt because the FOS acts as sugar would to help combine the chocolate with liquids. I tried using just Splenda, and found getting a nice texture was difficult. A combination of SteviaPlus and Splenda so far is the front runner in the sugar-free chocolate recipe race. I'm sure I'll come up with more uses for this product as I develop more recipes for you!

SteviaPlus is all natural, won't mess up your blood sugar, is good for your health, and I think it tastes better than plain stevia powder. It isn't cheap -- I paid $5.59 for 50 packets, each of which has the

sweetening power of approximately 2 teaspoons of sugar. But if you've been hoping for a really viable, natural sweetening option, here it is.

If you look for SteviaPlus online, beware! I found a brand that calls itself "Stevia Plus" (notice the space between the words), which included fructose along with the stevia and FOS. Fructose is a carb, so

that's not what you want. I repeat that the stuff I got is made by a company called SweetLeaf. I have found an online source, at http://www.wisdomherbs.com/price.htm , and called them to make sure it was the

right stuff. It's a bit more expensive through their website than it was at my health food store, but if you don't live near a health food store, it would be a good resource for you!

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And, from another source:

splenda+steviaplus

You can order SteviaPlus (the white powder) online or get it at Whole Foods Markets.

I find the best sweet taste comes from combining splenda plus steviaplus. I got this idea from Sharron Long who has a cookbook, and I have found it to be so true. To me plain Splenda still tastes artificial but the combination of the two tastes real. The reason is that one has the up front sweet taste and the other has the follow through sweet taste.

If you are going to *replace* all the Splenda with Steviaplus the equivalent is that 1 teaspoon Splenda = 1/4 teaspoon SteviaPlus.

However, to combine, you need MUCH less SteviaPlus.

For 1 cup Splenda pourable, use 1/3 cup Splenda pourable + 1 teaspoon SteviaPlus

The math is pretty complicated. For 1 unit of Splenda use 1/3 unit of Splenda + SteviaPlus equal to the remaining 2/3 unit divided by 25 or 30.

So a cup is 16 Tablespoons and thus is 48 teaspoons. 2/3 of a cup is 32 teaspoons. So 1/30 of 2/3 of a cup is about 1 teaspoon. That is how you get the 1/3 cup Splenda+1 tsp SteviaPlus.

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Hope this helps! smile.gifsmile.gifsmile.gif

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me2.jpgmidnight.jpg

"Sooner or later everyone quotes their mother."

[This message has been edited by Midnightmom (edited July 23, 2002).]

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Found another interesting post from another forum that I frequent:

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Depends on how the chlorine is in the food. In sucralose, it's part of the molecule, held by covalent bonds, and therefore it don't break up. It's very stable.

In your water supply, you've got chlorine gas introduced in very very small quantities (this forms a solution in greater concentrations is otherwise known as "bleach"). This isn't enough to hurt you, but is really bad for the critters that try to live in your water pipes.

In salt, it's held by an ionic bond which breaks up so it can react with other things in your system, and you'd die without it.

Fun with chemistry.

http://www.pfangserver.com/bbs/showthread....ighlight=stevia

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Very timely post for us Midnightmom smile.gif DH just bought a box of the SteviaPlus today! I thought it tasted fine in the coffee. Definatley interested in trying to replace the sugar in our diet but I have such a wicked sweet tooth and I am so afraid of most artificial sweetners possible cancer risks that I've shied away from them until now. Perhaps the SteviaPlus is the answer smile.gif

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