for diabetics and others,

couple of weeks ago, i finally got around to buying Stevia.
since i am diabetic, i cant really have suger or lots of carbs at once. Also i am not a fan of the man made stuff.

So after doing some reading i brought some Stevia from amazon. (have to watch what you buy, as some places use a filler that is a carb)

There is a little after taste, but it not bad at all. when they they say its sweeter then suger, its not lie. I use less then 1/4 of the amount I would use in tea. but best part for me it did not seem to have any effect on suger levels at all. It took a few tries before i found the right amount, If you put in to much it turns stuff bitter.

how i did not order from this site, they have some good information i thought http://www.stevia.com/

Neat. I know people who love that stuff. It is not approved by the FDA yet, so is sold as a supplement I believe. Coca Cola has a pending drink using it, when it is approved.
You can find it nowadays in regular grocery stores. A little goes a LONG way, which will explain the price vs. other sweetners.

I'm glad the Stevia worked out well for you Bruce! My sister and her family have usd it on occassion and seem to like it too.

I would caution though to be careful and watch out for symptoms though since you just started using it.I had some nasty side effects from it when I gave it a try. For those of you who have IBS or other GI issues like I do, you may want to be careful if you use the Stevia, it made me really sick. I can't seem to tolerate hardly any artificial sweetners (or "natural" ones like stevia) though. Out of all the sweetners on the market though- Stevia by far made me the most ill when I tried it....almost as bad as splenda, but not quite! The only thing that doesn't make me worse is sugar, so I usually just use regular sugar if I need a sweetner, but in very small moderations. (I'm insulin resistant-I take anti-diabetic drugs for my insulin levels)

FDA has approved, and then non approved.
there have been several studies on it, and they never found anything wrong.
"
stevia has been in wide use in Japan for the past 30 years, and to date, no evidence of any adverse reactions have surfaced during this time.

On the other hand, however, the Food and Drug Administration continues to firmly maintain that stevia is an unsafe food additive. Because of this classification, the FDA restricts the import of stevia as a food additive. The FDA position on stevia maintains that the toxicological information on stevia is too inadequate to determine its safety for consumption by the general public"

http://safety.lovetoknow.com/Dangers_of_Stevia

with the issues with stuff like Aspartame, but yet that is still used in foods. big money is the only reason i think that is still being used. along with money from corn lobby.

it seems fine to me,and 0 effect on my surger levels. so i think i wll keep using it for now.

wow, nikki, your the first person i heard of that had a issue with it,
i had bad effects with splenda gives me huge headaches,,
Aspartame my fingers would go numb if drank to much of it.

Originally Posted by theimp98

wow, nikki, your the first person i heard of that had a issue with it,
i had bad effects with splenda gives me huge headaches,,
Aspartame my fingers would go numb if drank to much of it.

Click to expand...

Bruce, it made me really sick. (in ways I won't elaborate about ) I think that most people tolerate Stevia better than things like aspartame and other sweetners, but goodness, I can't handle any of them really!

The Stevia gave me a worse reaction with my GI issues than Splenda (and I thought Splenda was bad!). I was actually suprised when the stevia made me sick- did you know it actually has an inslin fiber in it? So technically it should help rather than make things wose I'd suspect, but not in my case. I was sick the entire night after I had stevia. I'm probably the oddball- but I would be on the lookout for stomach upset/etc just to be on the safe side!

When I looked online, I did find several other posts about people having GI upsets from Stevia. There seem to be more people who are negatively impacted by things like sweet n low, splenda, equal,etc...but I did find a few others out there who had the same symptoms from the Stavia as I did.

I origionally tried the Stevia at my sister's recommendation. It's supposed to be pretty decient for you- it helps with plaque buildup, insulin levels, and lots of other things according to what i've researched, and people have been using it for years as a sweetner...but it just wasn't for me!

^ I'll have to look up stevia later to figure out exactly how it's metabolized - whether it induces or inhibits anything, and where. It may be that it interacts with something else, too. I'm seeing possible 1A2 and 3A4(common) but not much else, yet. I'll have more time tonight to check.

I can tolerate very small amounts of artificial sweeteners but the typical reaction is nausea and/or headache. I'm not sure I'd want to try stevia considering your reaction to it (I'm guessing diarrhea?). With my GI issues I do not need anything to help cause that.