As depressing a blog as this may seem, we at Non-Nutritive Sweeteners want you to know there is a middle ground. There is hope among a chemical filled world with questionable ethical food standards. Stevia.
Our story takes us to what is now Paraguay, where the Guarani Indians have been averse to this sweet taste since ancient times. When the Spanish Conquistadors came to Paraguay in the 1500's, they learned of the sweet plant, but it was not until the 1800's when they took a heavy scientific interest in it. In the late 1800's a Spanish physician named Pedro Jaime Esteve named the genus type for the plant giving it the (clever) name, Stevia, a play on his last name. Little developments happened after that until the 1970's, when Japan introduced it to their sweetener market. Also at this time Japan completely eradicated artificial sweeteners (nice!) and allowed Stevia to make a heavy dent in the sugar market. Stevia now occupies roughly 40% of the total Japanese sweetener market.
Stevia is still a relatively small player in the U.S market for sweeteners, dwarfed by sugar and non-nutritive sweeteners. That being said, Stevia possesses all the tools to make large impact in improving the overall health of Americans. It is sweeter than sugar, but still heat and pH stable, and non-fermentable making it safer to consume than Sucralose and the like. It has also been show to have negligible effects on blood glucose levels, making it a viable option for those with diabetes.
It is my opinion that Stevia will never make heavy waves in the U.S. sweetener market, or at least not anytime in the near future. Sweeteners such as aspartame and Sucralose are owned by large conglomerate corporations with vested interests in keeping them in many of the beverages we see daily. These corporations are the same ones who have a heavy hand in Congress and the laws passed in this country. Business is business, and eradicating these sweeteners from the market would be exceptionally difficult, if not impossible in this current climate. The best course of action one can take against these harmful sweeteners is to choose not to buy them, and encourage others to do the same.
Protect your health, drink water!
http://www.livestrong.com/article/347247-the-history-of-stevia/
No comments:
Post a Comment