This extract which has been laboratory tested and certified to
contain a minimum 90% of steviosides, the active natural sweeteners of
stevia herb. You can be assured
that you are indeed getting a pure and true stevia extract and that it will be consistent
in quality. This is highly concentrated and should not be confused
with less potent tinctures or extracts. Supplement facts
Stevia extract 140 mg per milliiter
Stevia rebaudiana (20:1)
Buy Stevia Liquid extract. You will also find powder, packets, chewing gum, lime flavored drink packets, and other products
How does stevia herb taste?
Sweet, of course, and it only has a minimal aftertaste. Many people prefer this natural sweetener to aspartame or saccharin.
Stevia extract is about 200 to 300 times as sweet as sucrose (or table sugar), and its sweetness lasts over several decades. In fact, a 60 year old stevia herb fragment was once found that exhibited potent sweetness. This indicates that the sweeteners within this herb are very stable and have the ability to withstand time and drying.
What's in stevia herb?
There are normally hundreds of chemicals present within any herbal product or extract. It's sometimes very difficult to identify every single component of an herb. Preliminary studies with stevia herb have shown that it contains certain substances that provide a sweet taste including stevioside, and rebaudioside A. Stevioside makes up about five percent of the dry weight, while rebaudioside makes up two percent. Hence, rebaudioside A is found at a lower concentration than stevioside, but is apparently a more pleasant-tasting sweet substance. Additionally, the oily part of stevia leaf contains a number of sterols including stigmasterol (46 percent), beta-sitosterol (39 percent) and campesterol (13 percent). The compounds are very stable and can last for decades. They are resistant to heat and time.
Any effect on blood pressure?
Apparent lack of pharmacological effect of
steviol glycosides used as sweeteners
in humans. A pilot study of repeated exposures in some normotensive and
hypotensive individuals and in Type 1 and Type 2 diabetics.
Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2008.
This study shows that oral steviol glycosides, taken as
sweetener are well tolerated and have no pharmacological effect.
Pregnancy
Are you aware of any research on the effects or safety use during pregnancy? I
know it has been used in foods in Japan since the 1970's and in South America
for much longer.
We are not aware of human studies with stevia safety during
pregnancy, but animal studies do not indicate any concern or safety issues. Most
people only use a few drops a day in
their tea or coffee, or use a small amount of the powder. We seriously doubt
that it would cause any problems in pregnancy when used in these small
amounts.
A natural
sweetener with the following benefits:
Stevia extract is 300 times sweeter than regular
sugar, with minimal aftertaste and has no calories. It is suitable for diabetics and
those with high blood pressure. Children can use stevia without health concerns.
It does not cause tooth cavities. Stevia sweetener is heat stable and thus could be
used for cooking and baking. Stevia extract is a great alternative to synthetic sweeteners.
Can be easily blended with other sweeteners, such as honey. This remarkable, no-calorie
sweetener called stevia is, unfortunately, not yet a household name. It should be.
We believe
that eventually stevia sweetener will be one of the most popular and widely used
no-calorie sweeteners in the
world. With the availability of stevia extract there seems
to be little reason to use artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharin.
The many forms - whole leaf, powder extract, or liquid
Stevia herb has been available to the American consumer as a dietary supplement since the mid 1980s. There are quite a variety of different forms and extracts being marketed. Which stevia products you want to use will depend on the amount of sweetness required by the recipe and the degree to which the particular recipe or beverage will benefit from the licorice-like taste that accompanies its less refined forms.
If you shop at a health food or grocery store, you will generally find several forms of stevia herb and extract from a number of different manufacturers. Each stevia product may taste slightly different. Don't give up on it if you expect it to have the exact sweetness of sugar. It doesn't. However, when you consider the wonderful benefits it provides, you may accept its imperfections.
White stevia extract
This is the form most commonly used for of stevia sweetener in Japan, and generally contains 85 to 95 percent of the sweet glycosides. In this form, it is close to 300 times sweeter than sugar. A teaspoon of this stevia extract has sweetening power equivalent to 2 to 4 cups of sugar. The sugar-type stevia packets found in many Japanese restaurants are bulked up with other substances (such as maltodextrin) since a much smaller amount of the extract itself is needed. Several companies in the US market stevia in small packets, similarly adding maltodextrin, xylitol, or other sweeteners or binders, fillers. Could stevia extract ever become so popular in the US that practically every restaurant in the country would offer packets of this sweetener alongside the pink packets of Sweet' N Low and blue packets of Equal?
There are hundreds of patents for stevia herb extraction processes existing around the world. Various types of extractions influence the concentration of the various sweet glycosides, such as stevioside and rebaudioside, and therefore influence the stevia aftertaste. Thus, not all stevia powders and extracts are the same. You will find stevia extract in convenient stevia packets available for sale in a size similar to the artificial sweetener packets.
Stevia liquid concentrates
Stevia liquid comes in two
distinctly different forms. One is a black, syrupy concentrate and the other is
clear. The black, syrup-like liquid concentrate is made by boiling the dried leaves in
water. Traditionally, the Guarani Indians thought this crude liquid had
medicinal benefits. It has a delicious taste that adds to the flavor of many
foods, particularly hot beverages. A dropper-style stevia liquid bottle is the most common way
that this form of stevia is found in stores.
The clear type of stevia liquid concentrate is made by mixing a large amount of
the white powder in distilled water or grain alcohol. Some of these liquid
preparations contain other ingredients such as chrysanthemum flowers.
All types of stevia liquid extract concentrates are available in health food stores or some retail outlets. They come in various sizes ranging from a third of an ounce to four ounce bottles. Generally a few drops of this stevia liquid concentrate is enough to sweeten a glass of tea, coffee or your favorite drink.
Our daily stevia dose
It has been
estimated that sugar consumption in Japan is about 80 grams a day while in the
US and Europe it is between 120 to 140 g a day. Assuming we substitute stevia
sweetener for sugar, what would be our daily consumption?
For the sake of simplicity, let's say we consume about 100 grams of sugar a day.
Since the sweetness of stevioside is 300 times that of sugar, the maximum daily
consumption of stevia would be 100 grams divided by 300, or a third of a gram
(roughly 330 mg). Actually, Chinese researchers have already estimated that the
daily human consumption of stevioside would be about 2 mg per kilogram of body
weight. This is a very small amount and we should keep this in mind
when we evaluate the toxicity studies with stevia herb done in animals. Another point
to keep in mind is that most people would only partially substitute stevia for
sugar and other sweeteners. Therefore, the intake on a daily basis
would even be less than 330 mg.
There have been a number of studies performed in rodents and other laboratory
animals to determine whether stevia extract has any toxicity. In many of these studies,
stevia was provided in extremely high dosages, sometimes up to 5 percent of the
weight of their food. Let's compare this to humans. Assuming we eat about two
kilograms of food a day, and we ingest 200 mg of stevia, the proportion of
stevia to our daily food intake would be about 0.01 percent; a very small
amount, indeed.
Let's examine a few studies done over the past two decades with stevia and
stevia extract.
Animal Studies
Whenever researchers want to test the dangers of a substance they give it to laboratory animals such as mice or rats. They give progressively higher doses of the substance until a lethal dose (LD) is reached where 50 percent of the test animals die. This level is called the LD 50. Back in the 1970s, several research groups attempted to find the lethal dose of stevia rebaudiana. They discovered that, on average, a dose of 8,000 milligrams or more per kilogram of body weight was necessary to achieve this LD 50. In human terms, this would be equivalent to a 70 kg male ingesting more than 480,000 milligrams (or two pounds) of the extract. In most cases, a glass of water can be sweetened by less than 5 drops, an extremely minimal amount. As can be expected, no human has ever died from stevia overdose.
In 1991, an excellent study was done by researchers at the Chulalongkorn
University Primate Research Center in Bangkok, Thailand. The
researchers wanted to study the consequences of daily ingestion of stevioside in
hamsters and the effects on two subsequent generations. You may recall that stevioside is the main active sweetening agent in the stevia plant. Three
groups of 20 one-month-old hamsters (10 males and 10 females) were force-fed
daily with stevioside, while the fourth group stayed as the controls; they did
not get any stevioside. The first group was given 500 mg per kilogram of body
weight; the second group got a higher dose at 1,000 mg per kilogram of body
weight, and the third group got the highest dose at 2,500 mg per kilogram of
body weight. The experiment was started with 80 one-month-old hamsters, 40 of
each sex, each weighing between 30 and 50 grams. The 2,500 mg per kg of body
weight would be equivalent to a human ingesting 150,000 mg. The likely stevia amount
most humans would ingest from sweetening their drinks and certain foods is often
less than 500 mg.
In the first generation, the average growth of the hamsters receiving various
doses of stevioside did not differ significantly between each group. In the
second generation, no significant difference in body weight was observed among
groups of males receiving various doses of stevioside until 90 days of age.
Thereafter, growth of males in the group receiving stevioside at 500 mg/kg of
body weight was significantly higher than in the other groups. Nevertheless,
male hamsters in the second and third groups grew the same amount as did the
control group.
In the third generation, at 120 days of age, no significant differences in body
weights were observed in all groups of male and female animals. As to the mating
performance, all three generations performed the same no matter what dose of
stevioside they received. Their performance was equal to the controls.
Benefit for diabetes
The availability of artificial sweeteners has been of enormous benefit to those with diabetes. However, there's always been a concern that over consumption of these synthetic sweeteners may cause some unknown harm to the body. Could mnatural stevia sweetener substitution be a good alternative for those with diabetes? We believe so. Stevia leaves have been used as herbal teas by diabetic patients in Asian countries. No side effects have been observed in these patients after many years of continued consumption. Furthermore, studies have shown that stevia extract can actually improve blood sugar levels.
In
1986, Brazilian researchers from the Universities of Maringa and Sao Paolo
evaluated the role of stevia in blood sugar. Sixteen healthy
volunteers were given extracts of 5 grams of stevia leaves every six hours for
three days. The extracts from the leaves were prepared by immersing them in
boiling water for 20 minutes. A glucose tolerance test (GTT) was performed
before and after the administration of the stevia extract and the results were compared
to another group who did not receive the stevia extract. During a GTT, patients
are given a glass of water with glucose and their blood sugar levels are
evaluated over the next few hours. Those who have a predisposition to diabetes
will have a marked rise in blood sugar levels.
The volunteers on stevia extract were found to have significantly lower blood sugar
levels after ingestion of stevia. This is a positive indication that stevia can
potentially be beneficial to diabetics who substitute stevia in order to
decrease their sugar consumption. Even if stevia by itself is not able to lower
blood sugar levels, just the fact that a diabetic would consume less sugar is of
significant importance in maintaining better blood sugar control.
If you have diabetes, chances are you consume a large amount of artificial sweeteners. Switching to stevia herb is an option. Gradually use less synthetic sweeteners while substituting stevia. For instance, you can initially use stevia extract in some of your drinks, like coffee or tea. After a few weeks, if your comfort level with stevia herb increases, you can gradually use more of the herbal extract. Over the next few weeks and months you can either switch completely to stevia powder or liquid, or you can continue using it in combination with artificial sweeteners.
Benefit for blood pressure, hypertension
In 1991, Dr. M.S. Melis, from the Department of Biology at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, gave a one-time high dose injection of stevia extract stevioside to rats and found that it caused a reduction in blood pressure as well as an increased elimination of sodium. A slight diuretic effect also occurred. Dr. M.S. Melis repeated a similar study in 1995. This time, he administered extracts of stevia to rats for 20, 40, and 60 days. After 20 days, there were no changes in the stevia treated rats compared to the control group (the ones that didn't receive the extracts). However, after 40 or 60 days of administering the stevia extract, there was a lowering of blood pressure, a diuretic effect was noted along with loss of sodium. The amount of blood going to the kidneys was increased.
When normal human volunteers between the ages of 20 to 40 years were given a tea prepared with stevia leaves, a lowering of blood pressure occurred.
Benefit of
stevia in children
Candies, sodas, ice cream, pies, cakes... it's disturbing how many sweet
products are ingested by children on a daily basis. All that sugar can lead to
tooth cavities and obesity. Partially substituting with stevia can help children
satisfy their sweet tooth while decreasing the risks from excessive sugar
intake. If you're a parent, you can take advantage of the many
recipes provided in The Stevia Cookbook by
Ray Sahelian, M.D., to provide your children with
tasty sweets that will satisfy their sweet teeth but not cause damage to the
teeth. There is also a concern with children consuming
excessive amounts of artificial sweeteners. The potential, long-term health
consequences of saccharin and aspartame ingestion are currently not fully known,
but they do need to be kept in mind. Eliminating all artificial sweeteners will
be a frustrating enterprise since they are extremely prevalent. However, by
partially substituting stevia in homemade desserts, you can significantly reduce
your children's exposure to these artificial chemicals. Stevia drink lime
flavored is a good option for many children as a substitute for sugared drinks.
You can see sample pages of The Stevia Cookbook at
Google Books.
Use in Pregnancy or Breast Feeding
Since human studies providing stevia herb during pregnancy are not
available,
it is not known whether its use during this period is safe. It’s very likely
that reasonable amounts of stevia would not cause any danger or health problems,
and may even be much safer than artificial sweeteners or sugar.
Practical Tips
Those who are novices at using stevia often make the mistake of using too
much, particularly when using an extract. Since stevia extract is 300 times sweeter than sugar, excessive amounts can lead
to over-sweetness and an aftertaste. Generally, one teaspoon would be
equivalent to one cup of sugar, while a quarter teaspoon would be equivalent to
one tablespoon of sugar. Stevia is available in liquid form, and
often two to four drops of stevia liquid added to tea or coffee is sufficient to
sweeten the drink.
Sweet drinks are made of
these
The chemicals within stevia rebaudiana that make it taste sweet are stable in
all types of liquids and do not lose their sweetness. Thus, a number of drinks can be superbly
sweetened with stevia. All it takes is usually two to five drops of liquid
stevia per glass. Once you get into the habit of using stevia liquid or
powder in your drinks,
you'll never feel the need to buy the pink or blue packets, or even use honey.
However, if you really like honey with your drinks, you can use less of it while
adding a drop or two of stevia liquid. We take along small stevia powder packets when we go out to restaurants. This way, we can
sweeten our drinks with stevia even when not at home.
The following are some examples of drinks that you can easily sweeten with stevia extract.
Lemonade
and lemon juice. Not only does stevia provide sweetness, it actually slightly
enhances the flavor of the lemon. You can now serve lemonade to your kids on a
hot summer afternoon without loading them up with high doses of harmful sugar.
You may use either stevia liquid or powder.
Iced Tea.
Forget sugar or artificial sweeteners.
Herbal teas. We have tried stevia
liquid or powder in quite a variety of herbal teas and it works
well in all cases. The stevia liquid extracts are perfect for teas. Have you considered
having a variety of different herbal teas on your kitchen counter? Each morning
you could try a different one. Some examples that we have tried include ginger,
licorice, Earl gray, elderberry, dandelion, St. John's wort, kava, ginkgo,
green, black, cinnamon, ginseng, echinacea, peppermint, goldenseal, fenugreek,
and others. You could add the stevia drops after you brew the tea bag, or better
yet, add the drops in the glass before you pour the hot water. As a rule, two to
five drops of the liquid extract will provide enough sweetness to satisfy most
people.
Coffee.
Stevia is a perfect substitute for the artificial sweeteners. The amount of
stevia used in coffee will be similar to the herbal teas. If you drink a few
cups of coffee a day, and let's say you use two teaspoons of sugar per cup, just
imagine how many calories a day you will not consume if you switch to stevia!
Hot cocoa
with milk and stevia on a cold winter night in a Swiss chalet. How delicious!
Shakes
and smoothies. There are enough carbohydrate calories from fructose in
these drinks. Why add additional sugar calories when you can use stevia.
Actually, most shakes and smoothies are sweet enough on their own and, unless
you really have a sweet tooth, there's no need to have additional sweeteners.