So a new product is about to start appearing on our store shelves - Truvia. It's a product manufactured by Cargill and Coca-Cola, that takes extracts of the stevia plant to produce a highly sweet substance with zero calories. Another alternative to sugar. You'll start to see diet pop and other beverages that will be marketed as health products, as well as the product itself available for purchase in the not too distant future. There is also some word that Pepsi Co. has its version coming out as well, coined Purevia.

Anything in that paragraph got your Spidey senses on alert? It should. The first thing to raise my suspicions is the fact that the product has been manufactured, based on extracts from the Stevia plant. Stevia has been available for many many years, and in fact has been used for over 1500 years in South America where the herb originates. The second thing that triggers questions for me is the fact that it has been patented (and by Coke, no less). Why do we suddenly need a patented product to make this available to us? It turns out that Stevia itself, while available for purchase as a "nutritional supplement" has not been approved for "regular use" as a food additive, as not enough testing has been done for it to be recognized as safe. There are concerns that it may disrupt hormone levels in some individuals and may become a factor in infertility (in fact some evidence does point that it may have been used as a contraception in some South American tribes), as well as potentially having negative impacts to the cardiovascular and renal systems. These potential side effects need to be explored.

Meantime, Cargill and Coke have now taken the active ingredient of Stevia, and combined it with other chemicals, to create Truvia, and somehow THIS has been found to be GRAS (generally recognized as safe). And it is going to start appearing in products that are being consumed often in large quantities. That's convenient... and profitable! Lucky Cargill and Coke!

It's yet another experiment I will choose not to take part in. I'd rather take my chances with the pure whole leaf, than with an extract of it. As we know, often it is the synergistic properties of different parts of a food that not only enables its healthful properties, but also helps to mitigate or prevent its possible dangerous properties. Although, frankly, to my lips, Stevia tastes a little "asparatame-ish" so I tend not to use it anyway. I'd really prefer to stick with the old fashioned whole stuff if I really need a sweetener - maple syrup (heaven on earth!), honey, and maaaaybe agave nectar (maybe).

By the way, you may be wondering, why Stevia can be purchased as a "dietary supplement" in health food stores if it hasn't been approved as GRAS? The reason is that natural health products are not regulated by the government. And while there are definitely consumer and human rights that come into play with regards to the issue of whether the government should or shouldn't be regulating these substances (a whole other topic... after all, they are also the ones that approve aspartame and splenda or MSG, etc etc, as GRAS), this is an example that does serve to illustrate that we need to take responsibility for ourselves by researching our choices and learning about them before blindly accepting what marketing gurus, the government, and even health food proponents tell us.

References
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/07/29/cargill-rolls-out-stevia-based-sweetener.aspx
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/stevia-is-sweet-but-is-it-safe/article1333389/
http://www.cspinet.org/nah/4_00/stevia.html