All-Natural Herbal Sweetener Stevia
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The All-Natural
Herbal Sweetener Stevia has Been Widely Used for Decades Sugar has lots of calories that the body can easily store as fat. (Another thing that happens when you eat too much refined sugar is that your adrenal glands must work overtime producing insulin to control your blood sugar level. To check out a simple test you can perform to see if you're suffering from hypoadrenia, or weak adrenals.) In the hopes of having the best of both worlds—the sweetness of sugar without its calories—a gigantic market has been created for artificial sweeteners. It all started with cyclamate and saccharin. Both of these lost popularity, however, when rats fed the sweeteners developed cancerous tumors. They are probably relatively harmless in the amounts normally used, but the rats were given daily doses equivalent to drinking thousands of artificially sweetened soft drinks. Next came aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, Equal-Measure, etc.). The NutraSweet Company helped create a billion-dollar market, with product in over 70 countries worldwide. However, as the product has become more prevalent in the food supply, questions of serious side effects have begun to emerge. Fewer Calories, But
Greater Risk Several books and reports have been written about the dangers of aspartame, and I won't go further into them here. There is, though, an Aspartame Consumer Safety Network that you can contact by phone at 1-214-352-4268 for more information. Despite these problems, I expect aspartame to be around for quite some time to come. There's just too much money at stake for any government agency to pull the plug on it. What's Used in Other
Countries? Researchers in Finland have been working with a natural sweetener called xylitol for many years. Xylitol is a compound found in certain vegetables, strawberries, raspberries, plums, and jute, as well as various hardwood trees such as birch. When used as a sweetener in chewing gum, it becomes a powerful tool to fight against dental cavities and plaque formation. It may even help prevent problems such as sinus infections, bronchitis, pneumonia, and middle ear infections. (There are, of course, many other natural compounds found in plants that can be used medicinally. Xylitol is an unusual compound in many respects. Unlike sucrose (table sugar) and fructose (fruit sugar), xylitol doesn't create an acid environment in your mouth when used to sweeten gum or foods. When the pH in your mouth becomes acidic from sugary foods, the enamel on your teeth erodes, leading to tooth decay. Furthermore, sugar
and artificial sweeteners are fermented by plaque-forming organisms in your
mouth, and become food for bone-destroying bacteria. These plaque-forming
bacteria are incapable of fermenting xylitol; in fact, when they ingest xylitol,
their growth and ability to produce plaque becomes impaired. Also unlike table
sugar, xylitol has a more complex chemical structure that doesn't trigger the
release of insulin from the pancreas. This makes xylitol an ideal sweetener for
diabetics. (Insulin injections do, of course, enable people with diabetes to
live with this condition. But research shows that there are a variety of natural
methods to help deal with some types of diabetes.
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Send mail to HulaMoore@hawaii.rr.com
with questions or comments about this web site.
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Americans love
sweets. In fact, our annual consumption of sugar has been increasing for
decades, and the fear of obesity appears to be the only thing that dampens our
ongoing love affair with sugar. 
Aloha From Hawaii!
M