{"id":1933,"date":"2014-10-17T21:14:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-17T21:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.willclower.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/stevia-and-the-tooth.html"},"modified":"2016-09-19T11:20:33","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T15:20:33","slug":"stevia-and-the-tooth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=1933","title":{"rendered":"Stevia and The Tooth"},"content":{"rendered":"
Stevia comes from a South American plant (Stevia rebaudiana) <\/i><\/span><\/span><\/big>that happens to be very very sweet, but doesn’t contain calories or nutritive value. It’s like a natural form of the synthetic versions found in the wedding mint colored packets (powder blue, sunshine yellow, and It’s-A-Girl pink) in any coffee shop you go into.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Because of this, Stevia also happens to be a huge business opportunity for food manufacturers. <\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\"stevia<\/span><\/strong><\/big><\/div>\n
I love it that there’s a natural alternative to zero calorie synthetic sweeteners. And if you take a leaf from the plant, put it into your Darjeeling tea because you’re worried about the whopping 16 calories found in a teaspoon of sugar, well that’s fine.<\/span><\/div>\n

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What isn’t nearly as great is that in order for manufacturers to make money on it, they have to take this leaf and put it into a packet, invent a new wedding mint color (light dusty green), and create a form of the natural plant that won’t go bad, has the “right” mouth feel, and voila(!) a sweet profit margin.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Fair enough, they’re a business. We should expect them to do this. <\/span><\/div>\n

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So it’s really no surprise that the mass produced product would have other ingredients in it. What is amazing though is the other ingredients that are added — and you absolutely won’t believe this — other sugars! These include erythritol (a sugar alcohol) along with dextrose (a sugar derived from starchy things like corn). <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Stevia is already 200 times sweeter than sugar. Why on earth would you add sugar to a super sweet product that supposed to replace sugar? Truth really is stranger than fiction.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Regardless of the business reasoning, the outcome for us is that your consumption of this product acclimates your tastes to that super high level of sweetness. In other words, it creates, sustains, grows your sweet tooth, and that level becomes baseline for you.<\/span><\/div>\n

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The result is that you will crave sweeter things more often, and that Texas Honey Bun won’t look so gross to you any more, and you’ll start throwing gummy worms into your trail mix along with the caramels AND the peanut M&Ms. <\/span><\/div>\n

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So if you’re sitting around the house, grumpy because you just don’t crave sugar enough, now you know what to do: eat some form of a non-sugar sugar. Alternatively, you could totally go rouge and have a normal amount of normal sugar (darker is better) in your normal tea.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stevia comes from a South American plant (Stevia rebaudiana) that happens to be very very sweet, but doesn’t contain calories or nutritive value. It’s like a natural form of the … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[494],"tags":[311,283,312],"class_list":["post-1933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-stevia","tag-sugar","tag-sweet-tooth"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Qv5g-vb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2740,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2740","url_meta":{"origin":1933,"position":0},"title":"Stevia History","author":"Will Clower","date":"August 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"For centuries, the Guaran\u00ed tribes of Paraguay and Brazil used a plant tthey called ka'a he'\u00ea (\"sweet herb\"), to sweeten medicinal teas for treating heartburn and other ailments. The leaves of the stevia plant have 30\u201345 times the sweetness of sucrose (ordinary table sugar).To prepare it in the traditional way,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"stevia\"","block_context":{"text":"stevia","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?tag=stevia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2741,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2741","url_meta":{"origin":1933,"position":1},"title":"On Your Mark, Get Set, Stevia!","author":"Will Clower","date":"August 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Here it comes, the next new thing. Stevia has been locked out of the U.S. sweetener market but, perhaps in a battle of the titans, the soda industry has opened a path for its entry.Over the next few days, I'll be highlighting the science, nutritional and political, behind the new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"artificial sweetener\"","block_context":{"text":"artificial sweetener","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?tag=artificial-sweetener"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2738,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2738","url_meta":{"origin":1933,"position":2},"title":"Stevia Science","author":"Will Clower","date":"August 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Get ready for controversy. The FDA has blocked Stevia. Advocates cry foul, saying they are held to an unrealistic standard, given that this plant has been used indiginously for centuries. It's a plant. But the FDA cites 1968 research conducted by Joseph Kuc, that showed a contraceptive effect on female\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"stevia\"","block_context":{"text":"stevia","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?tag=stevia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2530,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2530","url_meta":{"origin":1933,"position":3},"title":"Stevia the Holy Grail of Sweeteners?","author":"Will Clower","date":"July 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, Stevia is derived from a plant, but so was ephedra (ma huang) -- which contributed to heart valve problems.Yes it is GRAS (generally recognized as safe), but so is Aspartame. This article comes from a very food industry perspective. And, for them, Stevia may really be the Holy Grail\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=494"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2739,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2739","url_meta":{"origin":1933,"position":4},"title":"Growing Stevia","author":"Will Clower","date":"August 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I can't wait to grow this. Andrew Weil pointed out that he grows this naturally occurring herb on his ranch. A place called directgardening.com sells them on the internet.And actually, I've read that Stevia will grow in almost any climate, if it is given good soil, fertilizer, and light conditions.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1988,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=1988","url_meta":{"origin":1933,"position":5},"title":"Which Sugars Are Best? Just remember the 3 rules …","author":"Will Clower","date":"August 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I was on KDKA-TV this morning talking about all the sweeteners out there -- there are tons of them!!Here is the link for the video:\u00a0Real and Artificial Sweeteners - YouTubeFirst we moved through the artificial ones ... the synthetics that are between 100 -- 200 TIMES as sweet as sugar.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=494"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/mlcmmqmgggev.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.willclower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/ArtificialSweeteners.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2928,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933\/revisions\/2928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}