Stevia Sweet Zero-Calorie Natural Sweetener and Sugar Free Cookie Recipes

SweetLeaf® Wins World Stevia Award for 2010-2011 Annual Global Stevia Products Award by the International Society of Antioxidant in Nutrition and Health (ISANH)

2010-12-09T17:41:00.000-08:00

SweetLeaf Stevia® Sweetener was the overall winner of the 2010-2011 Annual Global Stevia Products Award by the International Society of Antioxidant in Nutrition and Health (ISANH) based on taste performance, advancement in ingredient science and positive environmental and social impact. SweetLeaf Stevia® founder and president, James May, was presented with the prestigious award at the Sugar & Salt Reduction Strategies Conference in St. Julian, Malta.

Dr. Marvin Edeas, President and Founder of ISANH, presented this year's prestigious Global Stevia Products Award to SweetLeaf Stevia® Sweetener and the SweetLeaf® range of products for the unique proprietary use of nano membrane technology and water to produce a natural extract with customizable glycoside balances tailored to achieve individual customer's application requirements. The ISANH Organizing Committee determined SweetLeaf Stevia® to be a viable tool to support sugar reduction and synthetic sweetener replacement.

The International Society of Antioxidant in Nutrition and Health is a prestigious non-profit group of scientists with a particular interest in the health functions of natural ingredients. The society and its founder have advised many global organizations regarding the selection of ingredients in their products. Recognizing that taste is a key component of acceptability in a food ingredient or product, the ISANH awards companies that successfully combine health awareness and taste in their products.

Sugar free cookie recipes with stevia : Chocolate chip cookies

2010-11-12T15:14:00.000-08:00

Since stevia is 200-300 times sweeter than sugar, often small quantities will suffice. All of these recipes contain the stevia sweetener. Bear in mind that the concentration and strength of taste of stevia may differ greatly from one brand to another.

Chocolate chip cookiesIngredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon white stevia powder
1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
1 cup salted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Lightly grease a cookie sheet and set aside. In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder, and set aside. Place the egg, stevia, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl, and beat well with a wooden spoon or an electric hand-held mixer. Slowly add the butter, continuing to beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring well with a wooden spoon after each addition. Fold in the chocolate chips. Drop heaping teaspoons of batter on the cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown.

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with stevia
Ingredients:

1 cup flour
2 cups regular oats
1 1/2 teaspoon stevia
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup hot water
1/2 cup safflower oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325°F (160°C), spray a cookie sheet. Mix flour, stevia and cinnamon in small bowl. Mix oats and baking soda in large bowl. Pour hot water over the oat mixture and mix. Add oil and vanilla to oat mixture, mix well. Add flour mixture to oat mixture, mix well. Add chocolate chips. Place on cookie sheet, they do not flatten so push them down if you want them to be flat or leave as is. Bake for 13-15 minutes.

Raw Almond Cookies with stevia
Ingredients:

1 cup almond meal/pulp/flour
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
2 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 cup coconut oil
2 tablespoon raw almond butter
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
30 drops liquid stevia extract

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325°F (160°C). Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and stir until you have a soft ball of dough. Scoop by the tablespoon-full onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 60-90 minutes until golden. Remove from oven and cool completely. Store in the refrigerator.

More Info About Stevia Sweetener Are Here

Stevia: A Naturally Sweet Alternative

2010-09-03T16:58:00.000-07:00

ATLANTA, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ - Calorie counters accept acceptable noticed the growing cardinal of aliment and cooler articles absolute stevia sweeteners now assuming up on U.S. bazaar shelves. Touted for their adeptness to accommodate natural, no-calorie sources of sweetness, stevia sweeteners accept bound acquired acceptance amid consumers aggravating to advance a advantageous lifestyle.
But what absolutely is stevia and what allowances does it accommodate to consumers? Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) is a South American bulb commonly acclimated to sweeten beverages and accomplish tea. The chat "stevia" ability accredit to the absolute bulb or to a awkward alertness (liquid or powder) of broiled stevia leaves. The sweet-tasting apparatus of the bulb – alleged steviol glycosides – can be abandoned and antiseptic from the leaves and are now added to foods, beverages and tabletop sweeteners in the U.S. and elsewhere. The action of isolating the steviol glycosides has been compared to "steeping" tea leaves.

Several steviol glycosides are accustomed as safe as accepted purpose sweeteners by the U.S. Aliment and Drug Administration. As a amoroso acting with aught calories, stevia sweeteners can advice abate or alter calories in foods and beverages and action low and no-calorie alternatives for bodies attractive to lose and ascendancy weight. They are additionally a acceptable advantage for bodies with diabetes, back studies appearance that burning does not access claret glucose levels.

Stevia sweeteners can be acclimated as amoroso substitutes in foods such as beverages, desserts, sauces, yogurt, pickled foods, breads and confections.

Steviol glycosides accept aught calories. Stevia-based tabletop sweeteners can accept aught or basal calories per serving, depending aloft the added aliment capacity with which they are combined. For example, some stevia sweeteners may be alloyed with amoroso as a bulking abettor and these stevia sweeteners will accommodate some calories.

GLG To Introduce Stevia Products In India

2010-05-27T01:35:00.000-07:00

GLG Life Tech, a company engaged in agricultural and commercial development of stevia, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Global AgriSystem, a Katra Group company, in regard to the introduction of the stevia products of GLG in India.

According to the MOU, both parties will together promote stevia products as a healthy sweetener alternative for food and beverage manufacturers and consumers in India.

The terms of the agreement call for an initial phase of market development for GLG stevia extracts, and also the agricultural development of growing regions for GLG patented stevia plant varieties. The two companies are also in talks about the potential joint construction of extraction facilities in India once the demand is up.

The plant, Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni (SrB), has been used for the treatment of diabetes
in traditional medicine. Previously, it was demonstrated that long-term administration of
the glycoside stevioside has insulinotropic, glucagonostatic, anti-hyperglycemic and
blood pressure-lowering effects in type 2 diabetic animal models. [4] However, Dyrskog
SE [stig.dyrskog@ki.au.dk], Jeppesen PB, Chen J, Christensen LP, Hermansen K from
Aarhus University Hospital DK supplemented male Goto-Kakizaki (GK) rats with oral
rebaudioside A (0.025 g/kg BW/day) for eight weeks, they observed no effect on blood
pressure or weight development. [4] At the same time, Nikiforov Al and Eapen AK from
Toxicology Regulatory Services, Inc. Virginia, found no toxicity of dietary administration of
rebaudioside A in Sprague-Dawley rats in a 90-day study. [5]

Rebaudioside A and stevioside are steviol glycosides extracted from the plant Stevia
rebaudiana (Bertoni) and are used in several countries as food and beverage
sweeteners. [2,3]

What is Stevia?

Stevia (rebaudiana) is a plant native to south and central America and belongs to the sunflower family (Asteraceae). Alltogether there are 240 species of the Stevia plant. It is used as an alternative to sugar by the population of Paraguay and Brazil for about 500 years. The extract of the plant is up to 300 times sweeter than sugar. So you only need one or two leaves of it, to sweeten one cup of strong coffee or tea.

Negative Side Effects

There are no really confirmed negative Stevia side effects for humans. However Stevia is forbidden as food additive in the European Union and some other countries. Many people say that there are still not enough confirmed studies which say Stevia isn’t definitively harmful in any ways. In addition to this, there had been experiments with rats and similar animals which showed a little toxic reaction and some reactions on the fecundity of the male rats. The results weren’t dramatic but strong enough to wake some concerns.

These studies have been highly criticized on procedural grounds. In the way the data were handled, also distilled water would appear to be toxic or mutagenic.

The dose of steviol -the substance in Stevia that some people worry about- was way to high. In relation, a human had to eat half of his weight in Stevia leafs every day. In such masses even sugar would be dangerous. If you calculate the daily consumption of Stevia to replace the average daily sugar consumption, a human would eat 4 gram of Stevia leafs what’s not nearly half the weight of a human body.

Stevia has been a healing plant and a sweetener for Indigos for more than hundreds years and has been used in Japan and Brasilia to sweeten lollys, coke and more for about 30 years so far. The USA allows Stevia at least for diet food. Negative Stevia side effects has not been seen yet. This is an additional sign that there are just no bad effects by Stevia for humans. Anyway it would be good if more studies were in progress, but the problem is as always the money. Who’s going to pay for these experiments? The sugar industry, which could be a possible sponsor, is afraid of Stevia killing their business. Maybe if they see the potential of the sweet leaf, as Stevia is also called, someone will take action.

Additionally the World Health Organistation (WHO) published a report in 2006 which says: ”stevioside and rebaudioside A are not genotoxic in vitro or in vivo and that the genotoxicity of steviol and some of its oxidative derivatives in vitro is not expressed in vivo.”

In 2008 the Food and Drug Administration of the USA (FDA) classified Truvia (by Coca-Cola) and PureVia (by PepsiCO) – both substances based on Stevia – to GRAS, Generally Recognized as Safe.

Benefits of Stevia

Stevia has been known for hundreds of years by tribes in south America. In this time it has not only been used as sweetener but as healing plant and healthy food additive.

Unlike artificial sweeteners like aspartame, Stevia is said to have no bad effects on the insulin balancing process of the human body. Instead the report of the WHO mentioned above says it has a negligible effect on blood glucose and could even enhance glucose tolerance. That makes it not only a good natural sweetener for diabetics, but almost for everyone.

In opposition to sugar, Stevia contains no calories but is still 300 times sweeter and it’s also good for the teeth and is effective against caries and dental plaque.

Other experiments and researches found some positive Stevia side effects on obesity and high blood pressure.

All this makes the sweet leaf a natural and healthy alternative to sugar and synthetically produced sweeteners. You can use it for cooking and baking as it’s really heat-resistant and perfectly water soluble.

Story of Stevia

As mentioned before, Stevia was used by the native south Americans since centuries. In 1887 Moises Giacomo Bertoni, a swiss botanist, discovered the plant for the western world, and named it „Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni“.

It took the scientific world about 40 years now to enforce further studies about the plant to find possible Stevia side effects. So the first studies about it were made by the two french chemists Pomeret and Lavieille in 1931. They accomplished to isolate the glycosides (alltogether eight of them) which give Stevia its sweetness and named these compounds stevioside and rebaudioside. They also made some experiments with rabbits, guinea pigs, and chickens, which stated that Stevia isn’t toxic for them.

The first cultivation experiments in Japan were made in 1954. In the 1970’s they extended the cultivation and started to use it as an sugar substitute industrially.

In Europe the approval of Stevia as consumable or as food supplement was delayed because of studies in the 80’s which had affirmed that metabolically activated steviol acts as a mutagen.

But today it seems that the Stevia plant will be approved as consumable in the European Union soon, as it is already partially approved in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, the Swiss and France.

And the Coca-Cola Company already has patented 24 recipes for Cola-Light based upon Stevia in 2007. Probably it’s also an issue that the sugar industry doesn’t want Stevia to become legal or popular, because they are frightened of revenue losses.

You can already buy Stevia powder, Stevia extracts or Stevia as tea, if you are convinced that there are no harming Stevia side effects. It is just forbidden to be used as sweetener in industrially produced food, but not at home for private people.

So it seems that Stevia will be the sweetener of the future as it’s so much more effective than sugar and healthier than artificial sweeteners.