I would like to know if anyone has tried Turvia? It is a new sweetener that can be used by diabetics.
No, I hadn't even heard of that until now! I'll have to check it out though -- usually I just stick to Splenda.
Truvia is made from the sweet leaf stevia which I use and it's natural. It's totally different from the aspartame sweeteners like Splenda, or NutraSweet. It doesn't have side effects that some of those can have like headaches etc. I use Stevia but I'm pretty sure Truvia is another sweetener too like Stevia.
Truvia is one of two brand names that I'm aware of as sweetners developed by commercial interests to revitalize the sweetened beverage market. They are derived from tropical plants in the sunflower family.
Truvia is from Coke and PureVia is from, you guessed it, Pepsi.
The stevia plant from which the sweetner is derived has leaves that are 30-40 times sweeter to human taste than standard white table sugar.
I want to do more research on them - the process by which they're manufactured, etc - prior to using them, but at first glance these products seem far better than splenda, aspartame, etc.
James,
I found an interesting article about stevia (while looking for something else) here:
http://www.cspinet.org/nah/4_00/stevia.html
Cheers!
A-D
Thanks A-D,
I've read similar concerns to this data as well...what I find frustrating is how polar the discussions are and how little you can trust either side in the debate.
There are a ton of 'what if?'s out there, a bunch of research from the 80's and 90's, people who swear by it and then people who say it can give rats testicular cancer. Tribes that have eaten it for centuries, governments that have approved it for decades, and then others who so strongly oppose it they bet their careers on it.
There's a little bit of skepticism in me...who's funding the study that says it may not be good for us because it's not been great for rats? Some exec from splenda? An aspartame advocate? I have no idea.
On the other side...I know who's trying to push it through the FDA so quickly...Coke and Cargill.
Garrh!...I just want to eat healthily and enjoy sweet stuff!
While I haven't tried Truvia, I've tried another Stevia-based sweetener (can't remember the name of it) with cereals and tea and to me it tasted a bit different than what natural sugar does. There's that small 'something' about its taste that makes you realize you're using a completely different ingredient. And the product I had had more of a powder sugar consistency to it rather than the grainy format of sugar and aspartame and sucralose-based sweeteners.
I used Stevia for a while, liking the whole natural bit, until I read about the possible cancer-causing effects. It does have a little bit of a different taste to it, though. It's good in coffee with some soy milk; I even prefer it to sugar or Splenda. But, I stopped using it a few months ago when I read in a health magazine (one that I actually trust) about its possible links to cancer.
Mad Evans,
The information I have read on the cancer issue seems to indicate that it is a possible concern in humans but that they do not have an indication that the chemical process needed to actually make it dangerous occurs in people. The bit I think is compelling is, to date, nobody seems to know what happens when you ingest a bunch of it on a continued basis... I still use it from time to time in my tea or on my cereal (they have found it helps a touch with blood pressure too and I'm at the borderline there 120/69 - love to get that top number down a hair so I combine a touch of different things that are shown to help - in moderation on each)...
We are all our own favorite test subjects/researchers and chemists, are we not?!?!??!
Cheers!
A-D
The thing to remember with Truvia is that a little goes a long way. It is very sweet. I substitute half of regular sugar with Truvia (or splenda) when I bake and it tastes great without that artificial taste.