Confused By Stevia

[Kinnakeet]

Just starting Whole30 today. If we're supposed to be weaning ourselves off of sweets and things with a sweet flavor, and not supposed to use stevia to sweeten anything, why are we allowed to have fruit that I think is even sweeter than stevia? I had some grapes and pineapple last night that I swear gave me cavities!

 

I love having a cup of herbal tea with a half a packet of stevia. Is that really not allowed? What if I beg?

 

[jmcbn]

Just starting Whole30 today. If we're supposed to be weaning ourselves off of sweets and things with a sweet flavor, and not supposed to use stevia to sweeten anything, why are we allowed to have fruit that I think is even sweeter than stevia? I had some grapes and pineapple last night that I swear gave me cavities!

 

I love having a cup of herbal tea with a half a packet of stevia. Is that really not allowed? What if I beg?

 

Nope. Not even if you offer a considerable bribe   

Fruit contains naturally occuring sugars. Stevia is an added sugar, and there are no added sugars allowed.

It's as simple as that.

[Carlaccini]

Nope sorry!!!

 

You see there is much more to fruit than sugar - Sure fruit has natural forming fructose, but it also has other goodies in it like vitamins and minerals.  Stevia in itself is 300 times sweeter than sugar....  Very often stevia that is found in a packet is highly processed and has been stripped of all nutrients.  So I definitely think fruit is a more nutrient dense option for you.  Still you don't have to eat fruit if you don't want too.....it is optional.  Some people even consider avoiding it entirely if they feel it will help them break up with the sugar dragon....

 

The fact that you are considering begging for stevia in your tea just tells me that you have some healing to do with regards to your relationship with food.

[madrikh]

This was a hard one for me too: no stevia? What??!! 

However, here's something I have documented for myself: a day or 2 before I started my Whole 30 (I was already eating pretty carefully) I decided to have some sweet potato w/o anything on it and it tasted very bland (I usually drizzle with pure maple syrup). Fast forward to a few days into my Whole 30, (100% complaint- no stevia) and sweet potato tastes mildly sweet to me. Just this morning I had some sweet potato with breakfast and I truly felt like I must be breaking the rules because it tasted like a yummy dessert.

My point: the super sweet taste of stevia absolutely contributed to the maintenance of my "sugar dragon".

[Kinnakeet]

I get it. So my taste buds will change if I give it time. Thanks, everybody. I'll give it 30 days.

[ReeF]

I'm wondering why stevia is listed as an artificial sweetener? I understand why it cannot be used on Whole30, but to put it in a category with aspartame and other lab created "artificial" sweeteners i feel is incorrect..what am I missing?

Also, fructose breaks down into sucrose in the body. The body cannot distinguish between eating a teaspoon of table sugar vs a teaspoon of sugar from fruit. I know one doesn't have to eat fruit, but I'm curious as to why that is allowed. Thanks!

[ShannonM816]

If you're drying fresh stevia leaves to put in your food, it would be natural. If you're eating processed stevia turned into a powder or liquid you're definitely moving away from natural. Here's what the Global Stevia Institute says is done to make stevia sweeteners:  

The process begins by drying the leaves and then steeping them in water. Next, the liquid extract is filtered and separated from the leaves and stems. The plant extract is further purified with water or food grade alcohol. If food grade alcohol is used, it is later removed. Other process may be used in some cases.

Once this is complete, stevia extract compounds are the exact same compounds as found in the leaves, that is, they are molecularly identical. The extraction and purification process gives purified stevia leaf extract a cleaner, more sugar-like taste than crude stevia extracts, which may contain plant components and add additional flavors other than a purely sweet taste. 

 

In other words, in the words of a group that seems to be pro-stevia -- not some anti-stevia website -- they process it to make it taste more like sugar than a plant. I don't know where exactly a person should draw the line between natural and artificial exactly, that's something you'll have to decide for yourself, but this is not exactly picking a stevia leaf off a plant, drying it, and crushing it up and adding it to a recipe to get some extra sweetness.

As for fruit, here's a quote from the Whole30 Facebook page:

Fruit is not sugar. Fruit is real, unprocessed, nutrient-dense FOOD. Contrary to rumors, we do not limit fruit on the #Whole30. It's summer. Eat lots of fruit. (But that also means you eat less in winter, because everything, including food, has a natural cycle.) However, we always encourage you to be aware WHY you are consuming fruit. Want a sweet, juicy, delicious addition to a meal, or a tasty and seasonal side dish? Add fruit! Dying for some candy and frozen grapes are as close as you can get? Think twice. We want you to change your habits and break old cravings, and mindlessly hoovering a pint of raspberries because you're bored, lonely, or anxious isn't the behavior we want you to perpetuate during your Whole30. Make sense?

 

Melissa also addresses why fruit is okay a little bit in this post.

[laura_juggles]

I'm wondering why stevia is listed as an artificial sweetener? I understand why it cannot be used on Whole30, but to put it in a category with aspartame and other lab created "artificial" sweeteners i feel is incorrect..what am I missing?

Also, fructose breaks down into sucrose in the body. The body cannot distinguish between eating a teaspoon of table sugar vs a teaspoon of sugar from fruit. I know one doesn't have to eat fruit, but I'm curious as to why that is allowed. Thanks!

 

If you were to take a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of fruit juice, I'd agree with you because they really are essentially the same. But "sugar from fruit" and "fruit" are quite different. With the wide variety of other nutrients in whole fruits that are not present in sugar and fiber which is not present when you juice something, it's not the same. My mom has diabetes and we've seen that her blood sugar doesn't react the same way to whole fruit that it does to, say, sugar in coffee (which she doesn't use on a regular basis but sometimes accidentally gets if she orders a coffee and they make it wrong).

[praxisproject]

I'm wondering why stevia is listed as an artificial sweetener? I understand why it cannot be used on Whole30, but to put it in a category with aspartame and other lab created "artificial" sweeteners i feel is incorrect..what am I missing?

Also, fructose breaks down into sucrose in the body. The body cannot distinguish between eating a teaspoon of table sugar vs a teaspoon of sugar from fruit. I know one doesn't have to eat fruit, but I'm curious as to why that is allowed. Thanks!

 

Eating fruit is entirely different from sweeteners (either natural or artificial) as they also contain nutrients like vitamins and minerals as well as other things like fibre and they are much less sweet as they aren't concentrated (dried fruit however IS concentrated fruit - I couldn't eat a huge bucket of apples, but dried ones I could, if I tried).

 

Fructose and Glucose function very differently in the body, Fructose is a FODMAP. I prefer lower-Fructose fruits generally, I find large amounts of Fructose are something my body really doesn't like and it leaves an impact that lasts days, not so with Glucose. Fruits contain combinations of glucose, fructose and other sugars (melons and grapes contain more unusual ones, some of these are also FODMAPs). Fructose and HFCS are also regularly included in research on metabolic disorders and faster fat accumulation, results so far have been fairly inconclusive and without an environment controlled study, glucose vs fructose is really still in the beginning phases of research.