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Sweetener clarification


Kynard

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I’m probably the 10000th person to ask this, but I’m not having an easy time searching for individual terms, so I apologize if this question has been beaten to death: 

When I look at the sweetener rules for whole30, I noticed that the creators of the diet allow the use of fruit juice, which contains a massive amount of actual sugar, as a sweetener.  They admit that allowing this is arbitrary because they “have to draw the line somewhere” (?). Despite this, they disallow the use of stevia because “its purpose is to sweeten something that’s not already sweet” even though that’s exactly what the fruit juice does.   Does anyone have a more satisfactory answer to why one is allowed and not the other?  Has anyone chosen to use stevia during the 30 days, and, if so, have you noticed any negative effects?  Has anyone noticed significant benefits from stopping stevia?  
 

All insights welcome, thanks!  

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A big part of the Whole30 is getting you to eat whole, unprocessed foods. Fruit juice used in these recipes is, at most, blended and strained. 

The process to make stevia extract or the white powder we get in those little packets at Starbucks is, well, quite a process. And the resulting product is never just stevia. 

In the majority of Whole30 recipes where fruit juice is used, the juice is both imparting flavor and cutting bitterness with the sugar. Stevia's only purpose is to make things sweet. It's kind of amazing finding out what things actually taste like when your tongue isn't so attuned to sweeteners. 

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Also remember that Whole30 isn't about counting macros. It doesn't matter how many grams of sugar is in a food. Carbs and fat are our friends. Even though fruit juice is allowed, it still isn't recommended that we consume it in high amounts. It is preferable to eat the fruit because it contains all of the fiber and other nutrients. 

Just remember the spirit of the program: eating whole, natural foods that are designed to heal our bodies from the inside out. This isn't a weight loss program. Maybe under that lense it makes a bit more sense? 

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