Natural Sweetener Truvia turns out to be not so natural

I was really devastated to learn recently that my efforts to use a natural sweetener product based on the Stevia plant was in fact not so natural.  First, a recap.

Hello, my name is Tom and I’m a Diet Coke addict.  Good, now that’s out of the way. I’m going on two years of not touching the stuff and it’s been amazingly easy. While I did drink 8 to 10 cans of Diet Coke a day as I lost my 50 lbs, I finally reached a point where dropping the weight was not enough if I want to be healthy and fit.  So as I learned the dangers of aspartame and splenda type of artificial sweeteners, I just decided to go cold turkey. And that’s been that. With the help of Stevia related sweeteners and natural flavored sparkling water…I’ve had no more cravings for Diet soda at all! And I find myself just able to enjoy plain water if I get thirsty. That is a first for me. I also think Shakeology has greatly helped in taking off the edge of the cravings.

My Stevia sweetener of choice for the last year has been Truvia.  I had a friend (Wendy) who tried to tell me that stevia based products still incorporated synthetic chemical processing in what they call the “purification” process. Well I would have none of that crazy talk and kept on using the product.  Now in my defense I did include a lot of natural sweeteners in my nutrition plan, such as raw organic Honey, 100% pure maple syrup and  agave nectar.  These are great to use because one, they are all natural and body know hows to handle and utilize the sugar. And two, there are actual nutritional benefits to use these natural sweeteners that help the body. However they suck as a coffee sweetner. So I insisted on using my truvia. Because with a name like truvia, how can it not be a true natural sweetner…it says so right on the box! And Cargil would never lie to us…right?

Well as I dug deeper I started to see Wendy’s point. And then I can across this excellent blog post titled Will the real Stevia please stand up. A very well laid out article that explains what to look out for when selecting your Stevia products.  In a nutshell….it appears Stevia products on the market sold as Stevia are in fact in name only. The truth is they are chemically processed and use corn based products as fillers.

But the good news is that there is an easy way to know if you are picking an all natural solutions. The article mentions the following…

HOW TO READ THE LABEL ON A STEVIA PRODUCT

Stevia products made from the highly commercialized and processed compound of Stevia will say “stevia,” “stevia extract,” “rebiana,” “Reb A,” or “Reb-A.”

Stevia products that contain these ingredients, “stevia Leaf,” “Stevia Rebaudiana,” or “Stevia Rebaudiana Bertoni,” are made from the original Stevia extract (Steviol glycosides) which includes all the Stevia compounds in their natural state using only water extraction process.

So checking around found out from Dr. Patrick Baker recommends Liquid Stevia. Details on this can be found in the natural sweetener link I provided above.

But my quest to find a sweetner for my coffee is still on. And I would perfer to find a solution that includes packets or is easy to transport on trips. Maybe the Liquid Stevia will do the trick. Do you have a good solution I should know about? Please feel free to leave a comment or message me, I would really appreicate some feedback!