Tammy's Recipes

We were buying plants for our garden and saw Stevia. I almost got one to try.. but I was not sure what the work would be to get it into a usable form. I'll go ask Google what they know about cooking with fresh stevia.

I just found your blog today and love it. :) I even made your challah loaf this afternoon!

For some reason my comments don't always go through... so we'll see what happens to this one!

I'd started using Stevia in place of other "non-sugar" sweeteners a year or two ago. Then, my mother-in-law did some research and told me it's been linked to sterility. Now, I'm not sure how MUCH stevia was being consumed in those studies, because I heard it second hand. But. It already takes me longer than most to conceive a child, so I decided to just skip it altogether. :-) I'd rather eat non sweetened food than give up the possibility of more children. :-)

Have you ever heard of this possible side effect?

By the way, your recipes are the yummiest! :-)

I drink a lot of herbal tea and use stevia to sweeten it. Other then that the only times I have used stevia is to replace some of the honey in pancakes or part of the sugar in my cinnamon goo recipe (I'll be posting this on my blog later).
Kate
http://reflectionsofcalm.blogspot.com

I bought some at the health food store but I have yet to try it.
As bad as i know splenda is for me I can't bare the though of throwing food out so I am using it first.

I found a company (Sweetleaf dot com)that sells the stevia whole leaf. I like using the whole leaf because it is in its natural, unprocessed state. It is just the leaves of the Stevia plant ground into powder.

I find stevia almost too sweet to use. We had some little packets of the powder that were just right for a glass of iced tea (when we went out to eat). But when we ordered more, we didn't buy the same ones, and the new ones are so sweet as to be almost unusable. I sometimes use one packet with two True Orange packets to flavor a quart of water--and it's plenty sweet.

My mother tried the liquid form and found it bitter.

I think it's safe, but not useful for me.

I use Stevia all the time - it's especially good in muffins. To some, it has seems to have a bitter after-taste at first, but it disappears after a little while. Here's a good website with more information about Stevia:

http://stevia.homestead.com/index.html

I have that author's cookbook. It's quite good.

From the "Center for Science in the Public Interest" webpage on food additives:

http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm

"The U.S. FDA has rejected stevia (or stevioside) for use as a food additive. Likewise, Canada has not approved stevia, and a European Community scientific panel declared that stevia is unacceptable for use in food. Studies found that high dosages fed to rats caused reduced sperm production and an increase in cell proliferation in their testicles, which could cause infertility or other problems. When pregnant hamsters were fed large amounts of a derivative of stevioside called steviol, they had fewer and smaller offspring. In the laboratory, steviol can be converted into a mutagenic compound, which may promote cancer by causing mutations in the cells genetic material (DNA). In addition, very large amounts of stevioside can interfere with the absorption of carbohydrates in animals and disrupt the conversion of food into energy within cells. In sum, small amounts of stevia are probably safe, but it is inappropriate to endorse wide use of this sweetener."

I tried to grow stevia last year but it didn't come up on me. This year I decided not to try growing it again but you mentioning it makes me wonder if I should try. :)

Do you use stevia often?