I do consider CSPI too frequently an anti-nutrient trojan, linked to the Quackwatch version of flat earth nutrition through the Consumers Union. I consider CSPI a possible gun-for-hire on nutrition issues. CSPI has previously promoted transfats(1980s), described “aspartame as generally safe”(2000s), campaigned against fresh vegetables (promoting irradiation now?), and frequently attacked sale of even the low potency vitamins and nutritional supplements. So I would ask whose agenda laundry is CSPI hauling now on stevia?

I found this article because I was researching PureVia. I’d gotten a coupon for half off the purchase of “Tropicana 50″. I didn’t know what it was, but thought it was Orange juice, just another variety. Well, when I tasted it, I immediately tasted something foreign, something that was not sugar. I read the ingredients to find that it contained PureVia. “What was this I was putting my body,” I said. Now I know.

Hey, if people could be eating the leaves for centuries without problems, then why not just give us the leaves, and leave out the other stuff.

1. Stevia, the plant, has been used for centuries in South America without adverse effects;
2. In a democracy, we the people are the government. We may not, cannot opt out of the responsibility of keeping our servants (FDA, EPA, FAA) honest and of keeping them focused on the consumer. Yes, it takes time, energy and money to make the FDA serve us instead of big business. And, yes, it is easier to let big business pay for the research. But next time you get asked to pay for a food research program by an increased tax, don’t belly ache about it, or you have lost the right to complain about the research done by and for big business.

Because these sweeteners are untested combinations of artificial sweeteners, I am using the track record of artificial sweeteners as a basis for the idea that these newer sweeteners will likely follow their brethren in being health risks.

Aspartame, saccharine, Acesulfame K and rest all present significant health risks. It makes no sense to expose yourself to those risks when much better alternatives exist.

And the idea that any journalist reports without bias is a bit naive ony our part. I have investigated many of these chemicals and I am do not agree with their use in most situations. However, I am willing to entertain new approaches and products – unfortunately, the makers of Truvia and Purevia have continued down the same path of policy shenanigans, incomplete research and forced market entry (which this whole series was supposed to expose).

Perhaps this statement is evidence that you possess certain biases that cast doubt on your credibility. I am sure that you intended to portray a well-balanced argument, regardless. I certainly do not advocate Truvia or Purevia consumption. I have not tried the product and I have unfounded suspicions of my own.

If that’s your argument, why have an FDA at all?

Good question, but how do you suggest we disband it? Consider why it was started in the first place and by whom? What power do the people truly have when the powers and the monies want more?

Be educated and refuse to be a naive consumer.

Maybe we all need a refresher course in Nutrition 101, preferably not one funded by Big Ag/Pharma or by PETA, so we all have a better idea of what’s going on.

Sucrose is roughly half and half glucose and fructose. Eaten with fat, the glucose raises insulin levels and the fructose molecules are transformed into molecules that serve as the central axis for triglycerides. (The dietary fat becomes the lipid molecules attached to the triglycerides.) Triglyceride is the form in which fat is stored in the adipose cells–you get the idea. I don’t care what the sugar industry says, sucrose AND high-fructose corn syrup are both implicated in obesity and diabetes and there is scads of research backing this up. HCFS, by the way, is very, very similar to sucrose in terms of glucose/fructose proportions.

Fructose by itself is no solution. It’s not enough for a sweetener to be “low-glycemic.” All that means is it doesn’t produce much, if any, of an insulin response. Fructose is still implicated in fatty liver, which by the way is a dangerous health condition. This is why diabetic foods are being switched over from using fructose to using sucralose as their sweetener.

I’ll give you blackstrap, because it’s so mineral-rich that LIMITED amounts of it may be useful in the diet. But you can get minerals from drinking bone broth. You don’t have to consume sugar along with them.

The central issue here isn’t which sweetener is safe but that we’ve invoked a mass delusion in our society that we MUST have sweet food in order to live well. I am as much a victim of this as anybody. I’m well on my way to diabetes and I still can’t shake the notion that sweetness is a normal everyday part of my diet. So I use a little stevia, a little aspartame and a good bit of sucralose in those foods and beverages I consume that are sweet. It isn’t a perfect solution by any means. But the perfect solution is to dump the sweetness almost entirely. I don’t know if I will ever get there.

Food companies trying to kill people for profit due to DIETING, when their additives are what makes everyone fat to begin with.